What I Just Put Down, and what I just began

[[deleted user]]

Sometime after my 40t birthday I gave myself permission to STOP reading a book (and turn off a film) that did not interest me. I am sorry to say that I just did that with Marge Piercy's The Third Child. I like Piercy, have been a loyal reader for years, but this book was poorly written and the subect matter, affluent college students, simply did not capture my attention. It is down for good. HOWEVER, I am pleased to whole heartedly recommend Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole, which once again reminds me of how very very brilliant she is... and how she can make you read about ANYTHING. She has the most amazing characters. One sentence from her, Lisa says, up on her soapbox, is worth 2 books by Tony Morrison. I will never ever understand the Nobel Prize....

Happy reading.

[Heather]

Up until just recently, I wouldn't put down a book either -- No matter how dreadful, I'd reluctantly plow my way through it and would keep even my most disliked books. I suppose I looked at them like battle scars and was proud to say I suffered to the end! Then a friend gave me The Red Tent -- I've found that most people disagree with me on this, but I just couldn't get through that book. I tried and tried and finally realized I was torturing myself for no reason, tossed the book against the wall, popped it up on Bookmooch and happily moved on to something better :) To this day, I can't bring myself to put a book down until I've read a substantial portion -- I have to convince myself it isn't going to miraculously improve 100 pages in -- but finally allowing myself to stop (and not feel guilty about stopping) has provided me with the opportunity to get to a lot of very worthy, wonderful books much faster!

[Barbara]

I've never read Piercy, Lisa. Is there one that is outstanding? On the other hand, I'm a huge fan of Annie Proulx. That Old Ace in the Hole wasn't my favorite of hers, but was still very worth reading.

[[deleted user]]

I stop reading books that take a turn I don't care for, and completely without remorse, which has produced some considerable debate with some of my online friends. Atonement, for one, raised eyebrows here at CR, and refusing to read The Lovely Bones, elsewhere, led to my arm being considerably twisted on-line there. But I have a consumerist view of the matter. I read for my brand of enjoyment -- which may not be anyone else's -- and I try to avoid topics or themes I don't like, while at the same time trying to read as broadly as I can for the sheer exhilaration of finding new authors and ways of telling stories. I skim books relentlessly whenever I'm at the store, and even read occasional first chapters over coffee while there, but then I leave nearly all of them behind. And I'm more than willing to skim anyone's suggestion. But buy a book I have a doubt about, unh-unh.

[Lillian]

I give books a try for about 75-100 pages unless it is a book I am reading for review. If after 100 pages I'm not hooked then I stop. Sometimes however I realize that I'm just not in the mood for that particular novel. If it is by an author that I have previously enjoyed then I will give it another try a few weeks later.

[Ruth]

Subject isn't what sends me over the edge, Russ. It's writing. Poorly written stuff gets shoved into the pit,usually between 20-100 pages.

And I won't even pick up most genre books.

R

[Cynthia]

It is delightfully freeing to give yourself permission to stop reading "pleasure" reading material that you are not enjoying. I had a similar experience with both "The Red Tent" and "Atonement" although I eventually had to finish "Red Tent" for a book discussion I was to lead. Life is too short and there are too many really enjoyable books to cause such unnecessary torture.

[[deleted user]]

It's no use torturing oneself by forcing the issue, although I rarely put a book down with the full intention of never finishing it, although it certainly happens. It usually sits here alongside the computer screen with a bookmark in it until I am sick of looking at it and is then shelved appropriately, with bookmark firmly in place. One never knows, never isn't over yet.

[Celeste]

Lisa, I'm glad to hear you recommend Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole. It has been in my to read pile for quite some time. I'll have to did it out and give her a try, as I haven't read any of her books.

I'm new here by the way. I think I'm going to like it here. I no longer feel guilty putting a book down that just doesn't do anything for me. Doesn't it liberate you to be able to do thing. Think of all the time we spent with books we didn't like. I usually give the author about 50 pages to grab my attention, if I'm not interested by then I stop reading it and move on.

[Pamela]

My favorite Marge Piercy novel is Gone to Soldiers. Give that one a try.

[Barbara]

Thanks, Pamela.

[Dottie]

Barb -- Pamela hit it right on the head. Gone to Soldiers is the Piercy book which I've read several times over. It is a dense and powerful story.

I have always owned multiple copies over the years as I keep loaning and giving away copies. I believe there are presently two or three copies among my books and I very nearly went back to read it not long ago -- but got involved in another book.

[Ruth]

Just put GTS on my TBR.

R

[Courtney]

I'm with Ruth. I generally won't even pick up a book if the subject is not my cup of tea -- i.e., yet another book about a marriage and children and the players inner tension (absent some big themes like The Bridge of Sighs which I am a few hours away from finishing). But if I do pick it up, the lack of a story or powerful themes doesn't send me running to bookmooch to get rid of the poor book. It's always the writing.

