Nature Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 In anticipation of Jean Auel’s new book coming out in March, I’m reading her previous one, Shelters of Stone, but I’m having trouble getting through it. Even after reading 250 pages, not much is happening. It’s such a long book and I have about 500 pages to go. Why do I feel obligated to finish a book . . . even if I’m not enjoying it? Will I miss much if I skip to the end? Will someone give me permission NOT to finish this one so I can go to the next book on my reading list? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizzie in Ma Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Nope, life is to short and there are too many books I will enjoy. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Read the wikipedia summary instead, if you want to read the next one in the series :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam L in Mid Tenn Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 No. I give every book a good try, but if I'm not interested by a quarter through, I'll give it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cindy in FL. Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 True confessions here. If I am not sure I like or want to finish a book I'll flip to the end. If I like the ending then I'll persevere. Sad, but true. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teachin'Mine Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 You have my permission. If I didn't like it, I'd never have made it through 250 pages. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 (edited) Not any more. The first book I skipped a long section in was Galt's radio broadcast in Atlas Shrugged (I read the book for enjoyment). I skipped pages and pages in one of Auel's books--it was the one where the protagonist (can't remember her name after all these years) and her love/dh (were they married? can't remember if they were) were travelling from the mammoth hunters to where his people were. Those long winded descriptions of the countryside were soooooo boring. In one of her books I got tired of all the s*x and skipped a lot of that (not into reading about it). I also got tired of all the shamanism in the last book. I liked the first two books the best, the third after that. If she spends too much time on things I get tired of, I'll probably just read the ending. All I want is for them to be together and have a family. I used to read entire books and finish whatever I started (without peeking ahead) which is why I read all of The Grapes of Wrath and Lord of the Flies in high school even though they weren't assigned. So, read the summary and/or read the ending. I was disappointed with Shelters of Stone as well, although I read the whole thing (at least, I think I did, but I may have skipped parts.) Edited February 25, 2011 by Karin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 (edited) Yup. I skip bits, too. And I love rereading books or pieces of books. I'm not a very sequential person GRIN. Edited February 25, 2011 by Nan in Mass Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AngieW in Texas Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 Absolutely not. I've even abandoned books 3/4 of the way through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted February 25, 2011 Share Posted February 25, 2011 I always have in the past. I guess I felt that I needed to give the author a fair shake, read to the end, and then formulate my opinion. Now I am struggling. I have been wading, and when I say "wading" I mean wearing the intellectual equivalent of fisherman's waders and slogging through a swamp with multiple quicksand traps, slogging inch by inch through a biography of Hans Christian Andersen. It's the worst literary disaster I have ever personally encountered. I have been trying to convince myself of three things: a. It's been translated from Danish and so the sentence structure and presentation are obviously going to be unplain to my English speaking self and b. That if I were European and used to scads of literature translated from one language to another, acceptable and popular writing styles varying from country to country that c. I would find this book interesting, informative, and possibly quite enjoyable as I would be conditioned to such reading. (Though, since I've enjoyed everything I've read that was translated from Latin, Greek, and French...maybe this is not the cae.) Despite torturing myself, I am not able to convince myself of any of these things. I want to burn the book; literally, go sit inside our boiler shed with the door to the furnace open and toss that book inside. It would give me great satisfaction to roast a chicken over this book. On top of this, it seems to my English speaking self, that if H.C. Andersen were still alive, the author of this tome (I am not use "tome" lightly - I could use this thing as an effective doorstop), would be stalking Andersen in the hope of striking up a torrid love affair. Sometimes, when I am done reading, I feel like I need a shower! So, yeah....for the first time I can remember, I am considering NOT finishing this thing. I paid a rather largish sum of money for it on ebay, but I won't try to resell it on the principle of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you! Faith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
