Some Recommended Women Mystery Writers

The first female detective novel was written by a man, James Redding Ware, in 1864. It was another two decades before Anna Katherine Green (I've written about her before) and some other pioneers broke the ice and women became known as both the authors and protagonists of the mystery genre.

Now in the heat of summer as some of you may be seeking books to read, I thought it might be fun to name some of my favorite women writers and what I like about them. Personally, I don't care about the gender of a writer; my only concern is the books. I read widely and these are not the only women I read, so if your favorite isn't on my list it doesn't mean I think her unworthy. Also, my list is not in order of preference, but just a random listing as I think about them.

Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine (1930-2015) is at the top of my pantheon of favorite women writers. She varies from tightly knit psychological novels to the more cozy-style Inspector Wexford series. Some favorites: A Sight For Sore Eyes, a Rendell standalone; Kissing the Gunner's Daughter (Wexford) and The Chimney Sweeper's Boy (Vine).

Patricia Highsmith, (1921-1995) the American grande dame of psychological thrillers. The Ripley books are probably the best known now and worth a read. My personal choice though would be either Strangers on a Train, her first novel, or The Cry of the Owl.

Elizabeth George, (1949-) an American who writes the Inspector Lynley series set in Britain. Lynley is an interesting character, an aristocrat who chooses to work in the sordid crime world of the police. Still, as a character, I prefer his junior officer Barbara Havers, feisty and disorderly, but dedicated to the work. As to books, you can't go wrong with the first in the series, A Great Deliverance.

Val McDermid (1955-), a Scottish crime writer with three series going--Dr. Tony Hill series, Kate Branigan series and Lindsay Gordon series. My preferred of her work, though, are two standalone novels, A Darker Domain and A Place of Execution.

Rebecca Stott (1964) has only published two crime novels to date, Ghostwalk and The Coral Thief. Ghostwalk, the only one of the two I've read so far, was shortlisted for the Jelf First Novel award and the Society of Authors first novel award. The New York Times compared her to Borge and Edgar Allan Poe, which seems right on to me.

Kate Atkinson (1951-), another Brit, who writes (among other things) the Jackson Brodie series. I've only read two of the books to date and Started Early, Took My Dog stands out as another quirky favorite for its wit, characterization and surprises.

Karin Fossum (1954), billed as the 'Norwegian Queen of Crime' makes the list for her Inspector Sejer series. Fossum, who began as a poet, has about a dozen books in the series to date. My choice, Bad Intentions.

Caroline Graham (1931-) is best known for her Chief Inspector Barnaby series (produced for TV as Midsomer Murders). She also has a quirky style that amuses me. I've liked The Ghost in the Machine and Faithful Unto Death, among others.

Sophie Hannah (1971-) is a British poet and novelist. I love her Waterhouse and Zailer series. A fav being Kind of Cruel, which will confuse and amuse you.

Laura Lippman (1959-), a Baltimore-based journalist turned novelist. Her Tess Monaghan series has been a hit since its debut in 1997. But, don't miss her standalone novels either, especially After I'm Gone and The Most Dangerous Thing.

Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876-1958), a Pennsylvania-native, is often referred to as the "American Agatha Christie." During her long career, she penned three series, some 30-standalones, 10 short story collections and a dozen or more plays. Rather than tossing a coin to decide which to read, I'd recommend her first book, The Circular Staircase, which sold 1.25 million copies and propelled her to fame.

Finally, a writer I only recently discovered: Tana French (1973-), an Irish writer/actor whose talent blew me away when I read my first of her novels. To date I've read: Faithful Place, Broken Harbour and The Secret Place. Her novel In the Woods won an Edgar in 2008 for Best First Novel.

I could have recommended many more, but there has to be a limit in a blog. I also know this list comprises writers who have already achieved a modicum of fame. In recompense, sometime in the near future I'll compile a list of lesser-known women writers who've intrigued me.

The Ford Test

Ruth Rendell, one of my favorite writers, recommends that all who aspire to write read Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier.” Rendell says she reads this novel, which is ranked among the greats of the 20th century, annually.

Ford, an English novelist, poet and editor, was a champion of new literature and experimentation. He aided early careers of Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Conrad, James Joyce and other notables.