Thankfully, I have gotten better (with age, lol) at skimming the writing before buying to see whether the book will make the cut. But even Henry James, who I normally adore, almost got thrown against the wall when I recently read The Ambassadors because the writing was an exercise in torture. Luckily, by page 75, James pulled it back together and I was able to contentedly finish the book. But don't even get me started on certain Hemingway novels. I LOVE his short stories and short novels, but certain of his novels make me want to put match to paper.

[Ruth]

It's not the subject that puts me off, Courtney. I'll read on any subject if it's well-written. It's genre stuff like mysteries, scifi, fantasy, romance, etc. that I won't let in the front door.
Like you, I want some substance with my story, and I want it well-written, which puts me squarely in the literary fiction camp.

R

[Yulia]

Ruth, perhaps a literature degree would help me in this, but isn't the Brothers Karamazov at its heart a mystery? And how can romances be out of question when most of the great classics are romances (albeit well-written ones bolstered by tragedy and/or social insight)? Great writing finds a nook in every genre. Aren't many classics also technically fantasy, in the sense that they're speculative fiction? Consider Animal Farm or the Russian avant-garde works or any book that imagines what the world would be like had the Nazis won WWII.

I, too, am incredibly exacting about what I read, but I've found the notion of genre vs. literary deceptive and mostly a matter of marketing, especially when so much literary fiction lauded by the press proves impossible to digest.

[Mark]

Like the rest of you, I am in the don't feel bad about ditching it category, and that has only increased as I've gotten older (I'm probably at the 20 page level for drop kicking). It actually reflects two trends in my life that seem to be going in opposite directions: the older I get, the more books I'm interested in and the more likely I am to have several swirling around in the pot at the same time, and inevitably, some get sucked down into the whirlpool in the center before I can get through them. But also, I am increasingly jealous of my time and have much more of a sense that it's a limited commodity, a fact impressed upon me with additional force today as I finished (in one sitting) "The Last Lecture" by Randy Pausch, which you may want to check out. As a young man dying of cancer and a man who used to lecture on time management, he only reinforced the notion that we need to treat time just as we would treat money, in how we spend it, what we invest it in, what kind of interest we will draw from depositing it in certain areas of our lives. Spending it on an unenjoyable book when so many enjoyable ones remain to be discovered, not to mention when you could be eating, making love, singing, watching a great movie or a million other things, increasingly makes no sense to me.

And as to the original post title, I just put down A.B. Yehoshua's "A Woman In Jerusalem" because the characters were irritating me in a way it was hard for me to define, and took up "The Death of Vishnu" by Manil Suri, which has drawn me in much more successfully.

[Pamela]

That's a great post, Yulia. I'd have to add my favorite novel, Lolita to your list, as it's a great example of detective fiction.

Ruth and Barbara, please post your reactions to GTS.

[Rob]

Russ mentioned, "But buy a book I have a doubt about, unh-unh."

I am now to the point that unless it is a favorite author, cherished subject, or one of the anthology series I collect, I won't buy a book unless I've already read it!

[Rob]

I finished "Run" because I'd made the mistake of going too far to turn back, but other than that, I've been blessed with some good books lately. I'm probably due for a clunker soon, as I switch to faster summer reads for the front porch.

Unlike Ruth, I do like genre fiction, but it has a very low threshold with me--if I'm not hooked in 5 chapters, I'm outta there.

[Juliette]

I think realising that I didn't have to finish a book was one of those moments where I realised / remembered that I'm an adult now and don't have to obey all the internalised rules of childhood. Unlike the obvious rebellious rule-breaking stuff - smoking / drinking / sex / drugs - it seems to fall into that category of things that aren't a big deal to anyone else, but just have a deja-vu type feeling of "oh yeah, I don't have to if I don't want to..."

Prior to realising this I had a serial start and stop relationship with two books in particular - Crime & Punishment and Testament of Youth - that lasted nearly twenty years. T of Y in particular came on at least three holidays with me. Both books had to be started from the beginning each time as they had been put down for far too long to be picked up from where left off and I never got beyond page 50 with either of them before finally chucking them in the big-book-purge of 2001. Strangely, writing this, I do now feel drawn to getting a new copy and giving Crime and Punishment another go...

[Cindyash]

I was so disappointed with Run, probably because I had such high expectations after Bel Canto. It was convuluted in so many ways, I'm not exactly sure what she was trying to say.

I did just finish The Reading Group by Eliz Noble. Read it for a book group, and am not thrilled with it. Started out very good but it just got too much like a soap opera.

[Renee]

I would not buy books not unless I liked the author or genre because I did not want to waste my money on books I did not like. Every since I have found paperbackswap I have ventured out and have found more authors to read and more genres. I will usually read shorter books all the way through but if the longer ones don't catch my attention I will put those down. For example James Michener is a new author that I want to try but his books are so long and they look like they may be hard to get into. But I think I will give him a try.

