When we thought we were moving house, I started packing up my books and while I was doing that I chucked out some of the bad ones, the ones with gold embossed titles that I felt slightly embarrassed to have on my bookshelves.
Silly me for being such a literary snob. You need to read bad books from time to time, partly because they can be fun and we all need a great escape now and then. They are also a fantastic antidote for the flu -- perhaps instead of chucking them out I should have put them in the medicine cupboard along with the Lemsip. But the real reason you need to read bad books - don't worry, they won't contaminate you, nor will they make you go blind - is because by analysing what makes something truly dreadful, you will learn how to avoid writing rubbish yourself.
When I was teaching creative writing I used to use Riders by Jilly Cooper as an example of how not to write. It was a big fat catalogue of pitfalls - two-dimensional characters, tired description and an overreliance on adverbs (shock horror). But it was also frothy and funny and blessed with a plot which zipped along, so there were positive lessons to be learnt as well.
So, if you are feeling a little under par, or if your self-esteem has taken a knocking, or if you just fancy an indulgent afternoon of guilty pleasure, reach for some literary junk food and tell yourself that it's all in the name of research. (As a little aside, I read in The Bookseller that the most successful e-book genre is romantic fiction, a phenomenon which industry insiders attribute to the fact that people can read anonymously on their Kindles or their I Pads without anybody knowing what they are up to.)
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