The Sword and Laser discussion
The Great Backlog and the Curse of Mediocrity
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Aaron
(last edited Oct 20, 2014 10:15AM)
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Oct 20, 2014 10:14AM
Ever since I joined goodreads because I wanted to find good books I have watched my backlog explode. In order to help churn through this I have cranked up my reading rate to ~120 books a year. This has helped slow the backlog gain but whenever I'm on a roll and get like 5-6 books ahead of my goal I run into a wall of books that are just okay and nothing kills reading like okay if it's bad I can drop it, and if it's great I'll blow though it in no time. How do other people deal with this? Do you just power through. Do you just drop the book and pick up another? Or do you do what I do and just keep adding books to the currently reading pile?
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I think of this as a modern problem. When I started reading SF it was rare for a book to be much over 200 pages. So if after 100 pages it wasn't all that good,I could just power through to the end. If it's hundreds, I would consider giving up. These days I'm fairly choosy about what I read, so I don't have the same problem regularly. But I have put some books down permanently over the past few years.
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But I do have a hard time stopping a book I've started though, so I tend to stick out the occasional bad one.
In general though, I do at least an hour of reading time most days, so even if it's bad and I'm reading it slow, I still get it done.
For a good bit of time I had a currently reading shelf with 6+ books in it. I was basically doing what you describe, putting a book down and picking up something more interesting. I probably had every intention of coming back to the books but they lingered and lingered. I eventually decided that I was not allowed to add more to the list without removing some off. I had to either read what I had started or declare a break. To be honest, my "On a Break" shelf is full of books that I liked but not enough to stay dedicated to them. If a book lingers in that shelf for too long I just delete it entirely from Goodreads or I move it back to To Be Read (that shelf is purgatory for me, not meant as a forever resting place).
I now keep two books max on my too read shelf - one for at home, one at work during lunch. I am terrible at remembering to bring books back and forth to work so I keep them at work until I finish reading them.
tl;dr: give your self permission to put books aside for a while and re-evaluate after a bit of time. My to-read pile grows and grows, I just had to impose some discipline on the currently reading pile.
I feel you on this one -- I'm still only halfway through Alif the Unseen and it's the only thing I've been reading this month.
Life is too short and there are too many books to deal with mediocrity. I might finish it if it's a book club book since that's part of the discussion, but if it's just for me? I don't care what the ratings are or who recommended it. If it's not working for me it's not working for me and I'll go on to the next book.
Andy wrote: "For a good bit of time I had a currently reading shelf with 6+ books in it. I was basically doing what you describe, putting a book down and picking up something more interesting. I probably had ev..."An actual hiatus list sounds like a good idea, should help keep it managable.
Lem baby lem! Just be flexible enough that you can totally pick up a book you dropped, if you see something that makes you think you might change your mind. I've read something like 150 books this year and lemmed 27. I try to put in extra effort for the current pick, though. Try not to think of it as a to-do list but a menu of suggested options.
Aaron wrote: "How do other people deal with this?"Poorly. (At least in my case).
Aaron wrote: "Or do you do what I do and just keep adding books to the currently reading pile? "
I do this, but every few months I do a cull, but speaking long-term, my current to-read list is longer than it's ever been. The culls are also getting increasingly painful because the quality of what makes it onto my to-read list has been going up. (When you look at a new book and make the decision on adding it to the list it's got to be up there with the other 160+ books that are already on it).
I'm just learning to let go of books that I find mediocre. I used to read all of them to completion which means a single boring book could take a month and then I don't read anything for another. I'm just starting to get used to putting one that doesn't interest me down and picking up another, better one.
Since I joined Goodreads a few years ago, I've read a few hundred books and can count the ones I haven't read all the way through on one hand. I will almost always try to power through... mostly because I'm cheap and hate not getting full value for something I paid for, but also because I am trying to pad my "read" shelf to impress friends and total strangers and I don't feel right about marking books "read" unless I actually finish them.
I usually know in the first few pages whether or not I like a writer's style. The hundred-page rubric you often see here on goodreads (which I think comes from Lord of the Rings... 100 pages is about where Tolkien abandoned writing another Hobbit and started writing the story he really wanted to.) is a crock. I might not always like the books, or agree with the author, but I will still enjoy reading them. I've powered through books where I didn't enjoy the writing, and almost always regretted it.
