This book: “Pure” by Andrew Miller is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
It’s astounding. It is perfect. This is undoubtedy one of the greatest books ever written.

I’ve read Les Miserables twice in my life and Tale of Two Cities probably three if not four times to the point where they have become mushed together with movie versions I think. This book is one of them. It is one of the best books ever.

Several times during my amazing week with this book I thought “I really hope Neil Stephenson reads this”. I mean it’s probably very rare that that guy gets to have his mind blown by another contemporary writer. I imagine his head will fugging explode. Mine did and I’m not even close to as good a writer as he is. How did this Andrew Miller guy do this? It’s just so cleanly told. I smell obvious devices a mile away and not one thing did I see coming. Not once did i catch him “writing”. Not once was I cheesed or underwhelmed or disappointed. Nobody was writing this book. It simply had always been. I was simply reading a story about a very interesting thing. Personally this beast also imparted a shit ton of really deep and profound thoughts about self and self-meets-world that I found incredibly relevent and applicable to my life right now. And he’s so damn conservative. So tidy. Cryin out loud how did this guy do this?

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR

I’m on page six and already my mind has been blown at least as many times. Get this book now.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR

I keep trying but how many times can I do this to myself. Its like a teenager wants to be a writer and has lots of support from some grownups.

I found it hard to write background information into a story without blatantly having one character turn to another and just say “hey Jeff, ya know you and have been friends for 17 years now and we met when I found you in the street doing blah blah blah” and that kind of ham-fisted crap. Well that’s only one of those. I’m horrified by the opening sentence as well. He actually refers to the main character as “the spy”. As in: “the spy sat in the dark, watching the open field”. Or whatever. And the opening line is “are you sure I won’t be killed today?”.

I’ve made it 3 pages into this thing and after several attempts I have to admit defeat. I unfortunately am not twelve years old so I cringe at stuff like this. I guess I’m also just not a big enough man for this kind of writing either.

Dammit, I’m out of books and there’s still six more days of tour and a 17 hour flight.

COURTNEY TAYLOR-TAYLOR