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Is it too much to ask of a book that it should entertain? I sometimes get the feeling that we all get so absorbed in our intellect-ualisation of reading and writing and the general business of ‘being book persons’ that we tend to forget for whom we’re doing this: the reader.

The notion of reading as entertainment is sometimes pooh-poohed so vigorously that it almost feels like blaspheming to say I want my books to entertain me. No doubt I will be told that someone with this belief system should never be allowed near the hallowed ground that is literature, never mind actually publish it.

Tough.

I’ve often found myself reading books that, stylistically brilliant as they were, I just wanted to get over and done with. Haven’t you ever slogged through a book, your only inducement being the much more exciting other book you had lined up after it as a sort of reward?

You get to a point (or at least I did) where you start wondering: why am I doing this? Because, come on let’s be honest about it and put all our pretensions aside for a moment, reading is also a form of entertainment, something we do because we enjoy it.

And, on the other side of the barricade, writers and publishers are primarily storytellers, entertainers.

A few months back, Facebook was inundated with “the 10 books that changed my life” lists. And you could tell, just by scrolling through them, that many of us were getting caught up in the “how will my friends judge me by what I read” syndrome. So suddenly it seemed like all everyone ever read were 800-page classics and obscure Russian novels. And Proust. I’m surprised he’s not topping the bestseller lists right next to E.L. James.

I read through countless manu-scripts that, while more than valid from a writer point of view, leave me stone cold. And that, to me at least – because manuscript selection is a very subjective exercise, which is why no two publishers have similar lists – is a very loud warning sign. It is of course not the be-all and end-all, but let’s say there would need to be many and strong counter-arguments to make me take on such a manuscript.

I’ve heard many dubious arguments about writing and publishing, including the “but I couldn’t care less about readers, I write for myself” and the “it’s not my problem if readers can’t engage with my novel”. To me, these are variations on “let them eat cake” and anyone not writing and publishing with his readers firmly in mind should have no business creating books.

This is not to say that all books are created equal. There is a beauty to a well-written book that transcends the story itself. A writer who can manipulate words to create sentences that linger, that feel luscious and exciting, is creating a work of art that has to be savoured, not explained. And that, right there, is also enjoyment of literature. But ideally this savouring should go alongside – not instead of – actually enjoying the book.

While discussing two very different  but equally well-written  manuscripts a few years back, a colleague described them succinctly and perfectly: one of them she admired, the other she also enjoyed. As usual, she was right. Ideally I’d love to both admire and enjoy a book, but if I had to pick one, as a reader  most times  I’d pick the latter.

And perhaps, ironically, that is the greatest harm that is being caused to literature when we get on our high horse and turn the reading experience into a lab dissection. We are giving our readers the impression that a “well-written” (literary, to use the dreaded word) book is going to bore them senseless. Because all they’ll ever hear about it is clinical dissections intended to create an exclusive club of “us” vs “them”. So readers move on and ignore the book.

Which is a pity, because there are a great many books that while beautifully written by masters of prose, are also entertaining and make for a great read.

A great read for me is one that I can’t put down, one that I can’t wait to find an excuse with myself to stop whatever I’m doing to get back to. One that I simply do not want to finish, even as I’m racing ahead because I have to know what’s on the next page. The book & Sons by David Gilbert is one such.

And funnily enough, I don’t necessarily need to think it was the best book ever to have enjoyed it. Just like we have our guilty TV or food pleasures, an enjoyable book can sometimes be just that.

Let’s just lighten up and enjoy the read, without worrying how we’ll come across on goodreads .com when we mark it as “read”.