That Awful Between Books Feeling

[Sweetpea]

I usually have a few anthologies with short stories for those times when I have no idea what book I want to read next.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by issybird

I need to put some space in between books of a trilogy, say, or even books of an author; nothing is more calculated to kill my liking than reading one after another. At best, I get sick of it and that's if the author's tics and tricks don't become overwhelming. I'd rather be a little fuzzy on the details of what happened in an early book.

It usually takes me a few months (my record is something like 15 months) to get through an omnibus. This is mostly because I tend to take breaks between books.

I do break this rule on occasion. Power outage meant I got through two omnibuses (and multiple other books) in the span of three days.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by issybird

I need to put some space in between books of a trilogy, say, or even books of an author; nothing is more calculated to kill my liking than reading one after another.

I've shifted more toward this pov too. I bought nearly 30 Christopher Bush mysteries from Kobo, and have generally been reading just one at a time with other authors and genres in between, but recently read three of his in a row. I won't be doing that again. A change of genre and voice is essential, I've come to realise

[Desertway]

Yep. I'm a genre jumper too. There can be a monotony that comes from reading too many books of the same genre in a row, let alone books of the same series. One or two and then I'm ready for a shift in voice, tone, paradigm.

[ownedbycats]

Since I track my reading history in Calibre, it's fun to sort by the 'last-read' date and then look for patterns in the different genres/topics.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

I need to put some space in between books of a trilogy, say, or even books of an author; nothing is more calculated to kill my liking than reading one after another. At best, I get sick of it and that's if the author's tics and tricks don't become overwhelming. I'd rather be a little fuzzy on the details of what happened in an early book.

I seem to be more this way than I was. It used to be that I'd find comfort in settling into the author's voice and would be happy to settle there for as long as it lasted ... and mostly this remains true for old favourites, but for some reason is less true for more recent reads.

[ZodWallop]

Originally Posted by issybird

I need to put some space in between books of a trilogy, say, or even books of an author; nothing is more calculated to kill my liking than reading one after another. At best, I get sick of it and that's if the author's tics and tricks don't become overwhelming. I'd rather be a little fuzzy on the details of what happened in an early book.

I've had a hard time reading series because of this. What finally worked for me was to read one book a month by an author or in a series. For me, a month is a short enough time I don't forget the details, but long enough for me to have read other things in between.