17 Comments
Feb 13Liked by Sara Hildreth

It would be fascinating to have a few different readers try to plot the same books - obviously the how much they liked it would differ, but I wonder how much variation there would be in the rankings of how "well done" the books are. Also, I cannot help but think of the poetry textbook scene in Dead Poet's Society every time I hear about Auden's verdicts!

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Feb 13Liked by Sara Hildreth

I love this framework! I’ve long privately rated books on plot, writing/craft, and enjoyment as separate categories. This feels like it articulates something I was kind of intuiting without fully understanding/examining.

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I love Auden (I too was introduced to him through a college course!) and I had no idea he had all this writing on literature criticism - thank you for introducing me to it!! And as always your accompanying thoughts are so well written

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This framework makes so much sense to me! And I can immediately picture how some books would fall on this chart. Helpful!

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Feb 14Liked by Sara Hildreth

I feel like this framework formalizes so much of what goes on in my head as I write a review. Thank you for sharing it!

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Ooh I love this framework! Thanks for some good food for thought when I write my next review.

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Feb 13Liked by Sara Hildreth

Verdict 3 has happened to me after discussing a book in book club. Discussing with other readers often brings out ideas and themes I hadn't considered.

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Feb 13Liked by Sara Hildreth

the picture of your book chart/plotting is so fascinating! recently i’ve been thinking about how my taste as a reader has changed, and this has me wondering if it’s really my judgement that has changed 🤔 i keep thinking about ACOTAR, because i would put it in upper right quadrant - i loved it and i thought it was well done - based on my reading a few years ago. After reading SJMs newest series, which i would put in the upper left quadrant - although more towards the horizontal axis - i wonder if my judgement has changed and it’s affecting my taste? is her newest series really less “well done” or am i just better able to discern “good” from “bad”? i’ve been thinking about rereading ACOTAR so I can explore that and it’ll be interesting to have this framework in mind! i am curious what has you putting it towards the “poorly done” end of the scale!

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Feb 13Liked by Sara Hildreth

This is a 1 for me in Auden’s framework. The plotting of books on the axis is fascinating. Love when you dig deep into the reading life!

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This is such a helpful encapsulation of Auden’s theory! I’m writing a series of posts about reading romance novels and I will definitely be sending people to your post. It was really helpful to me.

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That framework and your chart are really interesting. I’ll definitely be thinking about this with my reading in the future!

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If anyone knows the specific episode of What Should I Read Next where this framework is discussed, I’d love to listen! Really into this new way to think about reading

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