Depends on my mood. If it's merely okay, often I keep slogging through. If it tips over into being actively bad, I toss it immediately.Too many books, too little time.
John wrote: "I think of this as a modern problem. When I started reading SF it was rare for a book to be much over 200 pages. So if after 100 pages it wasn't all that good,I could just power through to the end...."I agree. when i started reading SF back in elementary school in the 70s--have I dated myself?--there weren't a lot of tomes. another modern problem is the sheer number of books being published--and self-published.
i do stop reading many b/c I have to return them to the library and something else more interesting--or in one of my favorite genres--comes up.
I finish basically well-written books that I would've otherwise stopped reading due to personal taste for these reasons: they're classics/canon (Brave New World); they're in my genre (Old Man's War); they started out great, was still okay in the middle third, but then even when they got ludicrous in the last third, but I was so invested in the story that I just had to finish (The Man in the High Castle).
I hardly ever lem a book, even if I think it's terrible. I feel I've made a commitment and must see it through. Case in point, Divergent, which is a pretty thick book, but I read the whole thing to the end, and hated every minute of it. I thought that the hiatus shelf idea was a good one, but for me, I feel I would never actually return to the book ever again. Putting it on hiatus is as good as lemming.
That's just my opinion, I know that reading is more enjoyable when it's a book that you like, so I totally understand why people say you shouldn't waste time on the ones you don't.
I hardly ever LEM a book either. Even if it's bad I don't feel I can write an honest review if I don't finish it.
What is LEMming? Is that like you throw the book over the cliff?
AndrewP wrote: "I hardly ever LEM a book either. Even if it's bad I don't feel I can write an honest review if I don't finish it."It's an honest review if the first sentence says "I stopped reading at page ___" and then goes from there. Among the 1-star reviews, those are the most helpful to me because the reviewer then usually adds something very specific that led them to decide to stop and I can tell whether I might not mind or might even like that aspect.
Alex wrote: "What is LEMming? Is that like you throw the book over the cliff?"Named after Polish science fiction author Stanisław Lem and his infamous and hard-to-understand book Memoirs Found in a Bathtub, to lem a book is to drop it without finishing it. Usually because you are bored or can't get into it. Veronica started it. It's also where the name of the dragon came from.
aahh… i feel for Stanislaw… or maybe I don't so much after all since reading his bio. 27 million copies!
TTUalumni13 wrote: "I'm more perplexed by reading 120 books a year, I have no idea how anyone has that kind of time haha.."1. I only watch about 5 hours of TV a week.
2. I tend to be free of family obligations after 9pm.
3. I'm blessed by insomnia that frequently has me getting 4-5 hours sleep per night.
4. I always have a device with me that I can read on and I have no problem with reading 1 or 2 pages at a time.
All of that translates to over 200 books per year plus novellas and short stories.
I LEM every now and then, depending how bad the book is, or real life stuggles that at times pile on. I don't mind the backlog too much, other than when I get the time to think "Oh shite, I'm not exploring the corners of my imagination enough!!"In fact, my backlog gives me an odd sense of peace. I will never run out of things to read. :)
Anushka wrote: ""Oh shite, I'm not exploring the corners of my imagination enough!!"In fact, my backlog gives me an odd sense of peace. I will never run out of things to read."
Teach me, book zen master. Your attitude is exactly what I'm trying to cultivate and can't always do in practice.
TTUalumni13 wrote: "I'm fine with a bit of a backlog, I'm more perplexed by reading 120 books a year, I have no idea how anyone has that kind of time haha.."I went from a goal of reading 100 books a year, down to 25 books a year this year, because my son was born. 75% of my free time goes to him <3
Ally wrote: "I went from a goal of reading 100 books a year, down to 25 books a year this year, because my son was born. 75% of my free time goes to him <3 "Same. I read at my desk at work, though. Also reading to him while he was in the carrier helped keep my count up there.
