What spurs the red mist?

If you come up with a coherent argument, and that’s an if, then it is always going to get attention attacking great authors. So it is no doubt with getting a large reader response in mind that the Sunday Times runs a piece about authors that provoke the red mist.

Rod Liddle writes that Dance to the Music of Time irritates him but then admits that he didn’t get much further than half way through the first book. Bearing in mind it’s a 12 book series you could easily argue it’s not much a point to leave and base a judgement on.

Then a host of people add their two-penneth’s worth with Crime and Punishment coming in for some abuse along with Dickens and a few other classic writers.

For what it’s worth personally I like to hold that view that everyone has something worth saying and if reading is about learning not just stories but style then a badly written book can teach as much as a good one.

But in the spirit of the thing I would put in The Presidential Papers by Norman mailer which is no totally irrelevant and was no doubt at the time and am happy to chuck in Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks a romantic tale against the backdrop of the plague that just wasn’t for me.