Books I am currently failing to read

[truepenny]

Ian Fleming, From Russia, With Love.
Rosemary Kirstein, The Steerswoman.
Erik Larson, The Devil in the White City.
Mitch Cullin, A Slight Trick of the Mind.
Judith Berman, Bear Daughter.
Tobias S. Buckell, Crystal Rain.
Gene Nora Jessen, The Powder Puff Derby of 1929.
Ann Braude, Radical Spirits.
Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind.
René Girard, Violence and the Sacred
Kelly Link, Magic for Beginners.
Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Identity.
Rosalind Coward, Female Desires.

(And this, mind you, is merely the list of books I have started and abandoned. We're not even talking about the books I own but have never so much as opened.)

What am I actually reading? Death Shall Overcome. For at least the tenth time.

Comments

[ashkta.livejournal.com]

Ah, The Devil in the White City. I really enjoyed that book. I had a start/stop pattern with it, too, until I finally hit a point where I didn't want to stop reading it. But once I did, I blew through it no problem. We actually had an impromptu discussion about H. H. Holmes today at work, so I was pretty excited to remember everything I learned about him in The Devil in the White City. :)

[oneminutemonkey.livejournal.com]

I read the first 50 pages or so of Name of the Wind, and then got distracted for a while. Came back, started it all over again and blazed through it in a few days. Not a bad book at all, once you get into it. Of course, there are those who would argue against it for the very reason that you have a lengthy buildup before the story suddenly reinvents itself as an origin tale...

Nevertheless, I liked it a lot once I got in the mood.
Can't speak for any of the others, though I'm supposed to read Toby Buckell's book.
To my shame, I have yet to start any of yours, even though they sit and glare at me from the backlog stack. :(

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Have you read Anthony Price? He is The Best. I have tried reading Ludlum and Fleming and LeCarre to try to make up for not having any new Anthony Price ever again. It did not work. The only thing that sort of worked was Mike Ford's Price homage.

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

There's an Anthony Price that should join that list of abandoned books, but I have forgotten the title.

I am having this problem (and have been having this problem for years) wherein I can't cope with new narrative. My best and most optimistic guess is that I'm using up my quota writing my own books and have nothing left over for other people's.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

timprov went through that for awhile, albeit likely not for identical reasons. It's frustrating. Hope it passes soon.

[rosebloodrain.livejournal.com]

I'm liking Name of the Wind so far. Haven't read the others you mentioned though. Got tons of books I need to read. I'm, reading The Harlequin by Hamilton...Diamond by Hart a short bio on the Debeers company, and eeking my way through the 5th Harry Potter.

Ludlum......???

[selkith.livejournal.com]

My fiance says that he has tried to read that book at least three times, and he is a big fan of that sort of fiction.. he still has not gotten through. When I read your book list out loud for amusement sake, his statement was "Watch the movie, forget about the book. The movie is far better." LOL,I am merely quoting him.

Patrick Rothfuss and Kelly Link

[muneraven.livejournal.com]

Rothfuss: He kind of fuddles around for the first 80 or so pages of the book but then it gets much better. I like what he tried to do with the framing of the story but somehow it didn't work for me (despite some nice snetence-level writing). Once I got past the early framing bit, the book was with me until I finished it.

Link: I think you have to be in a certain emotional and mental space to read Kelly Link. I love her stuff, but I let it sit until I feel the urge. That nightmarish-toned, non-linear fiction doesn't work for me when I want to impose sense on a story, which is a good deal of the time. But sometimes her work (and the work of others who write like her) is just exactly what I want to read. Hopefully for you, too. Her story "Monster" is one of the scariest creepiest things I have ever read.

However ... Isn't it nice to be able to put a book down and read whatever you want? I loved grad school and being introduced to new books all the time but, damn, I sure like being able to consume whatever strikes my fancy from a pile of books I chose myself.

Okay, I actually choose from MANY piles of books. Our philosophy is that books don't count as part of the budget. :-P

[fiction-theory.livejournal.com]

Is your reading of Girard voluntary or is there a reason behind it?

Because Girard gave me migraines and narcolepsy at the same time. Narcoleptic migraines, I tell you.

There's a darn good reason you're failing to finish that book. I only finished it because the professor who assigned it to me was my favorite and I couldn't bear to break his heart with the TL;DR look that all professors know and hate.

I don't know what Girard is doing for you, but it didn't bring anything to the table for me and if I'd had the choice, I'd have spent more time on texts that actually did do something for my education. Or at least were more entertaining.