Getting over the hump
Wednesday, February 29th, 2012 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
caddymanI think I may have over reached my reading ambitions.
I have just read the first two Shardlake books, “Dissolution” and “Dark Fire” back to back and enjoyed them – particularly the second, which clips along at a rather faster pace than the first. Now I have launched into the third, “Sovereign” and about three chapters in I find myself slowing down. The book isn’t written badly or anything, I think I may just need a break from morose hunchback detectives1.
Prior to this series, I have been churning through history books and before that I tried to read “The Forsyte Saga”, but it appears to be one of those strange books that is entertaining while it is in front of you, but which does not call you to pick it up again.
I think I may not read anything at all beyond the odd website and newspapers for a couple of days in the hope that my enthusiasm rekindles2. Or I could plough on regardless, though this has the pitfall sometimes of coaxing the stubborn bit or my brain – the monkey bit at the base - to start resenting the book. I know there’s no logic to that, but hey, that’s a monkey stem response for you.
I worry about this largely because I have all five Shardlakes on my Kindle and after I’ve finished them I have the full current run of George RR Martin’s “Game of Thrones” sequence waiting. If my literary stamina is at a low ebb, this does not bode well. And there are other books sitting on the device, too, awaiting my attention.
I never used to have this problem; I would just devour books – occasionally I would find something I couldn’t be bothered with and I’d ditch it part read, but by and large, I’d just go through them. The acquisition of my Kindle got me out of a reading slump (me and books on crowded trains are not a happy combination, so my reading tailed off), but it seems that I may be heading for another one.
My fiction reading buds are atrophying! Help meeeee!!!
1I never thought I’d write a sentence like that.
2Pun or no, as I am reading all these on a Kindle, it is the mot juste.
I have just read the first two Shardlake books, “Dissolution” and “Dark Fire” back to back and enjoyed them – particularly the second, which clips along at a rather faster pace than the first. Now I have launched into the third, “Sovereign” and about three chapters in I find myself slowing down. The book isn’t written badly or anything, I think I may just need a break from morose hunchback detectives1.
Prior to this series, I have been churning through history books and before that I tried to read “The Forsyte Saga”, but it appears to be one of those strange books that is entertaining while it is in front of you, but which does not call you to pick it up again.
I think I may not read anything at all beyond the odd website and newspapers for a couple of days in the hope that my enthusiasm rekindles2. Or I could plough on regardless, though this has the pitfall sometimes of coaxing the stubborn bit or my brain – the monkey bit at the base - to start resenting the book. I know there’s no logic to that, but hey, that’s a monkey stem response for you.
I worry about this largely because I have all five Shardlakes on my Kindle and after I’ve finished them I have the full current run of George RR Martin’s “Game of Thrones” sequence waiting. If my literary stamina is at a low ebb, this does not bode well. And there are other books sitting on the device, too, awaiting my attention.
I never used to have this problem; I would just devour books – occasionally I would find something I couldn’t be bothered with and I’d ditch it part read, but by and large, I’d just go through them. The acquisition of my Kindle got me out of a reading slump (me and books on crowded trains are not a happy combination, so my reading tailed off), but it seems that I may be heading for another one.
My fiction reading buds are atrophying! Help meeeee!!!
1I never thought I’d write a sentence like that.
2Pun or no, as I am reading all these on a Kindle, it is the mot juste.
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(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-01 10:50 pm (UTC)I drift between urban fantasy and then classics at the moment and also between paperbacks and kindle as I've got stack of them that simply must be read and passed on before I can read the kindle full time.
I got out of the reading habit a few years ago and it took a conscious decision on my part, some targets and an introduction into the murky world of urban fantasy for the habit to form again. I make time most days to read and when I get stuck, like I did reading the Crimson Petal and the White, there's no problem in taking a break from it and then picking up something fun.
(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-29 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-29 04:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-02-29 07:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2012-03-06 07:22 pm (UTC)What sort of thing are you after?
If you want a more solid read, there's Alan Furst - espionage novels mostly set in the 1930s with Eastern/Central European characters - a bit like le Carre, but not as clinical.
Something a bit dafter - Moriarty: The Hound of the d'Urbervilles - Kim Newman giving new dimensions to Col. Moran