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#16 |
Feedbooks.com Co-Founder
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Location: Paris, France
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#17 | |
Addict
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Join Date: Mar 2007
Device: Sony Reader
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I got bored with descriptions of every tree and every leaf on every tree. I tried to read the trilogy TWICE, and failed. Maybe someday the third time will be the charm. |
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#18 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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However, a book I have put down three times is 'The Satanic Verses' (Salman Rushdie). I really don't know why, as his skill as a writer is perfectly obvious and quite enjoyable. Yet, I end up putting it down. It still sits there, and I'll retake the challenge again one day. I might try 'Grimus' beforehand, as I'm informed by someone who I respect a lot for their opinions and who knows my specific "tastes" that I would most probably like it enormously. A book that I slogged through was 'The Sea, The Sea' (Iris Murdoch). It was just a character assassination of a whole of seemingly completely unlikeable characters by a character you wish was assassinated early, before he got to writing about his life. That, amongst other things, may be the point, but it was hard to find interest in people that were boringly neurotic and yet wretchedly vacuous. I wish "the sea, the sea" would have risen higher and washed them all away. I did finish it though. It has tarnished any desire to read more of Murdoch's novels, however. Cheers, Marc |
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#19 |
The Introvert
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Location: United Kingdom
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I am very picky about what I read, so if I start to read a book then I go till the end. Sometimes I choose a wrong book
![]() All that said, I do not read classics at all, since I have discovered fantasy gengre at age 21. I have had more than enough of Russian classics in school and I hate all of them, no exceptions. I liked some "foreign" classics when I was studying at University, such as Theodore Dreiser and Victor Hugo but since then - nothing. Much too boring for me. Too realistic. I have enough of real life around me, so when I read I like to be elsewhere... ![]() I gave up on a couple of books/series before. I never feel guilty about it. I do feel frustrated because I wasted my time and money on it (but time is more important because I am a slow reader). |
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#20 |
Connoisseur
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Some people liken a book to a meal... Take a few bites and if it doesn't agree with you, find something else. There are simply too many good books out there to waste time reading something that doesn't help you. That said however, it has happened a couple of times... The first hundred or so pages didn't impress me as something I'd like to continue with, but I did, mainly because of the person who'd recommended them to me. And I was very glad I had finished, because then I went on to read more of the same author (MacDonald and Kierkegaard come to mind). I remember one of Kierkegaard's books, though, a 600-page tome called "Philosophical Postscript" I didn't understand him after page 2, then again after page 10. But I thought maybe it would click, that the pieces would just come together into a big "A-ha" moment, working retroactively so that eventually I'd understand all he was writing about. Well, 300 pages in and I still didn't understand a bit of it, but I kept going, kept thinking the key might be coming soon. In a word, I finished that book; I hacked my way through it without understanding much of anything. I wouldn't have done that with an author who hadn't already impressed me.
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#21 | |
When's Doughnut Day?
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#22 |
Wearer of Pants
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Location: Norman, OK
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I did the same thing.. tried to read it in jr high/high school... could never get past the birthday scene.
Then an ex girlfriend of mine talked me into giving it another try and I enjoyed it a great deal, but... I don't quite place it as high as many do. I think a "Song of Ice and Fire" by Martin or Stephen Donaldson's Chronicles of Thomas Covenant are both better series, both as far as enjoyment and literary quality. |
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#23 |
Resident Curmudgeon
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What d you do if a book that catches your fancy at the start ends up dragging in the middle? Me, I stick it out. I remember a book like this very well. I read Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard on the recommendation of a friend. I got about 1/2 way through it and it really started to bog down. And then like 3/4 into it, it could have ended at a numbe rof places. It's like he ended it and then decided to tack more on to it in a number of places. Overall a dreadful book that started off with some promise.
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#24 |
Junior Senior
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James Joyce's Ulysses (sp?). Couldn't get through more than about 50 pages the first time. Some day...
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#25 | |
When's Doughnut Day?
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Location: Houston, TX, US
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Then there are the books that have me from the very first page and never let up. Hesse's Demian grabbed me by my internal organs on the first page and I have never let up reading his books since - despite the pretty poor translations from German that I've had. |
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#26 |
Wearer of Pants
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Hesse is a favorite of mine, too...
If you've not, try to find some of his poetry - it's also amazing. |
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#27 | |
Lowlife of the Party
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Location: seattle
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He has a much higher tolerance for wading through slow or difficult reads than I do. |
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#28 | ||
The Introvert
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![]() ![]() P.S. Also it was probably the only series that I never finished and the first book one of the very few books I could not finish as well. |
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#29 |
Literacy = Understanding
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I usually drop a book after the first 30-50 pages if it doesn't hold my interest. However, sometimes I do slog through and find that about one-third of the way through it has improved significantly. I recently read -- to completion -- a book that I can't figure out why I read it to the end except that I was reading it while on my treadmill so it read in one ear and out the other. (I also suspect that I read it to the end because it was the first e-book I had bought and so stubborness took over from common sense.) Anyway, the book was Savage Survival by Darrell Bain. I found the "jacket" description excellent and so purchased the book. Although the storyline had great potential, the characters were more wooden and uninteresting than watching a tree grow for 3 hours. I'm now reading Crown of Slaves by Rick Cook, one of the Baen free downloads, and it is well-written. I plan to buy other Rick Cook books now that I have sampled his writing.
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#30 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Southern California
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Astra, your note about Gaiman's American Gods is interesting. To me it was one of the best books I read in recent years, better than Gene Wolfe's Knight/Wizard duo.
It might be Gaiman's colloquial turns of phrase. They tickled me but perhaps they annoy others. I was delighted by the subtle portrayal of once-powerful gods living in modern America and how he handles an essentially passive protagonist. That took skill and restraint. I enjoyed it so much I'm right in the middle of his Anansi Boys, an additional book set in the same universe. Hmm, and a similar protagonist. Um... you probably won't like it either. Similar style. |
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