I found (probably because I'm not the one doing the breastfeeding) that I still managed to read a fair amount during the first year of my daughter's life. Once she started walking (running), my count dropped dramatically. Now I'm lucky if I can read more than two books a month.
TTUalumni13 wrote: "I'm fine with a bit of a backlog, I'm more perplexed by reading 120 books a year, I have no idea how anyone has that kind of time haha.."I'm single and live in a small town. My life is work/books/games. When I drive off to the big town to see friends and party or whatever I listen to audiobooks there and back. I read books/listen to audiobooks during pretty much every meal...except lunch which with coworkers is like 1/2 the time. I also don't have cable so if I'm watching something it's because I planned to watch it not just flipping around bored. Multitasking helps too like if I need to do some mindless grinding in an RPG or item gathering for an hour or something turn on an audiobook get on the treadmill and play the game.
Plus it depends on the type of book you read there is a difference between reading YA which I do a decent bit of reading and say...the Stormlight Archives. A YA book you can blow though in 3 hours tops often under 2...something like Stormlight is going to run 12-20.
Ally wrote: "I hardly ever lem a book, even if I think it's terrible. I feel I've made a commitment and must see it through. Case in point, Divergent, which is a pretty thick book, but I read the whole thing to..."One of the books I'm reading right now isn't quite doing it for me, but it's such an odd book that I keep holding out that maybe it'll surprise me and get really awesome. It's happened to me once or twice before.
Bryan wrote: "I found (probably because I'm not the one doing the breastfeeding) that I still managed to read a fair amount during the first year of my daughter's life. Once she started walking (running), my co..."Bryan wrote: "I found (probably because I'm not the one doing the breastfeeding) that I still managed to read a fair amount during the first year of my daughter's life. Once she started walking (running), my co..."
Ally wrote: "TTUalumni13 wrote: "I'm fine with a bit of a backlog, I'm more perplexed by reading 120 books a year, I have no idea how anyone has that kind of time haha.."
I went from a goal of reading 100 book..."
I have a 2.5 year old now. Her first year was a boom for reading, video games, and TV shows for me because I had to stay up to do the midnight feed so my wife could handle all the other feeds and I wouldn't be too tired to go to work.
Then in the 1-2 year my reading and other things dropped as the baby needed/wanted constant attention.
Now things have picked up again mostly from me budgeting my time. I take a book to read at work during my breaks and at night I divide my time between whether I want to read or do something more passive like TV or more active like a video game. Most days I choose reading as I enjoy that most of all.
With two boys who are now 13 and 10, my reading time keeps trending upward as they try to monopolize every available computer screen in the house and I'm left with physical books for recreation when I finish my to-do list ;)
Alan wrote: "With two boys who are now 13 and 10, my reading time keeps trending upward as they try to monopolize every available computer screen in the house and I'm left with physical books for recreation whe..."lol. Kids do that, don't they? Hehe. That's why I have my computer, my wife hers, and we have another for guests that can be my daughter's when she's older. (Plus a bunch of old laptops that function well enough for the games she's going to play for some time to come)
Now that my kids have mostly grown and want to do their own thing, I'm finding my wife cuts into my reading time more than the kids ever did! ;)But to stay on track with the original thread, while I don't do it often, I agree that there are too many books available these days to waste precious time on one that 'just doesn't do it for you.' I have little enough free time as it is and need to split it between what I want to do and what I have to do! Unless you got the book as part of a GR Giveaway, you shouldn't have to feel obligated to finish it.
If I'm really unsure if I want to finish a book, I'll jump to the end and see if I'll have enough interest for the middle. Bonus, you get to see how things turn out and spoilers aren't a worry. My problem more often is that I kind of like a book, but then I come across a better book and read that, and forget where I put the not-as-interesting book, or I've lost it's momentum.
kvon wrote: "If I'm really unsure if I want to finish a book, I'll jump to the end and see if I'll have enough interest for the middle. Bonus, you get to see how things turn out and spoilers aren't a worry. My..."
that's right. you can skim some parts that aren't that interesting to get the gist of things, and read more meticulously those parts that are. sometimes, the reason why people think something is a classic is because of the original idea. i find that to be more often true in SF&F than in other genres.
