Novelists, Reviews and a Competition

Announcing PG Wodehouse essay Prize 2022

This week I have been thinking about how I read and write reviews and, in particular, a very special competition. The latter invites you to try something similar but a bit more substantial for my dear P G  Wodehouse. See below for details.

Now, there are many ways of appreciating a novel.

You can study it, dream about it, carry on the characters in your own story (or several) and talk about it until your friends beg you to stop.

writing tipsTo share your enthusiasm with the whole world, all you have to do is write a review and post it on a bookseller’s website. Writers, desperate to let readers know that their work exists, are pathetically grateful for these reviews. I know. I am one of them.

In the torrent of electronic messages that surge over you every morning, received wisdom is that you need to see the name of something at least seven times before it sticks.

So numbers of reviewers matter. Seven appearances before your snapping synapses are supposed to make you curious enough to go and look at the title on a website. And then you can actually read what readers thought about it.

What is An Amazon Review?

Image by Michael Drummond from Pixabay

The most frequented of these websites is, of course, Amazon. The General Purveyor of Online Books, Gadgets and Comestibles has started to invite me to write reviews all the time.  Only a couple of days ago I received an email headed “Ever wonder if your reviews are getting noticed?”

This particular message  lists the last three novels I have bought. (Well, actually, it calls them “products”. ) And invites me to choose how many stars out of five I would give each book and suggest I review them. It adds, rather to my surprise, “videos are especially helpful.”

magic momentVideo review of a book? Really? I haven’t seen one of those yet. But no doubt someone with the technical expertise, maybe a home studio or two, and an ego the size of a house, will actually video themselves talking about their reading matter of choice and why they did or didn’t like the result. Not sure I’d watch it, though.

Fortunately, a number of gentle readers will review books on Amazon out of the  goodness of their hearts. The best of them give a tantalizing glimpse of what it is that particularly struck the reader as memorable. Then I can make up my mind if the iconic character or scene under reference takes my fancy.

(Just a hint here, for anyone who wants me to read a particular book: “psychological thriller” is my instant turn off. I’ve read several and they all gave me nightmares.)

When a Review Becomes a Complaint

The reader review can be a seriously odd animal. Readers can take against a book for the strangest reasons, some of which have nothing to do with its content.

I have seen a novel splatted by a grumpy review for a) ugly cover b) late delivery c) not being set in North America.

Or, in another case, a disappointed reader complained that a murder mystery wasn’t funny enough. I found that a recommendation, to be honest.

Mind you, bookseller friend of mine told me that a woman brought back a copy of The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. One of his colleagues had recommend it. It had won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction that year. It sounds a gripping story, about a woman who goes into the Vietnam War as a photo journalist. While there, apart from her experience of the country, the people and the war, she has significant relationships with a married alcoholic who mentors her, and his Vietnamese sidekick with a tragic past.

The customer’s complaint? The book didn’t have any recipes. The title was misleading.

Reader Reviews, Author Appreciation Days And More

Some of the best reviews on Amazon, Waterstones, Kobi and elsewhere originate with dedicated book bloggers like Being Anne  and her peers, who read lots and are genuine enthusiasts. Reader reviewers often specialise in one or two favourite genres, and offer insights based on knowledge and experience.

And then sometimes you find inspired comments from someone who has just fallen in love with a book and longs to share it. For instance, “Honestly I have no idea if this review is even going to be coherent, because if I could give this book all the stars in the sky I would.”

This is actually for one of my own much loved discoveries, The Goblin Emperor by Kathleen Addison. I’m pretty sure that’s the review that convinced me to try it. So many thanks to Jess Gofton whoever they may be.

I’ve written a fair few in my time, too but only for books I’ve really loved. I find them much too difficult to write for anything less than totally passionate absorption. No matter how hard Amazon begs.

Most reviews on bookseller’s websites are only a couple of paragraphs of personal response. But some, like the one I’ve just quoted are much fuller. And then there are the really meaty reviews of books on bookish websites. A new favourite is this review at a gallimaufry website of Katherine Langrish’s book on the C S Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia.  

Lewis is one of those beloved writers like Tolkien, Daphne du Maurier and P G Wodehouse who attract devotees and scholars to days and even whole weekends of study.

A couple of years ago I went to one on Diana Wynne Jones, whose work I have loved for more than 30 years. It was a revelation – and not just to be with kindred spirits. There were at least three papers which sent me back to re-reading my favourites. And one that made me look again at a book of hers that had never grabbed me before. Fabulous stuff.

