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Old 07-23-2014, 07:39 AM   #16
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Being all done with the "formal" education portion of my life, I don't slog through books any more--for any reason. I don't dump them at the drop of a hat either, mind you, but my patience is finite.
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Old 07-23-2014, 07:40 AM   #17
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I was surprised, when I looked back an old diary (2007), how long I had taken to read some good books. I don't read all that fast, but I do read every day, and some longer, slower-paced books were taking me an entire month to read. The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carre, and The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie both took me 30 days to read. Both long books, but both excellent, although the le Carre is pretty depressing, as usual.

Now I am actually tracking what I read, I don't think I'd allow myself to take that long. I'd just put in some extra hours somewhere and push through. (I read Abercrombie's Red Country in 9 days, and the shorter Half a King in just 3.) It's a bit of a shame, in some ways, but I think I'm also much more aware of my backlog now I've built up a huge e-library. When I was reading those big paperbacks in 2007, I had nothing else I wanted to read. Now I have a three-figure number of books I want to read, and a four-figure number of books I could read.

In the case of non-fiction, though, if something was bogging down like that, and I really wanted to finish it, I think I'd just start reading other books to break it up. I don't tend to be so bothered about reading non-fiction in a single continuous stream. It kind of depends on the structure of the book; how much it forms a single narrative. There are some books I've been working on for years. I just pick them up every now and again and read a bit.

Edit: Just realised it was CJ Cherryh's Destroyer that took 30 days, not The Blade Itself, which was a mere 14 days. I can't read my own spreadsheet.

Last edited by DrNefario; 07-23-2014 at 07:43 AM.
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Old 07-23-2014, 07:41 AM   #18
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It often takes me many months or years to read some books.

I do not drop books that aren't immediately gratifying because I like to challenge myself. Difficult material expands my mind and opens up even more avenues. Dropping books that are a "slog" is doing your own growth a disservice.
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Old 07-23-2014, 08:15 AM   #19
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Originally Posted by twowheels View Post
Ugh... I've been trudging through a difficult book for 3 months . I JUST finished it about five minutes ago. What a relief! [...]
I think the last time I did that was with Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It's a classic that I'd always been meaning to read (never did it at school). Finally did it a few years ago - even commented about the experience here. Why push myself through it? Well ... because I tend to be rather stubborn with books anyway, and because there are some wonderful quotes buried in there, and because it is a classic and I kept hoping it would come to something more. And, if you really want to know, I think all the great quotes have already been used on Star Trek - so I could have saved myself the trouble.

On the other hand, as hardcastle says, some books are worth the trouble, just that - for me - Moby Dick wasn't one of them.
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Old 07-23-2014, 10:31 AM   #20
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I think the last time I did that was with Moby Dick by Herman Melville. It's a classic that I'd always been meaning to read (never did it at school). Finally did it a few years ago - even commented about the experience here. Why push myself through it? Well ... because I tend to be rather stubborn with books anyway, and because there are some wonderful quotes buried in there, and because it is a classic and I kept hoping it would come to something more. And, if you really want to know, I think all the great quotes have already been used on Star Trek - so I could have saved myself the trouble.

On the other hand, as hardcastle says, some books are worth the trouble, just that - for me - Moby Dick wasn't one of them.
I envy you. That is one of the books that I gave up on. I couldn't torture myself any longer.
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Old 07-23-2014, 11:54 AM   #21
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Dropping books that are a "slog" is doing your own growth a disservice.
That's Ok. The growth portion of my life is over too. I'm actually striving to shrink a a bit. I already have trouble fitting me into smaller rooms.
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Old 07-23-2014, 11:56 AM   #22
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That's Ok. The growth portion of my life is over too. I'm actually striving to shrink a a bit. I already have trouble fitting me into smaller rooms.
Mental growth. Education, mental exercise, ascension, call it what you like.
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Old 07-23-2014, 11:59 AM   #23
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Too many books and too little time for me to force myself to finish books I'm disliking.
The turning point book for me was Lord Foul's Bane by Stephen Donaldson. That's the last book that I forced myself to read. Prior to this book, I would persist with a book even when I wasn't enjoying it. No more!

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Luckily I haven't picked out that many duds (duds in my opinion only, I'm sure) where I've been really tempted to just toss it. When I do though, I quickly skim over the boring parts and then take my time to enjoy the better parts. That way I don't spend months on one book that I'm not enjoying, and I do manage to get through it.

