What do you do if you are reading a really crap book ?

[xane]

So you buy a book because its been recommended, or you like the cover blurb, or it was foisted on you by the reading circle, and you start reading it and discover it is basically crap.

Do you persevere until the bitter end, or bin it and spend the rest of your life wondering if it got any better ?

I've binned a few in my time, can't say I ever care.

 

[~Lazarus~]

Depends.

If I have nothing else to read, then I may persevere - only until I get something else, then I stop reading.

 

[leggy]

I had this problem recently with David Gemmel. After starting the 4th Drenai book I realised they are all the fucking same and written in a child's english for children. I finished it none the less and promised myself I wouldn't read another of his books.

Usually I persevere but I have occasionally binned them and haven't looked back.

 

[dysfunction]

Put on the very top shelf and play a computer game

 

[Wij]

The Silmarillion (or whatever) shall never be re-opened...

 

[leggy]

Originally posted by dysfunction
Put on the very top shelf and play a computer game

hurrah for ejucayshon

 

[xane]

Originally posted by Wij
The Silmarillion (or whatever) shall never be re-opened...

I first read LotR when I was around 11, I never completed it, or on the second attempt, finally managed to read it by around 15 when I was into D&D stuff.

Then I got Simarillion ...

 

[Meatballs]

I dont know if I could actually tell what a bad book is. I guess ones that I have to force myself to read. But sometimes Im just not in a very ready mood when I recieve a book, and othertimes I'll stay in bed for days reading through lots.

 

[Gumbo]

I always have 3 or 4 books on the go, and inevitably one of them is bad/hard work. The current one in that category is a 50's translation of Homers Illiad. It's a real toughie and i've been reading it for 18 months or so now, but I don't like to totally give up on them.

 

[doh_boy]

For me, if the worst comes to the worst, I read a book I enjoy thats easy to read. Harry potter books are my favourite but most fantasy books will do usually. Discworld books are good for starting and not finishing because I've read them enough times

 

[Testin da Cable]

been going through my bookshelves binning stuff I've -either read to bits (with a note to get a new copy) -or haven't read in ages (a sure sign that I find them terminally dull). made me a bit sad though, I suddenly have lots of shelf room

 

[Munkey-]

It depends. Some books i'll perservere with right to the end, others i'll get near the end and then put it away and dont read it for a year before starting it again.

Do have to agree the Simillarian was very crap imo.

 

[Hot Soup]

Well bearing in mind the silmarillion is a collection of bits and bobs apart from annything else and was "compiled" by christopher tolkien from all the gubbins that JRR had written for what he wanted to be in the silmarillion.

But the way the stuff was put togther was by Christopher tolkien after his fathers death. Frankly nearly all the stuff put together or edited by him is turgid stuff and the silmarillion we have today is not really what we would have had , had JRR not popped his clogs.


Look on it more as a collection of short histories of the time before LOTR and the chronicles of the war with Morgoth ( Sauron's Boss ) and it has some pretty good stuff.


</ramble>

 

[Rulke-RM]

You have to bear with the Silmarillion for a while, the start is a bit slow and definently on the strange side. Some of the later stuff is top notch though, the Lay of Luthien amongst others, and it helps fill you in on the background to LotR. Also helps if you have a map or companion book so you know where/who the hell he's talking about

 

[dysfunction]

Originally posted by leggy
hurrah for ejucayshon

"The only skills I have the patience to learn are those that have no real application in life"

 

[throdgrain]

I thought the Silarillion was ok, particularly if , as has been said, its viewed as a colelction of short stories.
Mostly people who say its crap never got out of the first (admittedly onorous) first couple of chapters.
My wife recently bought me a book, it had won a prize or something, although she bought it because it had a picture of a ship on it, and so thought it was about ships, and knowing my reading of Patrick Obrian books thought I would like it.
It was actually some old bollocks about a bloke who thought he'd discovered a long forgotton painting by some misrable belgian painter who's name escapes me, and his attempts to aquire the painting.
How this load of cack won any prize beats me, I actually stopped reading it half way through, something I hardly ever do.

 

[leggy]

T H E___S I L M A R I L L I O N

that should sort the shit spelling out.

 

[Tenko]

If I dont like a book I'll put it back on the shelf and may try it again a year or two later.

Some books I've read all the way through to say, "and?...." which I'll never read again.

Oh and Captain Corelli's Manda-fuckin-lin is a turgid piece of crap*











*i.e. No giant Killer Robots, lesbian sex, spaceships or Giant lesbian killer robot spaceships in it.

 

[Jonaldo]

Originally posted by Tenko
Oh and Captain Corelli's Manda-fuckin-lin is a turgid piece of crap*

*i.e. No giant Killer Robots, lesbian sex, spaceships or Giant lesbian killer robot spaceships in it.

They're in the sequel - Captain Corellis Mandolin ReStrung

 

[Tenko]

Originally posted by Jonaldo
They're in the sequel - Captain Corellis Mandolin ReStrung

ROFL

 

[dysfunction]

Originally posted by Tenko
Oh and Captain Corelli's Manda-fuckin-lin is a turgid piece of crap*

*i.e. No giant Killer Robots, lesbian sex, spaceships or Giant lesbian killer robot spaceships in it.

The book was good bloody hell!!

It was the movie was shite...

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I never finished The Lord of the Rings. I can't remember how old I was when I tried, but too young certainly. I had read and re-read the Hobbit, and loved it, but found LoTR too hard going. I have never felt the need to go back to it.

Having said that, in my adult reading life I have very rarely not finished a book, however bad.

For instance I am probably the only member of these forums to have read the whole of 'Oscar and Lucinda' by Peter Cary. I enjoyed 'Bliss', but O'n'L was the most boring thing I have ever read, ever, Booker shortlisted or not!

I went through a phase of reading books because I felt I ought to, instead of because I thought I'd enjoy them. Now I do the opposite, and probably read more lightweight crap now, but fuck it, at least I enjoy my reading now

RB