esrosedotblog

I have seen "best of" and all those lists but these are worse.

Look at this!

What Makes You Put Down a Book

Neat-O.

I do not know whether to feel superior or part of a crowd.

Of the top five "abandoned classics", I can say that I finished Ulysses, Catch-22 with enjoyment. I read the Joyce when I was 18. Precocious I guess. Years later I went back to check and realized that I actually "got it" at the time. I tried Finnegan's Wake and quit. Sorry.

Same with Catch 22.

I read the Rand cover to cover and did not enjoy it but found it sort of boring and, I think, badly written. Rand's ideas never appealed to me. A born liberal, me.

I missed the Hobbits entirely. I got to MIT and found people living in this dream world and was amazed by the zealotry around it but I looked at the people and decided to pass. I did go see the movie and liked the first half more or less and then found the rest of it including that awful little gremlin thing boring and terribly old hat. Maybe because, by that time, so many people had copied Tolkien's ideas and methods.

Moby Dick? I tried. God knows I tried. Over and over. Finally, about five years ago I put it in the toilet and started out again. I had even read Melville's earlier works and had enjoyed them. Not the whale. Not even the obviously gay heroes. Nothing.

As for the rest of the list, the current unreadables or meretricious, I am pretty much up there with the list.

I thought Eat Pray Love a hot steaming pile of feel good horseshit. I didn't even believe it. Not for a minute. Foolishly I tried the movie in case maybe I missed something. It was a bit better, an unusual thing, actually. My policy is not to see the film of the book or vv but since I really didn't read the book, maybe, maybe I would like the film. Sort of but the horsey odor sort of stuck to it.

I am not even tempted to read the "Grey" books. I hated the first Larrson book, hackey and full of obvious 'mistakes' and dead ends. A dubious heroine. Wicked is OK. I did not see the show or know anything much about it and read the book because I knew I would never see it.

The Rowling, I am just not interested in the precis I saw. I did like Harry Potter but our grandson was reading it at the time. More fun that, I suspect.

My policy on finishing is pretty straight forward. I stay until I cannot stand it any more. I have stayed with books I threw across the room and became seduced shortly after the tantrum.

I read reviews pretty carefully and dismiss some books out of hand entirely. I won't go over the list as it is a bit sexist and racist.

I am now on Kindle and they will let you read the first chapter. I think you can do this on line at Amazon now but I do not and have not done that.

I choose books on a hunch and pay attention when one is recommended by someone I like. The internet is a help on this.

I follow some authors religiously and will buy every single one of their books. If I like someones book I will probably read all of them from the juvenilia right up to the current times or the end if it is an "old author".

I took American fiction in college and specialized in it. I have read every word of Faulkner and enjoyed every word until I did not. Now, I can't go back. This is a common thread also. An author or a book fits into my age and time and disposition then. Not now.

I would like to know a dedicated reader's "batting average" on picks. Mine is at least 750. Very high, I think.

Some people I know have a pile of unfinished books they "intend" to read or finish some day.

I could not do that. When I am slowed or stopped, I stop.

I didn't spend much time with the "reasons" people would quit.

I do not require myself to have a reason.

Labels: books, reading