Well, I have to admit that my first instinct is to guard each and every syllable of my writing as sacrosanct -- my God, it is PERFECT; how could anyone think of changing it? the Philistines! -- but every single time, once I get over myself, I realize that the changes people suggest make my writing better.

Tep, I have exactly the opposite - I'm all "Dude! Whoo! Here, read this and suggest stuff for me!" - but I think the urge to guard is the more natural one.

Ego. It takes months to not only prep a book for publication, but there's also a promotion campaign, and you have to list it in catalogs and build interest (even for a big name like King) and handle the orders. There's plenty of time to edit it.

This is true 99.9999% of the time, but at the publisher where I worked, there was one bestselling author whose books we were so eager to get out that they were copy-edited in shifts by different copy-editors just to reduce the time-to-press.

Of course, if the writer had wanted an editorial pass-through, I'm sure we'd have delayed printings more to accomodate him. So I suppose it does come down to ego in the end.

I need to add some more books to the list our bookclub selects from. (we every so often do a purge and add)

Since I am trying to get through my TBR shelves (and I just bought more shelves to accomodate the overflowingness), I thought I'd add books from there. I tend to have books I know almost nothing about, so I am not sure if they would be good or not. If anyone has read any of these, could you let me know if:

1) you liked it, or at least interesting
2) you think it would be good to discuss

Thanks.

Exodus by Leon Uris
Local Girls by Alice Hoffman
A high Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier (I think rec'd by Kat)
Victory by Joseph Conrad
Fortitude by Hugh Walpole
Lila by Robert Pirsig
King of the Hil by A.E. Hotchner

I love the way Alice Hoffman writes very much, although I don't remember if I read "Local Girls" or not.

Exodus is a great book, but I would lean towards Mila 18 as being his best.

I like Alice Hoffman in general, but I found Local Girls scattered and dull.

Well, I have to admit that my first instinct is to guard each and every syllable of my writing as sacrosanct -- my God, it is PERFECT; how could anyone think of changing it? the Philistines! -- but every single time, once I get over myself, I realize that the changes people suggest make my writing better.

Tep, I have exactly the opposite - I'm all "Dude! Whoo! Here, read this and suggest stuff for me!" - but I think the urge to guard is the more natural one.

Heh. I'm an editor for a living, and we cheerfully loathe authors who cling to every word. As a writer, I *am* my worst nightmare!

msbelle, I like Conrad's Victory a lot, but it's one of his more problematic books; I probably wouldn't recommend it for a book club.

There may have been a time, back in the mists of time, when I believed that every word I wrote was golden. I have written and edited for a living for many years and now I'm happy to get input from anyone and grateful for a good editor. It seems likely that ego drives the lack of editing of some best-selling authors, but I also think that publishing companies have no idea what makes something a bestseller and they're afraid to meddle.

I also think that publishing companies have no idea what makes something a bestseller and they're afraid to meddle.

Probably true, although for people like King, I doubt there's anything an editor could do that would prevent the book from selling. Even bad reviews don't do that.