@QuadQueen haha well said! A journalism and authorial acronym is also apt - MEGO, My Eyes Glaze Over. Whether because of my own or someone else’s, if MEGO when reading, writing, or editing, I know something about the writing ain’t working.
Precisely! Have you always felt that way about reading, or is it a realization you’ve developed? For myself, aging helped me acquire the willingness to abandon boring books, whereas @Bagsy, who’s nearly a couple decades younger than me, has the opposite view. I’m a terribly slow reader though, which is a compounding variable.
I’ve been following a policy of alternating by reading a “worthy” book and then a guilty pleasure type book.
My last worthy book was The God Of Small Things by Arundhati Roy - won all sorts of awards, major critical acclaim. It was beautifully written, but I hated it, it was just so unrelentingly dreary and I hated all the characters in it.
Now reading Chasing The Dime by Michael Connelly (he wrote The Lincoln Lawyer) and loving it.
I think it’s weird how often the “great literature” type books turn out to be a chore to read. Are the critics just pretentious?
@TriednTrue It is totally an age thing! I’m 42 and my tolerance of everything from bu!!$h!t to bad books has gotten much lower. Lol. I’m a relatively fast reader but I’ve really gravitated toward audiobooks for past few years. I “read” while making dinner, cleaning, etc. - multi-tasking at it’s best! I still like “books with pages” but if that was my only reading, I feel like I’d miss out on a lot of really good stuff due to lack of time. So, it’s all about FOMO over here.
Almost finished with Hot Metal by S.I. Soper
What a ride! I am going to be sad when it’s over it is listed as a western story but Wow!
(Free with audible plus membership)
I’m with you there. When I was younger I read tons of books I thought I ‘should’ read. Now though; nope. I’m too old to waste time with that.
Maybe you were too old. I loved Anne Rice books when I was in my 20s. I tried to go back to her in my 50s. No go. It all seemed like dreck. It was a disappointment because I really had enjoyed them.
I don’t know if I watched the movie but the biography covered it. Santini was a representation of Conroy’s father. Apparently his actual father was not offended by the less than kind depiction of himself and would hang out on the movie set and lap up the attention.
The book reminded me of our house growing up to a degree. We were a military family and my father would be away quite a bit. You always knew when he was home because he had the ability to suck the oxygen out of the house. Everyone was always acutely aware of his presence like we were hyper alert. He wasn’t abusive like Santini but the affect of his personality was similar.
I’ll pop in to recommend a blog I recently found to any fans of JRR Tolkien, George RR Martin or Frank Herbert who are also fans of history. The author of the blog has some really interesting analysis of these three writers’ works. Have you ever wondered about the logistical plausibility of Sauron’s orc armies? Wonder no more.
I particularly like how he shits all over George RR Martin’s rather preposterous claim that his fiction is somehow grounded in any sort of historical fact. I enjoyed Martin’s whole series of books, but reading this blog was so much fun for me. He tears into the show even harder, all from the perspective of a history professor.
If you’re a person who believes that George RR Martin “got medieval right”, you may not want to poke around this blog unless you’re ready to dispense with that notion. Just click on the tags for the books I mentioned to get to those specific (and rather detailed) essays.
Okay read for some information. The author at least cites all the studies she references. Biggest gripe is that the meal plans in this book are designed for 1400 calories a day. Definitely not suitable for most on this site.
Can’t recommend purchase.
“Unmitigated pedantry” is an excellent description of why the Dune series was the first series of books that I had ever been unable to finish due to “je ne sais quoi”; now I know how to describe the figurative wall that loomed over the Dune series. Lol.
It took me a long time to finish the series, and I didn’t care for much after God Emperor. It definitely got pedantic at times.
This blog’s author, Brett Deveraux, is a much more dedicated pedant than Frank Herbert ever was.
Edit: Just to be clear, this guy is putting out S-Tier level pedantry. I actually found his Tolkien series remarkably informative and entertaining and put LOTR back on my list to re-read for probably the sixth time, but for the first time in over two decades. Aside from reading it with this insufferably detailed pedant’s thoughts now infecting my understanding of Tolkien, I think it will be interesting to read my all-time favorite books again as a mature adult.
This is the first part of a six-part (II, III, IV, V, VI) series I expect to roll out taking a historian’s look at the Siege of Gondor in Peter Jackson’s Return of the King . We’re going to discuss how historically plausible the sequence of events is and, in the process, talk a fair bit about how pre-gunpowder siege warfare works. As with other Collections posts, this series will come out one-per-week, on Friday, until it’s done. This is, after all, a very long and involved sequence and there is a lot of context to work in.
Just starting Tactical Barbell V2 Conditioning, not sure I’m ready to drop my training routine and jump into it as don’t feel the need to bring my aerobic system to the level of conditioning the book advocates
I just finished Hour of the Witch by Chris Bohjalian. I am not usually into historical fiction, but this one was so good! Full disclosure: I really like this author.
I’m starting The Family Plot by Megan Collins next.
The content is great . They discuss how economics/behavioural science applies to a lot of personal and social issues. However the writing is really weird. Strange third person references.
I still highly recommend it though, and not just bc one of the authors is who I want to work for/with in grad school
it is listed as a western story but Wow!