While those books aren't as enjoyable as the ones you can't seem to put down and finish in a few days, I feel better for some odd reason having finished it and not given up on it.
For me, it's not the "boring parts" issue. It's a plot or character that I detest. When I abandon a book, I note my position in the book and the reason why I set it aside. That way, if I choose to resume the book later, I can choose to re-read from the beginning or pick up near where I left off. I recently set aside God's Spy by Juan Gomez-Jurado, which had been a wish-list book. I simply found that it was too violent/gory for me right now. This is a book that I should have read the preview before purchasing.

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... I tend to be rather stubborn with books anyway, ... and I kept hoping it would come to something more.
With Lord Foul's Bane, I kept thinking "surely this will get better" and it didn't. For me, I mostly read for entertainment. I'm rarely reading for information or education. So, the book has to entertain. When the story is simply moving slowly, I do give myself 100 pages or so to get engaged. But if I run into objectionable content, I've given myself permission to bail out right away.
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Old 07-23-2014, 12:07 PM   #24
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I always have multiple books going at the same time, so if one book is particularly long or slow or dragging, I still have other easier and more enjoyable books that I finish in the meantime. It does take me longer to finish any one of them than it would if I was reading one book exclusively, but it also means that I don't feel like I'm using up all of my reading time on it.

(I'm currently working my way through a selection of The Classics just to have experienced them at least once. Some go easier and I will reread them again someday while others I am just glad to have behind me. There have not been any that I wish I had not read.)
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Old 07-23-2014, 12:28 PM   #25
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Mental growth. Education, mental exercise, ascension, call it what you like.
I have a confession: I sort of knew what you meant. I just don't subscribe to the idea that growth can only be achieved through books that bore me to tears.

Last edited by DiapDealer; 07-23-2014 at 06:59 PM.
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Old 07-23-2014, 12:29 PM   #26
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I'm completely in favor of dropping a book once you find you're forcing yourself to continue reading it. I'll stick with it for a while to see if it improves, but if it doesn't then I just quit. I read for enjoyment and entertainment, so if I'm not getting that from a book, why continue? I have to spend too much time as it is doing things I don't enjoy, reading shouldn't be unpleasant as well. If your purpose in reading is something else, by all means force yourself through it, but if you read for fun, then I say drop the book. Life is too short, and there are too many books to read.
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Old 07-23-2014, 01:52 PM   #27
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Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" was a bit like this for me. I liked it but there were short sections that took me days to get past. It was dense with information and logic that was worth working through, to me. I don't recall how long it took me to finish the entire book but it might have been six months, alternately reading other lighter books.
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Old 07-23-2014, 02:31 PM   #28
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I've read a book outside my comfort zone, a long novel by one of those japanese writers, for several weeks, piece by piece. I wanted to finish for reasons external to the book.
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Old 07-23-2014, 02:41 PM   #29
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Douglas Hofstadter's "Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid" was a bit like this for me. I liked it but there were short sections that took me days to get past. It was dense with information and logic that was worth working through, to me. I don't recall how long it took me to finish the entire book but it might have been six months, alternately reading other lighter books.
Yeah, I was given a copy of that in high school and kept it until about 2 yrs out of University when I finally decided to give it a try. Some of it was really interesting, and some of it was really hard. I finally gave it to a co-worker who really really wanted it -- before finishing it. :-)

I suspect that he didn't finish it either as he used to carry around lots of really intellectual looking books, in fact he'd carry them 10 meters from his desk to the conference room for every meeting, and then carry them back to his desk -- as if he was anxious for a free moment to read them -- but the bookmarks were never more than 5% of the way into the books. We all used to laugh about that, but never said anything to him.
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Old 07-23-2014, 02:59 PM   #30
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I always have multiple books going at the same time, so if one book is particularly long or slow or dragging, I still have other easier and more enjoyable books that I finish in the meantime. It does take me longer to finish any one of them than it would if I was reading one book exclusively, but it also means that I don't feel like I'm using up all of my reading time on it.
I tend to do this as well. I will set aside something I'm not feeling all that into, but frequently I'll return to it later because I start getting curious about what happened. This is also because I know myself, and that what I want to read varies with my moods. Example: I've set aside Joe Abercrombie's First Law Trilogy several times now for reasons completely external to the books, and fully intend to finish them some time. I enjoy dark fantasy in general, and what I have read so far has been excellent. Reality (stress or mental tiredness, usually) demands that I mix it up with lighter fare.

If the writing style in a book is truly atrocious, or I don't like the characters (or don't love to hate the characters), I will set a book down and be fine with not finishing it. Thankfully with plenty of avenues to read reviews, the likelihood of finding a book like that is diminished compared to pre-internet days. It's been quite a while since I wound up with a book that I just couldn't finish.
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