No such thing as a good book

When everyone's a critic, aesthetic hierarchies no longer rule. But we still have to decide what to read.
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To Kill a Mockingbird is one of the most successful and loved books of all time but on Goodreads, it has received 54,580 ​seering 1-star reviews including one that comments, ‘The author does a completely inadequate job of explaining how to kill a mockingbird.’

Herman Melville’s epic novel Moby Dick received 34,337 such negative reviews including this one: ‘Melville strikes me as one of those people who would corner you at a party and talk incessantly about whaling…so you finally have to pretend to go to the bathroom to get away from this crazy old man, only that he follows you and keeps talking to you.’

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Gina Fairley is ArtsHub's National Visual Arts Editor. For a decade she worked as a freelance writer and curator across Southeast Asia and was previously the Regional Contributing Editor for Hong Kong based magazines Asian Art News and World Sculpture News. Prior to writing she worked as an arts manager in America and Australia for 14 years, including the regional gallery, biennale and commercial sectors. She is based in Mittagong, regional NSW. Twitter: @ginafairley Instagram: fairleygina