Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Book Rating System

Rating System (Literature/Fun Books/Non-Fiction)
5 — Entertaining, unquestionable classic
     e.g. Crime and Punishment, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,
     The Struggle for Mastery in Europe
4 — Slightly flawed lit, excellent pop book, good but
     dated/historiographically questionable history
     e.g. War and Peace, Patrick O'Brian,
     The Origins of the Second World War
3 — Good but dullish literature, good but unserious book,
     workmanlike history
     e.g. Bleak House, any Bill Bryson, Gilbert's History of the
     20th Century

2 — Seriously flawed but entertaining, airplane novel, pop history
     e.g. late Vonnegut, Tim Dorsey books, almost any history on a
     Barnes & Noble discount table with a title like, Typhus!
1 — Burn it! Send it to hell!
     e.g. Richardson, Clancy, Coulter