Vampires got clowned. If one of their own didn't break up the rave, it would have been close. You can't let the human get away AND have Wesley Snipes beat you all down at your own party.
When Mrs. Overclock (etc.) completed Stephenson's ANATHEM she remarked "It picks up around page 250." That was almost enough for me to decline to read it (which I still haven't). Then she added "I'm voting for it for the Best Novel Hugo this year."
I don't think I've ever quit a book. I've hoped it was going to imporve, I've thrown it across the room when I was done with it, but I've never quit. Maybe that's why I still watch "Heroes."
I have only given up on one book in my life, and that was The Day My Butt Went Psycho. I made it approximately 100 pages in over the course of a night, and threw it across the room when the pain became unbearable.
@ggodo, the man from R.O.A.C.H.: Based on the title alone, I must now read this book. Just to be able to tell others I'm reading "The Day My Butt Went Psycho".
Some of my favorite books, I stalled out on the first time through. Gene Wolfe, in particular, seems to want a running start, but he's not alone.
I suppose my test is: if I put a book down while I'm reading it, and feel no desire to revisit the story after whatever period of absence, then I simply don't. Not like I don't have a million or so other books on my to-read list.
I use to give books a lot longer to get going than I do now, but I finally had to stop. There are too many good books and movies in the world that will really move me and I'll enjoy immensely for me to spend time with ones I just don't like that much.
Not to mention how much time professors think I should be spending reading the books THEY like and watching the movies THEY love that about 60% of the time I don't like at all but have to watch.
That said, I rarely give up on things entirely. I start flipping, usually I check out the very last pages and if that gives me something I'm curious about I go back and skim/skip around to get the gist of the book and it's plot. I always want to know the plots and how things turn out, I just don't always want to spend my time with it. There's been more than a dozen cases where I realize while skipping around that I do actually like the book, and I go back to the first point where I stopped and read it through properly.
@Mary Ratliff: What you said about professors made me laugh. As a former professor, I assigned a lot of books and movies to my students which I didn't particularly like, but considered important or interesting examples of a genre/historical period/social issue. You'd be surprised how many of your profs are like, "Ugh, I have to teach this shitty book again."
@Annalee Newitz: I actually had a teacher who said "I hate this book. But it is required and has some information in. Some where." And then I had a teacher assign his own book and the book store would not buy it back. Students hated that book so much, there were yearly book burning parties for that book.
@Annalee Newitz: *laugh* I'll have to keep that in mind. I do have one professor who was going to make us watch Birth of a Nation and relented at the last minute because it's just too long, too racist, and we can talk about why it's important in fifteen minutes instead of the three hour runtime.
My sister teaches high school, and sometimes she'll call me to complain about the films she shows her kids because she can't find anything better to illustrate the thing she has to teach them.
It's usually not until I hit the 100 page-or-so mark that I toss a sucky book. But in truth, the few books I thought were sucky enough to toss were best sellers so I kept hoping at some point that I'd be pulled in.
The book that pissed me off more than anything else? Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West I picked this up while waiting to take the Auto Train down to FL, after I'd heard how great it was. While sitting at the station reading it a woman came up and told me how much she loved it, too. I was so bored to tears after 120 pages that I just sighed, walked over to a garbage bin and tossed the book. Utter waste of a couple of hours.
@J_Frank_Parnell: That's one of the books where I started skipping around, and I can't say I ever felt guilty about it. I don't see the draw in the slightest.
I am a bit of a bibliophile. I will finish a book no matter how painful it is. The trick to reading bad books is read two books at once. Read five pages from a good book, then five from the bad book.
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Look, I'm going to purchase a very fast automobile and date an exotic dancer as irrefutable evidence of that fact.
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Interesting woman, my wife.
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I suppose my test is: if I put a book down while I'm reading it, and feel no desire to revisit the story after whatever period of absence, then I simply don't. Not like I don't have a million or so other books on my to-read list.
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Not to mention how much time professors think I should be spending reading the books THEY like and watching the movies THEY love that about 60% of the time I don't like at all but have to watch.
That said, I rarely give up on things entirely. I start flipping, usually I check out the very last pages and if that gives me something I'm curious about I go back and skim/skip around to get the gist of the book and it's plot. I always want to know the plots and how things turn out, I just don't always want to spend my time with it. There's been more than a dozen cases where I realize while skipping around that I do actually like the book, and I go back to the first point where I stopped and read it through properly.
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My sister teaches high school, and sometimes she'll call me to complain about the films she shows her kids because she can't find anything better to illustrate the thing she has to teach them.
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The book that pissed me off more than anything else? Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West I picked this up while waiting to take the Auto Train down to FL, after I'd heard how great it was. While sitting at the station reading it a woman came up and told me how much she loved it, too. I was so bored to tears after 120 pages that I just sighed, walked over to a garbage bin and tossed the book. Utter waste of a couple of hours.
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