If you are like me, you love to read a good book. To race through the pages (or savor them slowly) to get to the end and find out what this adventure really was all about-well, that’s about the best experience with a book. But have you ever been reading and found that the story made you scratch your head and say huh?

Sometimes writers get carried away with world-building and forget “the story”. Sometimes they are so in love with their character trait sheets that they tell us more about who the paper person IS than what they are doing in the story. Books with problems like these sometimes do not get read. Sometimes we sit them aside and grab the next one in our to be read stack.

I know that writer didn’t do it on purpose. They wrote a book to entertain and educate and they want us to read their work. But sometimes the book is just dull, not interesting, and downright unreadable. So what makes a good book?

Here are three things I think make a good read.

And not in the list but probably very important is a story. Yes, I said that. Some books don’t tell a story. Not that non-fiction should be full of things that fiction would be but they still need to capture and hold my interest. The best way to do that is with a relating of something. I have to have some meat and potatoes to hook into no matter what I am reading. So, a story, a real live something-happening-on-the-page story.

What are some things you could add to the list?