Novelty of A Novel

I like books, usually the best part about them is when I haven’t opened them yet, and the smell of their soft cardboard covers fresh out of the book factory. I like book covers and also I like the reviews, short and punchy on the back of the book jacket. “Brilliant”, “Tour de force”, “dazzling”, “original”, “spellbinding”, “striking”, “exhilarating”, “beguiling”, “cinematic”. “Spellbinding. Though set in the past, this feels like the most comtemporary fiction you’ll ever read…A truly great read.” “A quite extraordinary novel…the language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling. And what a narrative! What an story!” “This remarkable and ambitious book succeeds as a savagely colourful, always-astonishing entertainment of elegant and bold storytelling.” “Great book. Rich and illuminating and impossibly imaginative.’ “A quite extraordinary novel. The language is so fresh and crisp and sparkling – and yet never for the sake of showing off.” They should publish a novel made up entirely of reviews. From beginning to end, just one review after another. That ought to hold my attention. I buy my books because of the reviews and the covers, then I read a few chapters and I want to buy a new book. I guess it’s called a novel, because it’s the novelty of it that grabs you but then, the novelty wears off so fast.