Things in books that annoy you

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by theducks

How would the average reader know?
As a MR member, many of us look at the code, so we know.
Unless the average reader has a device that has a 'night mode' or some other override that an image might not follw in the same manner, they remain oblivious to messy code .

When reading one of Terry Pratchett's books with the golem's language using an Enochian alphabet, when my daughter was reading with her font size choice, the images were about 33% larger than the surrounding text. When I was reading, the images size was about 20% smaller than the surrounding font. Yes, you can make the image match the text size but that was not done (back to sloppy coding). I'll skip the inability to break the image of a text string in the middle which led to some interesting justification.

Not everyone might notice this but both of us did.

[JSWolf]

I have found the Golem font. I can replace those awful graphics. They are way too small and on a hi-res eInk screen, they won't be seen as readable.

[barryem]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For fans of...
If you liked...

If I see either of those two likes at the beginning of the description, I pass on by.

I don't like those either. First, any decent book has so much going on that it's hard to say if you like one you'll like another.

I learned in the paperback days of my reading, probably from 1950 to about 1995, that the blurbs on the backs of books were full of lies. Sometimes in the best cases they just shaded things and slanted things to make the book seem like more than it was, but more commonly they just lied and told you about things that weren't in the book at all.

Used car salesmen have a reputation for being sleazy mostly because they're not very good at it and everyone picks up on their stretches and lies. Publishers are smarter and can and do lie a lot more and far less noticeably.

Barry

[barryem]

Originally Posted by theducks

How would the average reader know?
As a MR member, many of us look at the code, so we know.
Unless the average reader has a device that has a 'night mode' or some other override that an image might not follw in the same manner, they remain oblivious to messy code .

I see this in Kindle books while reading all the time. A lot of Kindle books use images for chapter and section separators and sometimes as the first character of a paragraph. It's very obvious because the page loads almost instantly and the images, even very small ones, change a bit shortly after.

I don't consider this a major irritant but I do wish they wouldn't do it.

Barry

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by barryem

I see this in Kindle books while reading all the time. A lot of Kindle books use images for chapter and section separators and sometimes as the first character of a paragraph. It's very obvious because the page loads almost instantly and the images, even very small ones, change a bit shortly after.

I don't consider this a major irritant but I do wish they wouldn't do it.

Barry

I consider it a problem. In the books I've seen graphics as text, it's too small. And when you read this on a hi-res eInk screen, the text can be unreadable. So what I try to do is do away with the graphics. If it's a special character usually the font I use has it. If it's a special font, I try to find the same or similar enough font. As in the Golem speak in Discworld books, I found the font and can fix that problem.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

For fans of...
If you liked...

If I see either of those two likes at the beginning of the description, I pass on by.

It depends. I'm always seeing this with the suspense/psychological thrillers I favor--everything used to be compared to Gone Girl; now it's often Girl on the Train. When they mention those books, I take it with a grain of salt, but if they mention another somewhat lesser book or author I like, I can't deny that I'm influenced. It works the other way, too--mentioning a book in the genre that I detested will steer me away.

[ekbell]

Originally Posted by theducks

How would the average reader know?
As a MR member, many of us look at the code, so we know.
Unless the average reader has a device that has a 'night mode' or some other override that an image might not follw in the same manner, they remain oblivious to messy code .

Even as someone who never mucks around with code, I have noticed when a graphic is used instead of text either due to the above sizing problems or because it's surrounded by white instead of my preferred off-white background. It can be quite jarring and occasionally unreadable unless enlarged using the app's picture viewer.

My current least favorite word mix-up is writing 'weary' instead of 'wary'. It's particularly annoying because it's not always an obvious error (why is the character weary of ambushes? Oh, they are tired of ambushes because this would be a good place for one .... did the author mean wary?)

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I have found the Golem font. I can replace those awful graphics. They are way too small and on a hi-res eInk screen, they won't be seen as readable.

It may or may not say something about my mind that I recognized the font.

