I hesitate to use the word “literature” or even “writer” in the context of a book I recently purchased and ploughed through with dogged hope and tenacity.  In my defense, it was an impulse buy at the supermarket, tossed carelessly into my trolley among the chicken and cheese, bread and bananas.  It, and another by the same scribbler, were allegedly bargains.  Some bargain, some foolishness on my part, for believing the hype on the front cover – “The multi-million-copy international  best seller.”

“Oh,  good,” I thought.  “A new writer for me that huge numbers of people have bought and read.”  All I can say is, they, like me, were duped.  The book in question was “A Bend in the Road,” by one Nicholas Sparks.  Far better to call it “A Pain in the Ass,” or “A Crick in the Neck.”  It was stultifyingly boring, totally devoid of realism, filled with stereotypical, cardboard characters in need of counselling at the least, brain surgery at best.

What a disappointment, after just having read John Grisham’s excellent first novel, “A Time to Kill.”  You see, I was drawn to this item because it was set in the Deep South, North Carolina in fact,  a magic place for me after reading the marvellous novels of Anne Rivers Siddons and Pat Conroy.

This story gets worse though, because I bought TWO of Mr. Sparks’ mind-numbingly boring efforts, the other being “The Choice,” which, yes you’ve guessed, was yet another “multi-million-yadda-yadda.  I just wish I had his bank book.  This item is waiting to go in the charity box, pages pristine and unturned, spine unbent.

If only I had waited and saved my money, because across the street in the charity shop, for half the price, I found Anne Tyler’s “The Amateur Marriage,” about the only one of her books I did not own.  I may have travelled right up to Baltimore through its pages, but what a real writer!  For a little less intellectual reading, but infinitely more entertaining than Sparks, I got a Jeffery Deaver thriller “The Twelfth Card.”  The writer John Connolly is new to me, but I bought his thriller, “The White Road,” set in South Carolina.  I have great hopes for this book.  So there, I managed to get three decent books for less than half the money I paid for two trashy ones.

You would think that at my venerable age (I will  not see 50 again), I would have learned not to believe hype and to read a few pages before buying a book by somebody I had never heard of.  Well, I have certainly learned that lesson now.  I just wanted to share my findings as a little warning to others.  No doubt all those who loove and adore Sparks will be fizzing and fuming at my criticisms.  I have to say, “So what, so read a good book by a real writer and spot the difference.”