Reader's Block

[StarOpal]

I have three books sitting in my 'To Read' pile that I just can't bring myself to read. I look at them, I'll pick them up, I'll even open them, but I can't bring myself to read them. See one is a book that I've had highly recommended to me, and the other two are the last in a series.

Every time I go to read them I get a pang of dread in my gut. What if my expectations are too high and they're not as good as I'm hoping for? Or, in the case of the series, the ending not live up to the rest and risk it spoiling the memory and enjoyment of the others?

So, out of curiosity:

Does anyone else ever have this problem?

Or do you ever get in a reading slump? What do you do to get out of it?

[Head Mutant]

Oh yeah. ohhhhhhh yeah.

I have about 10-12 books sitting around in various stages of being read, plus more that I haven't worked myself up enough to begin. My bookshelf at work is even worse.

[Spiderdancer]

I keep starting longish fiction books, getting bored, and drifting off. Recent Weber/Drake collaborations seem to be frequent culprits.

"As you know, Johann, the situation in the Baltic is - "

....six pages of political exposition that has NO PLACE IN THE FRIGGING SCENE because the characters both know it already. This is in the alternate universe stuff, mind you. The sci fi has that PLUS weapons exposition. Why do I start on them at all? Drake/Weber/Flint/Ringo used to write fantastic battle scenes. Sometimes they still do. It's just not worth the sheer weight of words you have to plow through to get to them now.

Some day I will invent a weapon that tracks down professional writers and fires anti- AsYouKnowBob missiles.

[sarahbot]

Exactly! I'm reading I, Robot right now, and there's actually a point where a character says something like, "You and I both know all this, but I'm just going to talk this all through." Whereupon he recites history. It's just so very fake, and I expected better from Asimov, who is talked up as one of the greatest writers in the genre.

staropal said:

Every time I go to read them I get a pang of dread in my gut. What if my expectations are too high and they're not as good as I'm hoping for? Or, in the case of the series, the ending not live up to the rest and risk it spoiling the memory and enjoyment of the others?

I get this a lot around the latest Pratchetts. They're all so good, but his tone has definitely changed over the years.

[Spiderdancer]

Personally, I've found Asimov to be overrated, but then I never even got through the first of the Foundation books. (I read all the Robot novels once or twice.)

[StarOpal]

Well, I've come up with a plan of attack. Instead of trying to start these books I have the hang ups on, for right now I'm finishing books I started but never finished.

After a year and a half of sitting with a bookmark in it I finally finished Jane Austen's Emma. Only to find out that if, originally, I would have stuck it out a few more pages the story picks ups with a strong finish (if you like that type of book, of course). Now I'm in a book on Shakespeare that I made the mistake of burning myself out on before.

I figure either Thanksgiving break or Christmas break I'm going to tackle at least one of the dreaded books. I will finish one of them before the year is out.

[eatmyshorts]

Nice thread!!!!

This happens ALL the time with me (happens to me even more with video games). After seeing the movie I can't bring myslef to keep reading IT, because I already know the ending. I also can't bring myself to finish "The Goblet of Fire" for that same reason. I actually made the wise decision of reading Mystic River BEFORE seeing the movie, which was a wise, wise choice, and I NEVER had writer's block while reading that extremely great book.

[StarOpal]

See, I'm mostly the exact opposite. I watch a movie based off a book, and if I liked the movie, or a particular idea in the story of the movie I'll check out the book. It may be cheating, but there's quite a few books I wouldn't have looked at otherwise. (Like Diana Wynne Jones' Howl's Moving Castle)

I've always functioned under the idea that 99... maybe 98% of the time the book is better than the movie. Usually an ending being spoiled doesn't bother me either.

[Spiderdancer]

I dunno. There are certainly enough not-particularly-well-written books that get made into movies, mostly because they're that type of book that basically is written for the purpose of becoming a screenplay. Michael Crichton and so on.

[sarahbot]

I recently read "Thank You For Smoking", and that's one of the few cases where the movie was better. The movie was just so very very good, while I found the book only so-so.

[StarOpal]

I'm just lucky I guess?