One of my favorite quotes by the man concerns his close friend, Jack London, another of my favorites: “Like Peter Pan, he never grew up, and he lived his own stories with such intensity that he ended by believing them himself.”

Though his own work is less known today, many will be familiar with his advice to select a book by opening it and reading page 99. His conclusion was by reading that one page “…the quality of the whole will be revealed to you."

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian scholar known for the expression “the medium is the message” and who predicted the World Wide Web three decades before it was developed, made a similar recommendation, though his suggestion was to read page 69.

I’ve tested both theories on a variety of books. Personally, I give the edge to Ford.

Here’s Page 99 from my novel, “Fallen From Grace”. Based on the Ford theory, I believe there’s enough mystery suggested for a reader to want more of the tale. What do you think?

“Could they have been…”
“No. They weren’t together long enough and they left separately. I couldn’t make up my mind should I follow him or her when they parted. I still feared for her safety, but I was curious about his identity. The man saved me the bother of deciding. As Lizzie walked away, the man came flying out of the alley on horseback. Since I was afoot there was no way I could follow him.”
“And the girl?” Lydia asked.
“She came straight back home. Who do you think she might have been meeting and why, Tilghman?”
“That’s what I’ll be asking directly,” I told him.
****
This proved more difficult than expected.
“Gone? What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Matilda told me. “Packed her bag and left this morning without a word of explanation.”
“Well where do you think she went?”
“She didn’t tell either of us,” Barbara said. “I think it’s all my fault.” I saw tears brimming in the girl’s eyes. She sighed heavily and plopped down on the bench by the backdoor of the boarding house.
Tillie and I both glanced at her. “What does that mean?” I asked.
Barbara sighed again and dabbed at her eyes with an edge of her apron. “We had a fight last night. She snuck out after we went to bed. I heard her go and I was afraid. I waited up until she came back. She wouldn’t tell me where she went and we had a row.”
“A customer I didn’t know about?” Matilda asked.
“No,” Barbara said, shaking her head. “Nothing like that. She would have said if that were the case. This was something secret and she didn’t like me prying. She never got mad at me like that before.”
“Humph,” Matilda said and she scowled.
“What?”
The woman stood with her hands on her hips and grunted again.
“Do you have an idea where she went?”
“He probably promised her more money, that’s what.”
“Who?”

Some Favorite Reads Of 2011

Let the trumpet blare and the drums resound—Some favorite reads of 2011 (in no particular order).

Not all were written in 2011. That’s when I read them. For more information on the titles see my reviews at http://www.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A2VTAR3P8C0LBD/ref=cm_pdp_rev_all?ie=UTF8&sort_by=MostRecentReview or http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1005496.J_R_Lindermuth

Small press/Indy
1.Hard Trail to Socorro—Wayne Dundee
2.Dangerous Enchantment—Margaret Blake
3.Kansas Dreamer—Kae Cheatham
4.Camp Follower—Susan Adair
5.Sugar And Spice—Saffina Desforges
6.Mediterranean Grave—William Doonan
7.In The Blood—Steve Robinson
8.Snakeskin—C J Lyons
9.Bestseller Bound Anthology No. 1
10.The Righteous—Michael Wallace

Trade mystery/thrillers
1.Feast Day of Fools—James Lee Burke
2.Nightwoods—Charles Frazier
3.The Most Dangerous Thing—Laura Lippman
4.Long Gone—Alafair Burke
5.Bad Intentions—Karin Fossum
6.Thirteen Hours—Deon Meyer
7.A Question Of Blood—Ian Rankin
8.The Snowman—Jo Nesbo
9.Medicus—Ruth Downie
10.The Way Home—George Pelecanos

Trade fiction
1.The Second Son—Jonathan Rabb
2.The Orphan Master’s Son—Adam Johnson
3.Death Of Kings—Bernard Cornwell

Non-fiction
1.Kingdom Under Glass—Jay Kirk
2.Winged Obsession—Jessica Speart
3.Finding Everett Ruess—David Roberts
4.The Unconquered—Scott Wallace
5.Bull Canyon—Lin Pardey
6.Floor Of Heaven—Howard Blum

Happy New Year and good reading.

