I was once struck speechless by a young man who bragged that he had not read a single book in his lifetime. I cannot imagine a life without books. Though my desire for a career as a librarian was never fullfilled, I eventually became a bookdealer, which I suppose was the better path after all.
I am a slow, absorbant reader, yet even by modest calculations, with 66 years of reading behind me, I have read at least 1,320 books. I feel I have earned the right to judge what is a good book. My sister, a faster reader, has read more books than I, possibly twice as many. It’s funny, but you can be sure that if I like a book, she won’t.
So, what exactly is “a good book”? How do you define that? A person’s evaluation of a book depends on many factors: how many they have read (for a comparison), what they have read, their stage of life, age and life experience, their gender and race, their knowledge and prior feelings about the subject of the book and, of course, personal taste. Obviously, the neophyte reader, or the reader self-limited to one category will also be limited in their ability to judge.
I will accept “it was a good book” because it may very well have been a good book for that reader. And “the best book I’ve ever read,” may also be a true statement. But I no longer read a book based on the recommendation of just one person unless I know more about that reader. Often I zip over to Goodreads.com to compare the critical opinions of thousands of other readers. A 4.9 out of five is convincing. And yet I am frequently the one person who hates a book while thousands swoon over it.
To give you my opinion of “what makes a good book?”: I believe every “good” book must fall into one of these categories. The best are in more than one. It must educate, entertain, touch your soul, lead you to understand, or inspire you with the beauty of language. Here are some of my favorite books and writers:
1. (Mind) It must educate
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
John Adams by David McCullough
The Wright Brothers by David McCullough
Emerson: the Mind on Fire by Robert Richardson (Or, Thoreau: A Life of the Mind)
The Lost Art of Listening by Michael Nichols
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Rats by Robert Sullivan
Virginia Lee Burton: A Life in Art by Barbara Elleman
The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (or others by him)
The Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher by Timothy Egan
Isaac’s Storm by Erik Larson
The Children’s Blizzard by David Laskin
The Mole People by Jennifer Toth
The Undaunted Garden by Lauren Springer
2. (Mind) it must entertain/provide escape, be fascinating or funny
Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling
Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon
Farley Mowat
Stiff by Mary Roach
The Mirror by Marlys Millhiser
The Cats of Lamu by Jack Couffer
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Buttons in the Back by Elizabeth Kirkland
Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
Dune by Frank Herbert
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott
3. (Heart) it must touch your soul
To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Bones of Plenty by Lois Phillip Hudson
The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
The Daughters of Copper Woman by Anne Cameron
Windowlight by Anne Nietzche
Sara Teasdale
Mary Oliver
Robert Frost
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
The Root Worker by Rainelle Burton
Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
Kissing the Virgin’s Mouth by Donna Gershten
Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters
Louise Erdrich
A Diary of the Century by Edward Robb Ellis
4. (Understand)
Party of One by Anneli Rufus
The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
1984 by George Orwell
A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
Stones from the River by Ursula Hegi
The Unredeemed Captive by John Demos
Barbara Kingsolver
Beautiful Joe by Marshall Saunders
Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
5. (Beauty) the writing must be lyrical, magnetic, entrancing, inspirational
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Illumination in the Flatwoods by Joe Hutto
Anais Nin
Loren Eiseley
Toni Morrison
N. Scott Momaday
The Meadow by James Galvin
Michael Pollan
Antoine de St. Exupery
Nikos Kazantzakis
These are some of my choices. Please join the discussion…
The Eclectic Reader 
Thank you for this,Cynthia. Per usual your observations and accompanying list of titles reflect your extraordinary depth and range of thought.
I would suggest the following:
The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico (my favorite)
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein –I do not allow myself to cry, but this one nearly broke me.
In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash and Wanda Hickey’s Night of Golden Memories, both by Jean Shepherd –perfectly delightful nostalgic mid-American humor.
Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era by Sterling North –It’s not called a Memoir of a Better Era for nothing.
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway –!!!
On the darker side:
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson –One of the most chilling novels ever written, relying heavily on atmosphere and psychological ambiguity rather than heavy-handed shock for its effects. A very disturbing piece of literature.
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