[Anne]

Renee,

I lived for Michener back in the day (his , or mine, I'm not quite sure!) But I'm not sure he would hold up for me now, 20 years or more later. There is a certain tediousness to some of his books, yet they are wonderfully researched, and I do remember some amazing characters and tales.

His HAWAII is one of the few books I've read at least three times. SPACE, ALASKA, and FIRES OF SPRING were wonderful, as I recall them now. His THE SOURCE was said to be his masterpiece, yet it is the very one I could not get stick with, and put it down for good after the third attempt.

Anne

[Marian]

A really entertaing book by Michener is THE NOVEL. Like most of Michener's books, there is plenty of information but it's interesting information & his characters are well developed. It's also shorter than his usual book, but in this case, I wouldn't have minded a few more pages.

Marian

[Ruth]

I haven't read Michener for years, altho at one time I read several. Like Anne, I have a feeling he wouldn't hold up for me now. Yet his books were always full of interesting background. If I run across The Novel, I'll give it a look.

[Celeste]

I just put down Dragonspell by Donita K. Paul. I did finish it, but by the hardest.

I just picked up Good Omens by Neil Gailman and Terry Pratchett. So far I'm enjoying this book.

[Cindyash]

Oh my gawd, Good Omens is among my favorite books of all time, Its one I reread again and again when I need a lift. Enjoy! And btw - both authors are pretty incredible on their own. Pratchett's Disc World is worth exploring (tho I wouldn't start with the first one, rather one of the later ones like Guards or Lords and Ladies or Soul Music). For a taste of Gaiman, try his short story collection Smoke and Mirrors, or his novels Stardust, Neverwhere, or the Sandman graphic novels (I'd suggest American Gods but not sure how a newbie to his work would like it)

I've picked up and put down about five books in the last week. Decided I just needed some non-fiction, so now I am reading Home and Away by Ronals Wright, a Candaian travel writer. Its a collection of essays of his travels, particularly in Central and South American. Really good.

[Celeste]

Ok I hate to admit this, but I didn't make it through Good Omens. It just didn't tickle my fancy. I'm thinking it was the two author think; I'm hoping so anyway since my son's favorite author is Terry Patchett and I have been wanting to read Neil Gaiman forever. I am going to give them another try seperately later. Thanks for the advice on both author Cindyash, I'll keep it in mind when I go back to them.

In the meantime, I just finished two books. In Secret Service by Martin Silver, a historical mystery. The history parts were find; the mystery parts were not. And Runemarks by Joanne Harris, a fantasy based on Norse mythology. I really enjoyed it up until the end when it became apparent there would be a squel, so this book doesn't have a tight ending. I don't know, some authors can pull this off, but I didn't think Harris did it well.

I just started Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson and on a much littler side The Sisters Grimm- The Unusual Suspects by michael Buckley. These are cute little mysteries along the same line as Jasper Fforde's Eyre Affair stuff, but for children. This is the second one of five so far.

[Mary Ellen]

I just finished "The Foreign Correspondent" by Alan Furst. Furst writes novels set in Paris in the WWII era. This is the 2nd I've read. The protagonist of each was an ordinary guy who ended up getting involved in espionage/resistance activities. I highly recommend them. He does a great job of putting the reader in the setting and the plotting is fairly good.

Mary Ellen

[Celeste]

I just put down The Sisters Grimm-The Unusual Suspects by Michael Buckley and am about to start Sorceress by Lisa Jackson. Boy, am I going though some heavy reading or what? NOT! But there fun.

[Kara]

Hi Cindy,

I just checked the first disc world novel out of the library! Why wouldn't you start with the first one? aaaaaahhhh, book crisis! lol

[[deleted user]]

Mary Ellen,
I've read a few of Furst's, wonderful ambiance, he spins a good yarn.

Anne,
I haven't read Michener in years, but loved him back in the day, and I am so happy to hear you say The Source was the one you couldn't get into, neither could I, and was sorely disappointed in myself [at the time I was young] on account of that.

Just put down Shroud by John Banville, delicious as always. Not sure what is next.

[Beth A.]

Kara,

Pratchett is one of those magical authors that just keeps getting better with time. His first book, to me, was a little rough, it lacked the cohesion all of his later books have. I would start with "The Color of Magic", it is good, I love the Rincewind stories, but if you don't like it give the more recent ones a chance.

[Sammy]

I just finished What-The-Dickens by Gregory Maguire
Now I'm reading Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty by Jody Gehrman

[Celeste]

How was What the Dickens by Gregory Maguire? I've almost picked it up several times, but i haven't read anything I've liked from Magire since Wicked; and I guess I'm just a little gun shy.

