Paul Whybrow
Full Member
Some years ago, I decided that life was way too short to force myself to complete reading books that annoyed me or that failed to engage me.
I've previously commented that we, as authors read books in a different way to normal people
. I know that my radar is always 'on', looking for such things as how a book's sentences are punctuated, paragraph length, characterisation, plotting and descriptive technique. I've taken to keeping a notebook nearby, to jot down ideas sparked by the book I'm reading, that might be applied to my WIP or in future projects.
I'm a voracious reader consuming about four novels weekly, plus a couple of non-fiction works, which are often connected to my WIP. Praise be, that my local library is one mile away. The only novel I've force myself to finish recently, I've already torn apart in the Back Room forum. It was so bad, it could be used by a tutor of a crime writing course on how not to write a crime novel—and yet, it's sold a million copies!
There have been several novels where I started to lose the will to live halfway through, and I skip read the rest, wondering how they ever got published. These included Stef Penney's second novel The Invisible Ones, which was a tedious mess. I loved her debut The Tenderness of Wolves, and Under a Pole Star was one of the best novels I read in 2016.
I also skipped through the ending of the highly praised The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry, which I found overwritten, overplotted and altogether a muddy read.
The most unsettling novel I tried to read was Infinite Ground by Colin MacInnes, which was hard work for little reward, dealing with the nature of reality and how we perceive things, all couched in an existential way. I didn't finish it, thinking, at the time, that he'd somehow come up with an example of whatever the opposite of a gripping yarn would be called....
My murky secret for books not finished is Terry Pratchett! I enjoyed a couple of novels he wrote with Neil Gaiman, but I've never been able to get into the Discworld series. I like reading book series in order, and the opening story The Colour of Magic has twice failed to grip me. Several huge fans of his have said to me that the first book is not the best, so I'd welcome advice from any of you who are devotees about where to start. I adored the man, admiring his courageous stance against dementia and mourned his passing.
What books have you failed to finish?
Are there any authors whose appeal you simply don't understand?
I've previously commented that we, as authors read books in a different way to normal people
. I know that my radar is always 'on', looking for such things as how a book's sentences are punctuated, paragraph length, characterisation, plotting and descriptive technique. I've taken to keeping a notebook nearby, to jot down ideas sparked by the book I'm reading, that might be applied to my WIP or in future projects.I'm a voracious reader consuming about four novels weekly, plus a couple of non-fiction works, which are often connected to my WIP. Praise be, that my local library is one mile away. The only novel I've force myself to finish recently, I've already torn apart in the Back Room forum. It was so bad, it could be used by a tutor of a crime writing course on how not to write a crime novel—and yet, it's sold a million copies!
There have been several novels where I started to lose the will to live halfway through, and I skip read the rest, wondering how they ever got published. These included Stef Penney's second novel The Invisible Ones, which was a tedious mess. I loved her debut The Tenderness of Wolves, and Under a Pole Star was one of the best novels I read in 2016.
I also skipped through the ending of the highly praised The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry, which I found overwritten, overplotted and altogether a muddy read.
The most unsettling novel I tried to read was Infinite Ground by Colin MacInnes, which was hard work for little reward, dealing with the nature of reality and how we perceive things, all couched in an existential way. I didn't finish it, thinking, at the time, that he'd somehow come up with an example of whatever the opposite of a gripping yarn would be called....
My murky secret for books not finished is Terry Pratchett! I enjoyed a couple of novels he wrote with Neil Gaiman, but I've never been able to get into the Discworld series. I like reading book series in order, and the opening story The Colour of Magic has twice failed to grip me. Several huge fans of his have said to me that the first book is not the best, so I'd welcome advice from any of you who are devotees about where to start. I adored the man, admiring his courageous stance against dementia and mourned his passing.
What books have you failed to finish?
Are there any authors whose appeal you simply don't understand?
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