Every Book Offers a Lesson

I probably have more books than many small town libraries. I haven’t read them all, but that doesn’t stop me from gathering more. There isn’t a room in my house without its assortment of books. I received a Kindle for Christmas and that provides a new and fascinating means of accumulating (and reading) books.

Admittedly, I’m the exception to the modern American, based on recent dismal statistics on the decline of reading. I like reading. I share Somerset Maugham’s opinion (The Book Bag) “I would sooner read the catalogue of the Army and Navy stores or Bradshaw’s Guide than nothing at all.”

I don’t believe one can be a writer and not be a reader.

Stephen King has said he likes to read. Now I’m not comparing myself to King—just the simple fact we both enjoy reading. But we do share the belief every book has its lesson for the writer. King has also remarked in “On Writing” that often bad books have more to teach than good ones. John Fowles made the same observation.

Fowles was a voracious reader who was guided more by his own curiosity than any authority. He read and absorbed everything—from classics to trash, from psychology to mathematics. And he found value in all he read. In his diary, he noted: “A bad novel of 1857 tells one much more about 1857 than a good one.”

Mark Twain was another constant reader. In his excellent “Mark Twain, A Life,” Ron Powers says “…he read all the time, his choices as eclectic and humanistic as his narratives would prove to be.”

Some (such as Capote) dismiss Jack Kerouac as a “typist” rather than a writer. But examine his journals and you’ll see how serious Kerouac was about reading and writing. On Oct. 17, 1949, he mentions reading Thomas Merton’s confession, the Telemachus chapter of Joyce’s Ulysses in which Stephen Dadalus expounds his theory on Hamlet’s heredity, reading Hamlet “line by line” (and also considering how he would act it), Donne’s Holy Sonnets, and “…the magnificent speeches of Ahab in Moby Dick.”

Madeleine L’Engle recalls her early school years as a “dismal experience” in which she had poor teachers and learned nothing. For solace, she turned to reading and thinking alone. Though she admits having a better educational experience in high school and college, L’Engle believes she wouldn’t have written her books had she been happy in those formative years.

Francis Bacon summed it up succinctly, “Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested.”

Some Recommendations

Tis the season for lists. As someone who reads (a lot), I’m inclined to recommend books I enjoy to my friends and even strangers.

So, like many others, I’m offering here some of the books I read, enjoyed and reviewed in 2010. Not all were written in this year and they are a mixed assortment of fiction and non-fiction. Here they are, in no particular order:

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
The story of Henry VIII and his many marriages has been told before. But this is a version seen from another angle. Henry, Anne Boleyn and the stars in other depictions here become pawns of another player’s game. Though it is Henry’s and Anne’s desire for a marriage blessed, if not sanctified, by the church around which much of the book centers, it is the character and vision of Thomas Cromwell provides the driving force and interest.

The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr
Starr tracks the pursuit of a brutal serial killer in 19th century France and parallels it with the development of the forensic sciences which aided his capture and assured his conviction. In fact, it may have set the pattern for how law enforcement would gather evidence and pursue criminals in the future.

Kings of the Earth by Jon Clinch
Clinch tells the tale through the viewpoints of a variety of characters from the present and past, painting the rural landscape and people in vivid, poetic colors. His inspiration was the real-life story of the Ward brothers told in the 1992 documentary film, ‘Brother’s Keeper,’ but this is his own retelling of that narrative. It is a tale as moving as it is bleak.

Best American Noir, edited by James Ellroy and Otto Penzler
If you’re already a fan of the genre, you’ll be pleased with this magnificent edition. If you don’t know what noir is, then this is a splendid introduction.

The Glass Rainbow by James Lee Burke
Few today write such poetic prose about such dark and horrific events. An absorbing plot, fascinating characters, plenty of suspense—what’s not to like?

The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan
You don’t have to be an old Asia hand to enjoy this book. But, if you are, it’s certain to bring back memories and an itch to revisit some former haunts.

Cornelius The Orphan by Douglas Quinn
Cornelius is based on a real person, though Quinn has used the broad brush of fiction to depict his history. If this novel whets your taste for more (as it has mine), there is a sequel in the offing involving the orphan’s son, Samuel.

The Tiger by John Vaillant
People are fascinated by monsters, be they human or other animal. If this book were simply about a man-eating tiger and the hunt to stop the beast it would have an attraction for many readers. But Vaillant’s story goes much deeper.

