The Bonus Read
My favorite sort of read might be the bonus read. It’s unexpected. And it’s a bonus in the full sense of that word, going back to its Latin root.
The bonus read is when you’re expecting some core element in a read. And that core element is there. But wait, there’s more.
In fiction, this can be a favorite character you never forget, someone who shifts your idea of what it is to be human or someone who helps you understand your own heart. It can be a singular word or phrase that binds itself to you, sometimes beyond even memory of the work itself.
(Among many, one I can think of that was particularly so for me is George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie, which had one image of human psychology that stuck with me well beyond my childhood read. I never thought to re-encounter the image, and I was pleasantly surprised to discover its source two years ago.)
For fiction reads, there’s quite a bit that can be found as bonus. You might gain a real window into history (if the writer has sought deep accuracy). Indeed, there’s conjecture among historians that works like The Iliad functioned in part as a way of disseminating more than mere cultural knowledge—there are the occasional practical ideas (about boats and so forth) embedded within the oral narrative.
(I should probably note that fact-stuffed fictional works aren’t necessarily a bonus. No one enjoys a story that’s basically there to “learn you some facts.” And yes, those stories are as jarringly terrible as reading “learn you.” Fact-dump stories are almost as terrible as fiction that exists merely for the sake of its oh-so-clever symbols—looking at you, American writers.)
A well-placed historical tidbit or a natural philosophical reflection—not talking about an Ayn Rand rant here, as those are not exactly “natural” to her novels and are also expected by all but the most unaware—can enliven a read in such a way that you might wonder whether the bonus part of the book or short story wasn’t really the best part.
I’ll let you reflect on your own bonus reads within the fiction you’ve read. Frankly, I find those really hard to discuss without spoilers. That might be why, when people attempt to recommend a bonus read, they find themselves bubbling over rather incoherently, an unfortunate predicament for a work you’re so excited about.
For nonfiction, however, people aren’t so sensitive to spoilers. And so I will merrily “spoil” Courtney Maum’s Before and After the Book Deal: A Writer’s Guide to Finishing, Publishing, Promoting, and Surviving Your First Book.
Ostensibly, it’s the book described by the search-engine-friendliest title I’ve ever seen. But it’s not just that; it’s a bonus book. Contained within is the sort of whimsical, self-deprecating humor one normally expects to find from Allie Brosh or Jenny Lawson. I mean, Maum isn’t quite so zany as those two (which is good, because only Brosh is really my flavor), but that any sort of humanness and even usefully funny humanness appears in a book about the writing craft is unusual.
For those who’ve had the misfortune of my acquaintance beyond the casual meeting, you’ll know that I tend to go a wee bit overboard in researching things. And so when I decided that bigger publishers were something I should consider for my next project, one of my early reads on the subject was the very dry and not-even-remotely-essential Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century (“riveting account,” my foot). History of the publishing business is nonrequired reading for anyone ever, but in I dove. That read was at least better than a few on my world-of-publishing tour.
Usually, you get some dry no-one-makes-it or disillusioning try-writing-garbage-instead advice—apparently there’s a dire shortage of self-help gurus in this world. Even useful books on serious nonfiction writing like Susan Rabiner’s Thinking Like Your Editor have a grin-and-bear-it quality to them. It’s an excellent book, but it’s not one I’d readily recommend to a friend, not least because it’s a narrow book, one for nonfiction writers only.
Somehow, Courtney Maum’s book manages to be absurdly broad—you can use it for fiction and nonfiction alike, whether commercial or literary—and still applicable. If someone had told me this was possible, I’d have accused them of lying because I’ve read far too many books and articles in the genre of book publishing. In fact, I didn’t intend to read Maum’s book; I didn’t even know it existed until my eyes happened to glance over it on my local library’s “new and noteworthy” shelf. On a whim, I decided to bring it home with me.
I probably didn’t learn too much from Maum, which isn’t her fault because people who read Merchants of Culture aren’t her target reader. That is, I’ve read a few too many books on what she covers. But I can say that it’s the best I’ve seen discussing the pathway her seventeenth-century-length title describes. And since I prefer to recommend to friends and acquaintances a single book instead of several whenever possible, Maum’s roaming book fits precisely that purpose.
But the bonus, as I note above, is her irrepressible humor—both her ability to laugh at herself and her often-hilarious clarifications of where the line for internet loon is fixed. One doesn’t expect to laugh and learn simultaneously. As my library has extended my checkouts until the end of time, I may re-read the book just to see why I found it so funny. And that’s a bonus read.
Of course, bonus reads can be found in other places. I’ve mentioned previously my esteem for “The Evening of Life” issue of The Hedgehog Review. Now, journal reading will be its own post down the road, but I’ll say for the present that my expectation is generally that I’ll like one or two essays per issue, and that I must content myself with that. It’s basically a parade of ambivalent reads for the rest.
But every once in a while, an issue is just an absolutely sensational read. It took me months to work my way through “The Evening of Life” because I wanted to make certain I gave the essays the attention they deserved. Each successive essay deepened my conviction that this was a read worth attending to. That wasn’t the bonus, however.
The bonus came after the main theme, in the “extra” essays that proliferate intellectual journals once they’ve dispensed with their theme. And in the case of this issue every single one of the extra essays hit me in the sweet spot. Nerdiness from antiquity? Sign this failed classicist up. Oh, you’ve got an essay on a contemporary of John Dewey, one I’m not familiar with (it just so happens that you can’t research critical thinking without invoking the ghost of John Dewey, but that doesn’t mean you’re palling around with his entire club)? Pour it straight into my veins. (It helps that Randolph Bourne had some burners of lines.) Even the essays that shouldn’t have been interesting because I’ve spent time researching their very subject matter were so well handled that I was engaged. Bonus upon bonus.
I’ll note that I don’t typically recommend most of the ending essays to others, though those of the main theme I will. The main theme possesses universal appeal. But the ending essays were a surprise match to my distinct eccentricities. And thus that issue was an abundant bonus read for me.
And with that, I think the rough parameters of the bonus read should be apparent. If you’ve never encountered one, I hope you do soon.
Happy reading to you all,
Kreigh
P.S. As you may have observed, the above piece is not related to argumentation theory. I instead moved this post up a week, which I’m not bothered by, as I’ve been looking forward to sharing this one with you for a while.