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Good book? I couldn't pick it up!
December 26th 2000, 23:06 CET by Andy There's a BBC story about books that are bought, but not read. The focus is on books given as gifts that the lucky recipient never wanted, but let's extend that a bit... According to the BBC story, some of the most unread books are Ulysses by James Joyce, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and everything by Salman Rushdie. This story really hit home with me, because one thing that infuriates me about myself is my habit of not finishing books. Even books that I like. Just recently I've started reading, enjoyed, but then given up on Glamorama by Bret Easton Ellis, A Game We Play by Simona Vinci, Resurrection Day by Brendan DuBois, Birdman by Mo Hayder, and the first Harry Potter book by J.K. Rowling. The only books I've finished in the last few years have been Hannibal by Thomas Harris, American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis, and the non-fiction On Writing by Stephen King. This week I'm going to order Gerald's Game by Stephen King and, although I expect to like it, I'm sure I'll give up on it after a hundred pages or so. I know that there's very little chance of me finishing it, no matter how much I enjoy it. I don't know why I'm like this. Just for some reason, I rarely finish books. It may be that I have high standards, or perhaps I'm just lazy -- after all, it does take effort to finish a book, especially if you're a slow reader, which I am. Feel free to jump into this thread with any relevant comments, or your thoughts on what is discussed in the BBC story. But personally I'm most interested to know if any of you also have this annoying tendency to abandon books, even when you're enjoying them. Am I the only one who does this? |
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On reading speed and attention span: My main problem here is that I can be reading a book and, unless the book is really good, my mind will wander while my eyes will still be going from left to right and from top to bottom. Then I'll find that I've skipped four pages and have no idea what has happened. Books that have avoided this so far have been Trainspotting quickly followed by The Marabou Stork Nightmares by Irvine Welsh and Good Omens by your man Terry Pratchett (even though I'm not keen on his Discworld stuff any more, I've gone through Good Omens about six or seven times. And did I hear a rumour that Terry Gilliam was currently working on the film?). Mnyay. Amongst others. It's usually down to the style of writing, I find I can flick through Douglas Adams books with the ease of a deity but if they become an effort to read that I cannae be bothered. Give me a lifestyle where I start relying on public transport a lot more (ie. maybe a job) and I'll have time to read again - but at home? Too many distractions. I got a boxette of three books for Christmas, all of which I really want to read (The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy (which I bought when it came out, started to read it, then lost it), Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt (saw that one at the pictures last year and loved it) and, most intruiging of all, Wild Swans by Jung Chang) but I'm kidding myself if I ever think I'll get round to reading them and finishing them. I've got 30,000 Mornings peeled from a cover of a recent copy of Nova (crap magazine but I am a sucker for free books taped to Women's Interest titles. whatever. chick books rock like bob. sue me :) sitting around and book queues make me nervous. I mean, I don't even use launderettes any more - I always used to keep a few Kafka and Plath books around for that, while everyone else immersed themselves in Chat and The News Of The World. "Yeah. Kafka. If you don't mind. You keep your eyes on your washing, missy." ;) Oh, I can be a pretentious fuck at times. Your man Douglas Coupland: Miss Wyoming was a great book - loved every page of that one, but for anyone that wants to see a really bad Douggy story, have a look at the little novella that is included within the pages of Lara's Book (which was a gift, it was a gift and it was a gift). General recommendations / Self indulgent "Am I Cool?" book name-dropping: If you ever wanted to have a stab at autobiographies then Lenny Bruce's How To Dalk Dirty And Influence People was great and I keep getting my girl friends telling that I *must* read Stephen Fry's Moab Is My Washpot. Oddly, all my boy friends seem to be down with all that swords and sorcery shit which, eeshk, does nothing for me. Pudding: I loved the gag on Futurama about the Mars (?) library having the biggest collection of books in the universe and looking through a window they see two CDs; fiction and non-fiction. I find it really difficult reading from a monitor although I can imagine that little LCD palm-tops may be a little easier. You still can't beat how pretty a shelf-full of books looks though. - CtW (walking the corner to the rubble...) |
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<b>ConfusionTheWaitress</b> (#136): <quote> walking the corner to the rubble... </quote> ...that used to be a library. |
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<b>Andy</b> (#2): <quote>I annoy stupid people. Thanks for reminding me.</quote> For reminding you that you're stupid? For such a blatantly calumnious bastard, who spews irrelevant, hearsay, unconfirmed, assified+asinine garbage, the closest you're ever going to get to rhetoric, is diatribe spewed from one of Pratchet's one-legged dwarf with rheum. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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<b>CharlieWiederhold</b> (#32): <quote>I believe I've finished every book I've ever picked up. </quote> Did you read Pratchet's books? No? Try picking one up from Amazon. I just finished The Truth. A good read. The last books I finished are The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene and The Gift Of Fear by Gavin de Becker. Last Days Of Summer by Steve Kluger is good too. <i><b></b></i><i></i><i></i> |
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For such a blatantly calumnious bastard, who spews irrelevant, hearsay, unconfirmed, assified+asinine garbage, the closest you're ever going to get to rhetoric, is diatribe spewed from one of Pratchet's one-legged dwarf with rheum/ Can't you do better than that by now? That sounded so forced... Never become a critic. |
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