I couldn’t help thinking of Nancy Pearl’s rejection of literary value as a way to judge reading when I saw this column in the book section of The Guardian. Germaine Greer reviewed Colleen McCullough’s The Thorn Birds, calling it “the best bad book I had ever read.”
Interestingly enough, it was the exotic Australian setting rather than the story or characters that kept Greer reading all night. This just proves what good readers’ advisory librarians already know (but sometimes forget): different readers can read the same book and enjoy it for totally different reasons.
I’m old enough to remember when The Thorn Birds was a sensation, first as a book and then as a highly successful television miniseries, and as I recall it, most readers were attracted by the tragic love story. The book has been compared to Gone With the Wind, which also features a headstrong heroine, and some loved it because of the characters.
But anyway, I was trying to figure out my personal candidate for a good “bad” book, assuming by “bad” Greer means non-literary. I’m sure I’ll come up with several, but my first thought was The Sunbird by Wilbur Smith.
When it was published in 1972, I was just out of library school and had never read anything by Smith before. But several patrons in my library independently brought it up over the next year and raved about how great it was–more than one saying it was the best book they’d ever read. The book has been out of print for many years, but was recently reissued as a paperback. I think it’s a perfect choice for readers who enjoyed The Codex by Douglas Preston, or Labyrinth by Kate Mosse, or even Lie Down With Lions by Ken Follett.
The Sunbird is a big book, a perfect summer read with an enthralling plot, an exotic location (Botswana, but decidedly NOT Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana), and an ancient mystery. It may not be great literature, but it’s a whopping good yarn.
So what is the best “bad book” you’ve ever read?
