Book Analysis Quotes

I suppose I'm an obsessive reader. If I could make a living reading the books I want to read and then telling people about them, I'd pick that over acting.

I've summarized dozens of books in my literary career; it's become rather second nature.

My book has a very simple surface, but there are layers of irony and paradox all the way through it.

In re-reading 'Presumed Innocent,' the one thing that struck me - and I re-read the book four different times in writing 'Innocent,' interested in different things each time - but I did think there were a couple of extra loops in the plot that I probably didn't need. The other thing that sort of amazed me was how discursive the book was.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

I mean, when you're tired of book reviews, you're tired of life.

Over the years, I've evolved a somewhat heretical but time-and mind-saving approach to books, articles, editorials that deal with weighty matters. More often than not, by beginning at the end and contemplating the conclusions, one can determine if it's worth going through the whole to get there.

I read Mailer's Ancient Evenings with great interest because I was interested in . . . the seven souls structure, which was very helpful to me in Western Lands. And also in Place of Dead Roads. So that's Mailer.

I really enjoyed reading 'The Da Vinci Code,' but from a literary standpoint, the book did not live up to the hype.

They were like English teachers who took the fun out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down into themes and sentence structures

To read is human, to review is divine.

[Lincoln in the Bardo] is not a long book. And that meant I could obsess over it and live in it both backwards and forwards and hyper-control everything.

Book reviews have never helped me. Most of them erred in their interpretations and their work has been a waste of time.

I rarely read or buy a book because of a review.

A book reviewer is usually a barker before the door of a publisher's circus.

The book [Manufacturing Consent] itself is then devoted to a series of case studies, selected, we hope [with Edward Herman], to offer a fair and in fact rather severe test of those conclusions.

And Silence of the Lambs is a really smart book.

I just noticed recently that in one book after another I seem to find an excuse to find some character who, to put it idiotically simply, is allowed to talk crazy.

I loved the book [The Adderall Diaries] I optioned it, I think some years ago. But there's a lot of different threads in the book. It starts off as one thing, where he's trying to cover this murder trial, and then his own life starts to impinge on that, so it becomes something else. I found that fascinating.

A good book deserves an active reading. The activity of reading does not stop with the work of understanding what a book says. It must be completed by the work of criticism, the work of judging. The undemanding reader fails to satisfy this requirement, probably even more than he fails to analyze and interpret. He not only makes no effort to understand; he also dismisses a book simply by putting it aside and forgetting it. Worse than faintly praising it, he damns it by giving it no critical consideration whatever.

I've started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I'd be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.

If you're, like, a PhD student in English, and you look at each instance that Richard Yates is mentioned in the book...it has sort of it's own narrative that one could analyze and write literary criticism about.

I've done projects where I've read 25 books and did all kinds of journal and character work for hours.

There's an enormous difference between being a critic and a reviewer. The reviewer reacts to the experience of that book.

After I was cast, I decided to read 'Sharp Objects'. I ended up drowning it in sticky notes, highlighter and pen. It became my little diary I could refer to. I took little quotes out of the book and transferred them onto this scrapbook I kept about Amma.