What am I reading? At the moment I am reading The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz. It a humor mystery about the wackiest family of PI's you'll read about. The second book is out there also; it's called Curse of the Spellman.

I'm also listening to Dracula by Bram Stroker. I'm really enjoying it and all it's horror. I was thinking about suggesting it to my book club, but as I'm not finished it. I'm not sure its a book club read. What do you think?

[Beth A.]

I just finished River Secrets by Shannon Hale, and started Great Expectations by Dickens, so far I am enjoying it.

[Barbara]

Oh, I loved Great Expectations, Beth. Dickens is one of the many classic authors that I didn't really discover until the past 20 years, with the exception of A Christmas Carol. For some reason, I thought I wouldn't like his writing. Boy, was I wrong!

[Dottie]

Just finished Empires of Sand by David Ball -- fantastic! Am starting Atwood's Surfacing after an earlier false start and diving back into a stalled re-read of Bradbury's Farenheit 451 after conversing with whichwaydidshego? from The Rory Gilmore Book Club group over lunch last week.

[Celeste]

Just finished The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz and have started Storm Front by Jim Butcher. This is book one of hte Dresden Files. I'm just just started it, so I'll let you know what I think as soon as I know.

[Melissa]

I just finished Anne of Green Gables, a childhood classic that somehow escaped me back when I must have been busy reading the Oz books. I found it perfectly charming and understand why two people whose taste in literature I admire seem to cherish it so dearly.

I just started reading Positively Main Street: Bob Dylan's Minnesota, by Toby Thompson, a gift from two of my newly graduated college students. This reprint was inspired by last year's symposium here in Minnesota on Dylan, where I got to meet and hear some of my favorite students of the Bard of the North Country, such as Christopher Ricks, Michael Gray, and Greil Marcus.

[Lillian]

I recently finished Baby Shark Beaumont Blues by Robert Fate and The Murder Club by P.D. Martin. I enjoyed them both.

I am half way through Stay by Nicola Griffith and next will be Blown Away by G, M. Ford

See my reviews at
http://bloodstainedbookreviews.blogsp...

[Barbara]

I just finished listening to an audiobook production of Bleeding Kansas by Sara Paretsky. My review is at:
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22...

[Anne]

I just finished THE ALMOST MOON by Alice Seabold.Not a very good book, but I stayed with it to the end to see what was going to happen, and was left unsatisfied.

THe opening premise involves a woman who is sick and tired of her mentally ill and now demented mother. She kills her (the mom) and then we follow the flow of the aftermath. It was all pretty ridiculous to me, and I would not recommend this book to anyone.

Up next, who knows. Maybe THE WORST HARD TIME. I think I need some nonfiction to cleanse my palate.

Anne

[[deleted user]]

Casanova in Bolzano, by Sandor Marai, just went onto my partly-read list, and that after 100 pages. Just too many words, words, words with too little plot, plot, plot. Come to think of it, I should probably move it to my deferred list.

[[deleted user]]

I just finished the first three Ripley books by Patricia Highsmith. The Talented Mr. Ripley, Ripley Under Ground, Ripley's Game. I really only started out to read the first one, but since they happened to be packaged so nicely in a 3/1 Everyman's Library edition, it was very easy to be sucked into one after the other.

As usual I don't know what is next.

[Amy]

I know there is another discussion around here on this topic which started that itch in me that it IS okay to ditch a book before you finish - or even before you get too far. I am starting to feel better about it when it's a library book too - but I don't remember the one that has now started me on that road. i haven't been struck by lightning or polled about it directly from the library, or had my rights to check out books revoked for not really reading them, so all is good! :) I know that it was a genre mystery (I tend to follow the genre often, less thinking required in my down time then). There was a Quaker-ish lead lady who ran a bed and breakfast and was pretty whiny about some folks in her town and some new hotel going up. I got sick of the whining and told myself it was okay, I was done after about 3 chapters......

Just put down Aunt Dimity and, though light in the layers department was a perfect read for my time right now. Just picked up The Gravity Keeper which is proving a possibility for school next year and quite entertaining in the meantime - only on chap 2 though.

[Melissa]

Just finished Positively Main Street (message #44 above) and am about to start Surfacing for the discussion that starts in about a week. I like Atwood's poetry a lot and am looking forward to reading this novel with the group.

[Jaime]

I've been pretty fortunate in that the books I've been reading lately have been engaging. I finished "I Was Told There'd be Cake" last weekend and started "The Friday Night Knitting Club this last Monday. I'll probably finish it tonight and now I'm trying to decide what to pick up next...thoughts...

I'm leanig towards either "Pride & Prejudice" or "The Empress Orchid"

[Celeste]

I just finished The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen. Cute, light, chick lit fare.

I just picked up Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky. I haven't made up my mind about this one yet. I know most everyone has loved it, but I'm just not that far in yet.