Abandoned Books
by Zia ~ January 5th, 2007. Filed under: Books.There are a lot of them; let’s see what I can remember…
Black Swan Green, David Mitchell
Should I retry this one? I only got a few pages in, and am not sure whether it was my mood or the book that made me put it down. I haven’t gotten around to reading Cloud Atlas yet, but I did read his other novel (whose title I can’t remember) a couple years ago and thought it was great.
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Susanna Clarke
I tried. Three times. Each time, I got a little farther in. It was magical, it was well-written, and it failed to sustain my interest. I really want to love this book, but just can’t make myself read it.
Garner, Kirsten Allio
The writing was beautiful, but almost painfully self-conscious. It tired me.
The Bird Artist, Howard Noman
I just put this down and never picked it back up again. Don’t really know why.
Salthill, Judith Barnes
This was just awful.
Through a Glass Darkly, Karleen Koen
This was beyond awful.
The Lady and the Monk, Pico Iyer
It’s time to come to terms with the fact that I just don’t like Pico Iyer. This is the fourth book of his I’ve tried to read.
The Translator, Leila Aboulela
Not a completely lost cause, but I started it last night and it’s overdue. Is it worth paying 50 cents in fines? Probably. Am I going to chance it? Probably not.
January 5th, 2007 at 8:30 am
You know, I don’t know why, I don’t know anything about him or his books, but I get bored just hearing the name “David Mitchell.” What is that?
January 5th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Hark! I hear a new term being coined…
Blogflog: When something is repeated so often on the blogs that it becomes boring and tiresome.
“The blogflogging of David Mitchell makes me completely uninterested in reading his novels.”
Is that it? Or is it just that he has a really boring name?
January 5th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I’ve the same experience with Jonathan Strange. I want to like it, I really do, but my interest dwindles. I hate abandoning books, I really do, so one day when I’m through my TBR pil and I’m really, really desperate, I’ll give it another go …
January 5th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
That would be TBR “pile”. Really really.
January 5th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
Zia!
That is awesome…just AWESOME. Not only do I love the term “blogflog” (let’s all use it as much as we can) but that’s just exactly the problem. Maybe in a few years I’ll be able to look at his books again.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Charlotte, I like the TBR pil … I imagine it as an innocent-looking pink capsule that really contains speed!
Nonanon, He\\\’s blogflogged to death.
There are so many other things to read by people with much more interesting names.
Apparently, someone else got to our word first:
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=blogflog
January 5th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
I like that word. Blogflog. Only wish I could take credit for coining it.
Great idea for a list. May I steal? I pick up and drop books like knit-stitches all the time.
January 5th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Hi LK,
Steal away … I did.
(Having a hard time not putting in exclamation points.)
January 10th, 2007 at 9:10 pm
I had the same thing happen with Jonathan Strange- every hundred pages or so I’d just get tired. I ended up reading other books in between and coming back to it again and again- reading it in phases.
But it’s SO SO worth making it to the end. It really is. Her new book is really good too. (And way way shorter!)
January 11th, 2007 at 5:27 am
Maryanne,
Well, I won’t throw it in the trash heap then! Seriously, thanks for the encouragement. I’ve been vaguely worrying about my dilettantish reading habits — very high litbloggish standards — and was wondering if the inability to sustain interest in Strange and Norrell was a severe personal failing. Plus, I know so many people who just adored it. So I’ll plug back into at some point …