The Ancient Mariner on alcopops

I am not especially likely to write negative reviews here at Light Reading--when I'm reading a book I don't like, I mostly just stop reading, and I privately (for myself more than for others, it is a question of what suits me rather than a general rule) feel that writing very negative reviews is bad for the soul!

(Now and again I write something negative about a book that seems to me to have garnered far too much positive attention--the motivation in this case is a kind of Emperor's-New-Clothes or setting-the-record-straight one. Often I feel after the fact that I was too judgmental, and that I would rather not have gone on the record with it--though I am still mildly regretful that I never wrote down my passionate diatribe against Mark Danielewski's books...)

Meanwhile, I do enjoy reading very scathing reviews by intelligent reviewers who are so irked by the book at hand that they cannot restrain their irritation, and Hilary Mantel has a rather good one in this vein at the Guardian this week...