The Digested Read

by John Crace

Literary ombudsman John Crace never met an important book he didn't like to deconstruct.From Salman Rushdie to John Grisham, Crace retells the big books in just 500 bitingly satirical words, pointing his pen at the clunky plots, stylistic tics and pretensions to Big Ideas, as he turns publishers' golden dream books into dross. In the grand tradition of Tom Lehrer and Stan Freberg, Crace takes the books that produce the most media hype and retells each story in its author's inimitable style. Philip Roth, Don Delillo, Margaret Drabble, Paul Auster, Alice Sebold, John Updike, Tom Wolfe, Ruth Rendell, A.S. Byatt, John LeCarre, Michael Crichton and Ian McEwan all emerge delightfully scathed in this book that makes it easy to talk knowingly about books you've never bothered to read or, for that matter, should have.

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2005

Reviews

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

John Crace's 'The Digested Read' in The Guardian are marvellous parodies of the style of the book under review and its content: I think I would have enjoyed this more had I read more the the books but having read the brilliantly sarcastic reviews there is little to tempt me to read any of them. You can find him here.

[Bill Peschel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection of Crace's reviews from The Guardian are snarkily funny even if you haven't read the book. If nothing else, Google his name and check out his work on the Guardian website.