imeverywoman Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Nope. Life is too short to be wasted reading a book I don't enjoy. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravin Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Okay, I'm all excited and happy about the new book. I read Shelters of Stone when I was hiding out in Barnes & Noble while pg with DD because we were in walking distance of the mall, broke, and had horrid A/C in our apartment. I read Clan of the Cave Bear when I was 13. It was one of the first things that fueled my interest in anthropology (which I have a degree in now). But to answer the question...yes. I'll wander away from a book or just quit it altogether if I get bored. Sometimes I'll come back to it, but often not. The last one I stopped reading mid-book was the 3rd or 4th in a fantasy series. The name escapes me, but I started reading the series because the read was better than the TV show. Except it just goes on and on...I got bored. I might go back to it. Probably the worst book I ever started reading was The Beach. I stopped it mid-book...couldn't sit through the whole movie, either! Blech. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicole M Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Is this a trick question? Often I don't even finish the books I do enjoy. I agree with kiana: Read the wikipedia summary instead, if you want to read the next one in the series :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moira in MA Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Nancy Pearl, author of of Book Lust series, has a great system for judging when you should abandon a book you're not enjoying but think you ought to read. It operates on the premise that starting a book is not a commitment to read it -- at that point you're just 'window shopping', you commit later. Nancy Pearl's rule of fifty: if you're fifty years old or younger, give every book 50 pages before you decide to commit to reading it, or give up. If you're over 50, subract your age from 100–the result is the number of pages your should read before deciding. She also adds that if you're over 80 you're entitled to judge a book by it's cover, since time is so short and there are so many books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mommyfaithe Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 In anticipation of Jean Auel’s new book coming out in March, I’m reading her previous one, Shelters of Stone, but I’m having trouble getting through it. Even after reading 250 pages, not much is happening. It’s such a long book and I have about 500 pages to go. Why do I feel obligated to finish a book . . . even if I’m not enjoying it? Will I miss much if I skip to the end? Will someone give me permission NOT to finish this one so I can go to the next book on my reading list? I say toss it....fling.....smile and move on. There are so many enjoyable books, no sense spending time on one you don't like unless you are using it for academic reasons. Faithe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nan in Mass Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MamaT Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 I always have in the past. I guess I felt that I needed to give the author a fair shake, read to the end, and then formulate my opinion. Now I am struggling. I have been wading, and when I say "wading" I mean wearing the intellectual equivalent of fisherman's waders and slogging through a swamp with multiple quicksand traps, slogging inch by inch through a biography of Hans Christian Andersen. It's the worst literary disaster I have ever personally encountered. I have been trying to convince myself of three things: a. It's been translated from Danish and so the sentence structure and presentation are obviously going to be unplain to my English speaking self and b. That if I were European and used to scads of literature translated from one language to another, acceptable and popular writing styles varying from country to country that c. I would find this book interesting, informative, and possibly quite enjoyable as I would be conditioned to such reading. (Though, since I've enjoyed everything I've read that was translated from Latin, Greek, and French...maybe this is not the cae.) Despite torturing myself, I am not able to convince myself of any of these things. I want to burn the book; literally, go sit inside our boiler shed with the door to the furnace open and toss that book inside. It would give me great satisfaction to roast a chicken over this book. On top of this, it seems to my English speaking self, that if H.C. Andersen were still alive, the author of this tome (I am not use "tome" lightly - I could use this thing as an effective doorstop), would be stalking Andersen in the hope of striking up a torrid love affair. Sometimes, when I am done reading, I feel like I need a shower! So, yeah....for the first time I can remember, I am considering NOT finishing this thing. I paid a rather largish sum of money for it on ebay, but I won't try to resell it on the principle of Do unto others as you would have them do unto you! Faith Oh my! I was planning on using Anderson, Grimm, and Perrault as our read-alouds next year. Kind of "read the real fairy-tale thing." I'm going to go get this off the shelf now and see if I need to nix it. To answer the OP's question, I have always finished books I start in the past (a little OCD about it), not so much any more. Life is too short. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Storm Bay Posted February 26, 2011 Share Posted February 26, 2011 Nancy Pearl, author of of Book Lust series, has a great system for judging when you should abandon a book you're not enjoying but think you ought to read. It operates on the premise that starting a book is not a commitment to read it -- at that point you're just 'window shopping', you commit later. Nancy Pearl's rule of fifty: if you're fifty years old or younger, give every book 50 pages before you decide to commit to reading it, or give up. If you're over 50, subract your age from 100–the result is the number of pages your should read before deciding. She also adds that if you're over 80 you're entitled to judge a book by it's cover, since time is so short and there are so many books. :DOverall, I like this, however, sometimes books are better or worse than their covers, so my caveat is that one you're 80 or over you should also consider who has recommended the book to you and do you like their tastes in books? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted February 27, 2011 Share Posted February 27, 2011 Mamma T...Andersen's writings would be just fine. Many of his fairytales and poems are delightful. Go ahead and read those. It's just this modern author's biography of him that is going to make me go certifiably insane if I continue to read it! Faith Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.