Heresy by S J. Parris
Building on the historical fact of Giordano Bruno’s visit to Oxford in 1583, S. J. Parris has crafted an intriguing mystery set against the religious turbulence of Tudor England.

Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell
No one explores criminal motivation quite so well as Ruth Rendell, and this novel is additional proof of her skill.

The Day After Yesterday by Wayne D. Dundee
Get set for nail-biting action when PI Joe Hannibal confronts a murderous conspiracy which puts him on a collision course with rightwing militia, a dangerous terrorist, the FBI and Homeland Security.

Talking About Detective Fiction by P. D. James
The focus is mostly on English writers. But that’s okay. Who is better qualified to comment on the subject?

The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag by Alan Bradley
Bradley has created one of the most engaging sleuths in recent years and I’m glad to see her adventures are just begun. He reveals in an afterword he is already at work on the third novel in the series.

The Adventures of Elizabeth Fortune by Kae Cheatham
If you enjoy fast-paced adventure, accurately depicted historical fiction, mysteries and/or romance, this is a recommended read. Personally I’m looking forward to a promised sequel.

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell
Mankell has penned a riveting thriller which has its dark origins 150 years in the past and takes the reader on a wild ride from Sweden to the United States, from China to Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

A King of Infinite Space by Tyler Dilts
Haunted and guilt-ridden by the tragic death of his wife and their unborn child, Detective Danny Beckett is in limbo, taking refuge in the routine of his job and alcohol. The brutal murder of a teacher—who he eventually learns had ties to his past—gives his life a new incentive.

Passing Strange by Martha Sandweiss
Sandweiss has written an important and moving book which inspires the hope one day we might move above the minor differences which separate us, amalgamating even beyond Clarence King’s ideal to a truly “human race.”



The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest by Stieg Larsson
Though Larsson did a commendable job of wrapping up the trilogy, this third novel in the series is not a standalone. The first hundred pages or so are an attempt to fill in what happened before, but I think reading the first two is necessary to fully understand what is going on.


Caught by Harlan Coben
Coben has crafted another fast-paced thriller displaying his superb insight into life in suburbia and a gift for realistic depiction of teen angst.

The Lost Cyclist by David Herlihy
This book had a personal interest for me since my maternal grandfather was one of those cycling pioneers and might have felt at home in company with men like Lenz and Sachtleben.

What Writers Read

I recently wrote about the importance of reading for writers. That, naturally, leads to the question of what to read.

Reading preference is a subjective matter. Still I thought it might be interesting to consider the choices of some of my favorite authors and see what they have to say on the matter.

One might think a writer of mysteries would have an affinity for that genre. Yet in an article (archive article, originally published in 1987) in the December issue of The Writer Ruth Rendell remarks that she no longer reads crime fiction. Instead she said she “reads and rereads” the great Victorian classics. Her recommendation for all who aspire to write is Ford Madox Ford’s “The Good Soldier”. And Rendell says she reads this one book annually.

Though he admits to having grown up with the Hardy Boys, James Lee Burke lists among his favorite writers Faulkner, Joyce and Hemingway (see favorites of many writers in “The Top Ten, Writers Pick Their Favorite Books”, edited by J. Peder Zane).

Elizabeth George in “Write Away” identifies Harper Lee’s “To Kill a Mockingbird,” as her favorite novel but says her greatest influence as a writer was John Fowles. Fowles himself was a great admirer of Thomas Love Peacock, Daniel Defoe, Albert Camus and Thomas Hardy.

Robert Louis Stevenson also spoke highly of Defoe, in addition to Alexandre Dumas and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Jim Harrison puts Dostoevsky, Proust, Emily Bronte and Herman Melville high on his list. John Irving also has praise for Dickens, Hardy and Melville. Another personal favorite, Peter Matthiessen, admits an admiration for Conrad, Dostoevsky and the other great Russians.

Referring again to “The Top Ten,” I was pleased to see some of my favorite books on so many of the lists. These included (in no particular order), “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov, “Moby Dick” by Herman Melville, “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte, “Tristram Shandy” by Laurence Sterne, “Candide” by Voltaire, “Don Quixote” by Miguel de Cervantes, “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare, “Dubliners” by James Joyce, “The Brothers Karamazov” by Fyodor Dostoevsky and “Silence of the Lambs” by Thomas Harris. I was shocked none of the writers mentioned Fowles, Matthiessen or John Gardner (author of “The Sunlight Dialogues,” not the other one).

