Ancient Greek Wisdom

Mega biblion, mega kakon - translated as 'big book, big evil' - was Kallimachos of Cyrene's judgement on the Argonautica of Apollonius of Rhodes.  He apparently detested the populist appeal of Apollonius's epic.

So where, today, are the equivalent terse, direct critics, at a time when our need is so great (see George R R Martin and the Game of Thrones series for an example).

I only have so much time to read, and it is being seriously impeded by all those big, bad books.

On the other hand, I've just finished reading Derek Walcott's White Egrets, a brilliant collection of poetry from 2010.  It's 89 pages long and not one word is out of place. 

I suspect it took me longer to read than the first GoT book. But on the other hand, I didn't begrudge a second of the time.

Short book, big  good.