Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I have to ask: Why have you never read the best book of the Harry Potter series? (Okay, so I should have put that less subjectively  , but you know what I mean.). |
I have a friend who will almost never read the last book of a series she loves. She likes to know that she's still got a book in it to read.
It makes some sense to me, not so much in terms of delayed (possibly forever) gratification, but because I think last books are almost always disappointing, especially when they wrap up a sustained story. I thought the last Harry Potter book was awful and it ruined the series for me. After it came out, I would ask people what annoyed them most about the book and each one had a different answer.
But in line with an earlier exchange we had, I like to pick nits anyway. I had the great pleasure of reading the Harry Potter books with a nephew who was the perfect age for them. We started when he was five and caught up with
Chamber of Secrets and wrapped it up when he was 14. He told me recently that his friends even now resent it when he talks about everything that was wrong with the books, a habit I'm afraid he got from me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
I find Amelia is one of those things best taken in small doses; (at least) a few books between each new Peabody book seems the way to go. Quite unlike reading the Discworld stories where I'm more than happy to binge-read, and only break them up with other reading in order to make them last longer.
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The more I like a series or an author's books, the more likely I am to stretch it out. In part to keep the pleasure going, as with Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin books, and in part because even the best authors are repetitive. I've got a long-term goal of reading all of P.G. Wodehouse in more-or-less order and he's best served by my not going to that well too often, as tempting as it is.