This post by Sara Hildreth introduced me to something new – W.H. Auden’s framework for thinking about books and criticising them. She’s not the first to write about it but she’s the one who introduced me to it. Basically, there are five ‘verdicts’ that a seasoned reader can arrive at after finishing a book:

• I can see this is good and I like it
• I can see this is good but I don’t like it
• I can see this is good and, though at present I don’t like it, I believe that with perseverance I shall come to like it
• I can see that this is trash but I like it
• I can see that this is trash and I don’t like it.

Hildreth used ‘well done’ and ‘poorly done’ but you don’t mess with the classics. I’d like to think that I consider books this way, but I don’t think that’s true. It’s a good thing to try to adopt though.