That Competition

Which brings me finally to that competition. The P G Wodehouse Society (UK) has just launched a new international essay competition. International. Mark that. The originator of the fabulous Russian author Vladimir Brusilloff thoroughly deserves an International Essay if anyone does.

Brusilloff appears in a collection called The Clicking of Cuthbert in which most of the stories are about golf. In the course of a somewhat stilted conversation with Cuthbert, the author delivers himself of what might well be called the ultimate self-penned review:

“No novelists any good except me. Sovietski — yah! Nastikoff — bah! I spit me of zem all. No novelists anywhere any good except me. P G Wodehouse and Tolstoi not bad. Not good, but not bad. No novelists any good except me.”

So this competition invites you to write an essay about why Wodehouse is so extremely not good, but not bad. There are two prizes for an essay on his work; nothing biographical need apply. The under19s are asked for a essay of not more than 1,500 words to compete for £250. Those of maturer years have a minimum and maximum wordage to contend with (4,000-5,000) but their prize is £1,000.

Full details and how to apply are on the Society’s website.  The closing date is 12 noon BST on Wednesday 1st September. So you’ve just about got time to re-read your real favourites and jump to it!

Pip, pip.

Sophie Weston AuthorSophie

12 thoughts on “Novelists, Reviews and a Competition

  1. Joanna

    I’d say the PGW Society should have employed you to write the invitation to their essay competition, Sophie. Your encouraging blog made me smile. So I went to look at the entry details out of interest. (I’m not a PGW fan and would never enter.)

    Hugely disappointed. There is nothing even vaguely light-hearted about the competition invitation and the judging criteria. It sounds as if the PGW Society are looking for dull, boring, scholarly essays. And if that’s what they get… well, it’s what they implied they wanted. Where is a PGW joke when you need one?

    1. Sophie Post author

      Well, like us in the RNA, I think they’re still wrestling with the respect issue. And at least one of the judges wrote a thesis on PGW, to my certain knowledge.

      But they do claim he’s the funniest writer of the 20th century and possibly ever. So I think appreciation of the sheer laughter he generates would be well within the terms of the contract. As I established at the Wodehouse in the Springtime event in March, the PGW Society takes him seriously AND they laugh a lot.

  2. Liz Fielding

    Always grateful for reviews, no matter how short! I’ll even take a 5 star for the packaging… Not so keen on the new “rating” thing, where you can just a click the number of stars without leaving anything to give a clue why.

    1. Sophie Post author

      Completely agree, Liz. Don’t think there is any positive side to it at all.

  3. lesley2cats

    I’m an avoider of reviews of my own books, being very easily depressed. But I do occasionally read bad ones of books that catch my eye, as I find them far more revealing. My favourite review of one of my early books was: “FamousFive with gin instead of ginger beer.” I think it ought to be a strap line.

    1. Sophie Post author

      Oh that’s lovely, Lesley. I’d buy a book with that strap line in a heartbeat. Exactly what you want for a relaxing read.

  4. Elizabeth Bailey

    I hooted at the reviewer who complained there were no recipes in The Lotus Eaters. Fortunately most readers of reviews are likely more discerning and would notice such idiocy. I tend to celebrate idiotic reviews, and even one-star stinkers. To my mind, they say more about the reviewer than the book! I also suspect some reviewers were just having a bad day when they read the book.

    I am a fellow Wodehouse fan, more for Bertie and Jeeves than the rest, but I do recall a number of one off short stories. Bingo Little and Mrs Little are gems, and I love the one where the friend visits and Mrs Little puts Bingo on a ghastly diet. Jeeves, of course, comes to the rescue with a plan of depriving Mrs Little and said friend of their tea, after which they come to blows and that’s that. Wonderful stuff.

    1. Sophie Post author

      Ooo, you’ve whetted my appetite. Don’t think I’ve read the one where Jeeves withholds tea and buns from Rosie M and her friend. Was she a fellow writer, by any chance? Don’t think anyone else in Bertie and Bingo’s world would have had the balls to do that.

  5. Nancy Fisher

    I am re reading your Sophie Weston backlist, including the Lucy Merritt ones (which you sent me years ago. thank you!). They are all so enjoyable and push all my romance buttons.

    1. Sophie Post author

      Ah, Nancy, what a stalwart you are. Thank you so much for saying that. Makes it all worthwhile.

      Did I ever give you the royal romance novel I wrote as Sophie Page? If not, let me know and I’ll get you a copy.

Comments are closed.