So what books should you be reading? I’d say anything and everything. But most importantly those which inspire you to re-reading and better writing.

Reading for Profit

One of the key ingredients of advice to aspirant writers is to read.

The neophyte might then ask, what am I to read? Does it mean how-to books? Books written by the advisor? What?

My personal feeling is a writer should read the types of books he or she wishes to write. Most would-be writers are already readers. Inspired by the books they read for pleasure or edification, they strive to emulate, feeding both an innate need and a desire to share their thoughts and imaginings with others.

What moves a person to become a writer or engage in other creative activities is a matter for the psychologist and not our interest here. What is obvious is not every person who loves to read becomes or wants to become a writer. What is also obvious is the person who wants to write will eventually do so, regardless of advice or lack thereof.

I’ve never met a writer who wasn’t a reader. I think most of us would agree it was a love of reading that first stimulated our desire to write. But I’m constantly surprised by the number of writers who fail to profit by their reading. Some read only for entertainment. Others read for instruction. The good writer/reader can and should do both. And there are more than a few ways to profit. Reading properly can improve your writing ability, stimulate your creativity and put more dollars in your pocket.

How, then, should a writer read? The answer, of course, is alertly. No writer worth his/her salt should ever read without a notebook at hand.

As Dumas put it a long time ago: Writing can not be taught; it can only be learned. One learns, initially, by reading. Anything you read will influence your writing style, either consciously or subconsciously. That’s why many novelists refrain from reading while working on a book. However, it has been found that reading good writing can provide the impetus for recharging the creative juices when you’re stalled or suffering a block. Even junk can be beneficial, but if you want to do creative writing, then you should read the best writing available. You can improve your style, your language and rhythm by the subconscious influence of good literature.

Robert Louis Stevenson advised, “When you read a book or a passage you admire, immediately set yourself to aping it so that you may capture the flavor of it.”

Some might frown on this as plagiarism. But that wasn’t what RLS meant. What he suggested was a concept no different than the training methods of the great masters of art and music. Art imitates nature and, it follows, art imitates art as well. Stevenson felt by copying an admired passage one gained insight into what made it work.

Charles Nodier, a lesser known writer, suggested, “A writer should read until he is filled to the brim and like a pitcher which is over-filled overflows, and then he should write.”

Homage to the Library

Most writers would be inclined to agree the public library was one of the greatest ideas of all time.

My hometown didn’t have a library until 1953. It wasn’t that we were ignorant savages—there were school and church libraries and commercial lending libraries before that time.
Desire for a community library dates back to at least 1866 when an editorial in a local newspaper proclaimed: “A place that is lacking in facilities for gaining information can never hope to compete with other places whose influential people give their children and others the means of personal, intellectual culture. People may come here to make money, and stay for a few years; but we can never hope to have a solid, stable, attractive population unless there be opportunities for proper mental development.”

The writer of the editorial was not without a plan for meeting the goal, either. He suggested a three-story building be erected. The first floor would be rented for stores or offices, the second floor to house the library and the third would be a lecture hall. He thought rent of the stores would pay a good percentage of the library expenses and said occasional lectures by popular speakers would fund the rest. He felt a membership of 150 persons who contributed about $3 annually would keep up the supply of papers and periodicals and add some new books.

Unfortunately, his plan did not bear fruit. There was a fund drive for a library before World War II, but the war interfered with those plans. It took a major campaign headed by the local Woman’s Club and a number of other concerned citizens and organizations to realize the dream which finally resulted in the opening of the facility, which remains a vital factor in boosting the cultural and educational level of the community. It’s worth noting, women’s clubs were a chief proponent in the move to establish libraries in the U.S. after the Civil War. So, ladies, a tip of the hat to you.

Though we lacked a public library, my family had a good supply of books at home and the several independent bookstores which existed in the town at the time got a good share of my spending money.

Libraries are another of those good ideas we owe to the Greeks. And they weren’t even the first to have them. The concept existed in ancient China and the Central Library of Astan Quds Razavi in Mashhad, Iran, is more than six centuries old. The Francis Trigge Chained Library of Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, dates back to 1598 and is still in use.

