This brief quote from Somerset Maugham will come in handy if you’re the kind of person (like me) who can’t be bothered to read the latest Big Novel:
I have learnt by experience that when a book makes a sensation it is just as well to wait a year before you read it. It is astonishing how many books then you need not read at all.
It’s from the opening paragraphs of his story The Voice of the Turtle, in volume one of the Collected Short Stories.