Mind if I ask which version you settled on using? I think I used the Schueler's Enochian font as it was the boldest and cleanest looking -- the one's based on Dee's handwritten versions were overly clunky for my taste and the others were too light and I didn't feel like a round of font editing.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by ekbell

My current least favorite word mix-up is writing 'weary' instead of 'wary'. It's particularly annoying because it's not always an obvious error (why is the character weary of ambushes? Oh, they are tired of ambushes because this would be a good place for one .... did the author mean wary?)

A book I'm currently reading has the characters not being impressed by the "fair" in the pub. I'm forced to assume that the author meant to say "fare" as it's fairly obvious that the food is what they are talking about -- unless the midway is in the back of the pub and just never gets mentioned.

Admittedly, the entire book shows the author did not do enough research on the 1890s era in the United Kingdom before writing a story with an obvious clone of Sherlock Holmes as one of the main characters. Nothing like a country hotel with in-room washrooms in 1890-something to scream anachronism or a group of gentlemen not dressing for dinner. What did I expect for $0.99Cdn?

[Richwood]

Originally Posted by 4691mls

I once read a book where the local policeman rode a bicycle and every single time, he peddled instead of pedaled. The book didn't have other problems, just this one recurring error. Drove me nuts.

So he peddled himself all over town? Seems like kinky porn!

[Rumpelteazer]

Three of my biggest annoyances in book:

First, when the writer feels the need to end (almost) every chapter on a cliffhanger. It usually happens with those adventure action thriller type books.

Second, when a chapter ends with the one of the characters in a situation he/she is almost certain not to survive. A couple of chapters later, when you return to that character, he/she is at home and there's no explanation how he/she got out of the situation. The first book by Ken Follett had that happen several times, which put my off his books forever.

Lastly, silly subtitles. This is currently my biggest bugbear. There are many books with subtitles like "a novel", "a thriller" or "a [series name] book". I've no problem with those. But the last couple of years you see books with subtitles like "a gripping psychological thriller that will have you hooked" or "a gripping emotional page turner with a twist that will take your breath away" and "an unputdownable psychological thriller with a brilliant twist". I recently saw a John Grisham book which had a silly subtitle. I wouldn't have thought that a book by him wouldn't need that kind of silliness.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by ZodWallop

You need to watch more '70's American movies and TV.

I had forgotten about "Airplane" a film I really like. Thanks for the reminder.

But NO! I do not need to watch more 70s American Movies on TV there is too much US material on UK TV as it is. In my opinion TV should have a mix of programmes from a much wider selection of countries. I think it would make for more interesting viewing.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DNSB

It may or may not say something about my mind that I recognized the font.

Mind if I ask which version you settled on using? I think I used the Schueler's Enochian font as it was the boldest and cleanest looking -- the one's based on Dee's handwritten versions were overly clunky for my taste and the others were too light and I didn't feel like a round of font editing.

I've chosen Enochian font by Digital Type Foundry. I know it's probably the boldest font, but using a font editor, I can increase the weight so it won't be an issue.

http://www.fontspace.com/digital-type-foundry/enochian

Discworld books with Golems are...

Feet of Clay
Making Money
Going Postal

I hope I didn't leave any out.

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by Thasaidon

I had forgotten about "Airplane" a film I really like. Thanks for the reminder.

But NO! I do not need to watch more 70s American Movies on TV there is too much US material on UK TV as it is. In my opinion TV should have a mix of programmes from a much wider selection of countries. I think it would make for more interesting viewing.

Go to All 4 and watch the Walter presents stuff then, all European stuff I think.

[Thasaidon]

Originally Posted by MikeB1972

Go to All 4 and watch the Walter presents stuff then, all European stuff I think.

Thanks for the info. I will have a look the next time I am in the UK but quite frankly I prefer reading and Radio 4 to much that is on UK TV.

For those not familiar with Radio 4 in the UK it is a talk channel which airs talks, drama, comedy, current affairs, game shows, soap operas etc.