Benjamin Franklin was responsible for the opening of the first in my home state in 1731—one of his best ideas, in my opinion. The Quebec Library, the first publicly funded in Canada, opened in 1779. But Mexico pre-dates both in claiming the first public library in the New World. Don Juan de Palafox y Mendoza, bishop of Puebla and Viceroy of New Spain, opened the Palafoxian library in 1646 when he expelled the Jesuits and confiscated their books. This library still exists and holds some of the oldest books in North and South America.

The point of all this is, of course, is recognition of National Library Week, April 11-17.
With the advantage of the Internet and having a large personal library, I don’t frequent my public library as often as I did in the past. But I’m eternally grateful for its existence and to those who maintain it and I believe the world would be a bleaker place without the public library. Truthfully I’ve probably spent more indoor time in libraries and book shops than anywhere else. And, if I have to be indoors, I can think of few places I’d rather be.

Don't 'Vook' Now

For many of us who grew up before the days of television a book was an opportunity to step into another world. Books were entertainment, education, friends that never let one down.

Of course not everyone in that time shared my enthusiasm for reading. There were probably more readers then than now. But it would be wrong to infer everyone read just because there was no TV or other distraction. And those of us who like to read continued to do so even as opportunity for visual entertainment expanded.

As Ruskin so aptly phrased it, “No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it serviceable, until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again; and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it.” I’ve known books like that.

Film (which I love) and television have their value. But they’re a different style of entertainment/education and can’t replace reading for the true aficionado.

Unfortunately the visual trend and a faster lifestyle inevitably led to drastic changes in reading. People lost patience with lengthy books. They wanted everything in a hurry. We saw the adoption of speed-reading and condensed novels—a true travesty to my mind. If an author wanted us to skip words and passages wouldn’t he have written a shorter book?

Novels especially are not for speed-reading. They require attention, devotion to the beauty of words, even rare and unusual words, a willingness to accept the author’s eccentricities as a different way of looking at things. They were not meant to be fast food for the brain but a meal to be savored.

I don’t have a problem with electronic novels. I’ve even published some. They’re still books, even though they can never replace an actual tome held in the hand for the true believer.

But now I read this morning Simon & Schuster is teaming up with a multi-media partner to produce something called a “vook,” which intersperses videos with text—a nod to those incapable of visualizing. Has imagination truly been stifled to that extent?

I share the disdain of Walter Mosley, who said he would never allow videos to substitute for prose. “Reading is one of the few experiences we have outside of relationships in which our cognitive abilities grow,” Mosley said.

How to Grab a Reader

A recent discussion by a writer group focused on how readers choose and read a book.

Several participants who have worked in bookstores commented on their observance of readers and noted they seldom made a judgment based on the first few pages of a book. Instead they seemed to observe the cover, read the back cover blurb and then examine pages “within” the book. Most of us were surprised to learn judgment was not based on the first few pages of a book.

There seems to be a lesson here for us writers on how to grab a reader. Presentation is important. And writing should be consistently good throughout a book.

A more important issue to me in the discussion was how readers read. Many contend they skim books, ignore the boring parts and don’t like books that are lengthy. The comments didn’t surprise me, many of the participants being from the speed-reading and television generation.

As a writer and reader, I abhor the idea of skimming. Speed-reading may allow one to get through more books in less time. But are they being enjoyed and digested? Aside from the fact the author’s hard work is being minimized, the reader doesn’t have/take the time to savor all the work has to offer.

As to the boring parts—what might they be? Elmore Leonard’s classic advice to writers is to “leave out the boring parts.” But he never defines what those might be. There is a difference between writing good narrative and padding. There are readers who don’t like lengthy description. Others do. That’s a personal choice. This does not necessarily mean one writer who uses description is less than another. I like and read both Dickens and Hemingway. I know of several popular writers who pen beautiful prose but their characters and plot leave me cold. I don’t read them. Again, that’s a personal choice.

The same applies to the length of a book. I’ve enjoyed novels that barely topped a hundred pages and others approaching a thousand pages. What they had in common was a good story.

What it all boils down to is readers (like writers) are different. You can’t please everyone. You’ve just got to do the best you can.