How do you decide what you are going to spend your time reading?

Right now I have Mark Twain’s autobiography on my nightstand.That,I chose for entertainment as I love his work.
Lately though,the books I have been reading are on glaze chemistry and clay techniques.Those I choose out of a necessity to know.:)

Most of the time, the books I have on my list (or in my stack) to read are wonderful books that I get into immediately and read all the way through. But I have had some, that sounded interesting that turned out to be so boring in the first chapter or two, that I made a conscious decision to stop reading that book and start a new one. I guess I always feel a little pang of guilt over it, but not for long. The books all end up getting traded or paid forward anyway.

So I guess my criteria is that if by the second chapter, the book has not captured my attention and imagination (for whatever reason) I just put that book in the “done” pile and grab a new book from the “to read” pile.

Right now I’m reading “The Honk and Holler Opening Soon” by Billie Letts. I was hooked from the first paragraph!

The book that I started right before that was called “The Guernsey Lierarary and Potato Peel Society” by Mary Ann Shaffer. I actually read 3 chapters, but it just didn’t capture my attention, so I’m done with it. And I usually love stories that are set in Britain during the WWII and before era that are about women and rural life and writing letters, but I just couldn’t get into that book. Just curious if anyone out there read this book?

Well, I’m reading Julie Andrews autobiography now…more interesting than you might think, so I’ll probably finish it.
I will not finish a book that doesn’t keep my interest. I have better things to do!

I have four patterns I follow, usually.

1. I buy a book because the cover looks cool and I read the whole thing in one sitting.

2. I fish a random book out of my giant (couple thousand) book collection and read parts of it, or the whole thing, depending on my interest. Sometimes, I just look at the pictures (I have a lot of art and design books, and historical picture books).

3. I read something because it is tradition for me to do so. (For example, I have read Stephen Chbosky’s Perks of Being a Wallflower once every Spring and Summer since I was a freshman in high school).

4. I read something because I have to. (i.e., for school. Sometimes I like this stuff. Sometimes I don’t).

Typically, I find myself reading more than one book simultaneously. Right now, I’m reading yet another biography of Theodore Roosevelt, a book about the Nazi rise to power in Europe, Youth in Revolt, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Oh yeah, and another book on Sufism.

I am just drawn to it, like a moth to a light bulb.

Most of what I read lately is biography, so I will find out about a person, and then read everything I can get my hands on about them. At the moment, that person is Camille Claudel.

It is intensely hard to find fiction I like lately, so I have more or less gone back to the classics, like The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, and Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger. Most modern authors have failed to interest me, with the exceptions of Tom Robbins and Kurt Vonnegut. I am presently looking desperately for women authors of fiction I might like.

If I don’t like a book halfway through it, I will throw it down in disgust and clench my fist, raising it and shaking it to the heavens.

@ladymia69 one of the best books I’ve read in the last 4 years is one titled, Lullabies For Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill. I think she’ll be an author to watch for.

I am currently reading Eleven Minutes by Paulo Coelho.
It’s great.

I always read one a book a time and when I finish it thats when I look for something else.

@Dutchess_III I love Julie Andrews! Let me know if you would recommend her biography when you are done. One of my favorite books from childhood is a book written by Julie Andrews, or Julie Edwards as she is listed on the book, called Mandy. Any grown woman who has idealized romantic notions about a young orphan girl in England will love this book. I’ve probably read it 10 times over the years.

I also have in my “to read” list a book by the actress that played Lisle in The Sound of Music.

And I recently saw the whole cast from that movie on Oprah. God, what a nerd I am!

@tranquilsea thank you! I am always open to suggestions. I am especially privy to stories about dysfunctional families as well. Go figure.

Yes I would strongly recommend it, @Kardamom! The things she had to go through in her childhood…you just would not believe it!! It’s wonderfully descriptive of England in the 30’s and 40’s, and of New York in the 50’s.

@ladymia69 You might like “An Act of Love” by Nancy Thayer. This book has a pretty intense disfunctional family situation going on coupled with a mystery. I was totally shocked (but also couldn’t put it down) with this book because I’ve read other books by Ms. Thayer that were totally warm and happy, funny, poignant books about friendships between women of a certain age. She’s a very diverse writer. If you like the latter type of story, read Thayer’s Hot Flash Club series (just disregard the silly sounding titles) they’re excellent books.

@Dutchess_III Thanks, I will definitely be picking up Julie’s book!

I am reading the Star of the Unborn by Franz Werfel at the moment. I was intrigued by the title and the premise and I can tell it is well written though my copy is an English translation, but it is dreadful. It has been relegated to bedtime reading for me and half a page is enough to get me off to sleep.

@Kardamom I’ll tell you this much…Andrews wasn’t the name she was born with….it was changed, without even asking her, when she was 12, I think…

@Kardamom BTW..the name of her book is “Home.” It isn’t until you get into it that you realize how poignant that is….

Most of the books I read are brilliant in some way sometimes the challenge is to find the brilliance but obviously, with the number of books I read and the scattershot approach I often employ to select them, some are not. Not at all, in fact. Sometimes I read those through out of the same morbid curiosity that might lead me to stand and watch a house burn down: “How much worse can this thing get? How did it get to be so awful? What do all of these other people see in it?”

But no, I don’t always read everything all the way through. Some books are simply too execrable.

@WasCy I recently read a book by Joanna Trollope, against my better judgment. It took me two hours to read (thank god) and entirety of the book could easily be summed up in two sentences. The 250 pages were all filler words.

I’ve got a pretty good line-up right now: Dune, Color of Magic, and Ender’s Game.

I used to force myself to finish everything I started to read but I’ve grown out of that in recent years. Once I started keeping better track of my To Read list and doing a yearly reading challenge, I realized I couldn’t waste time on crap I didn’t like. I mean, according to my Goodreads account, my list of books I want to read that are in my possession is 172 items long. And I know I’m missing some. The list of books I want to read that I don’t have yet is 294 items long. That’s nowhere near a complete list, either. So now if a book hasn’t done something to make me want to keep going by the time I’m about a third of the way through, I give up on it. Sometimes if it’s something I really want to like, I’ll give it until halfway. But I don’t force myself to finish anymore.

…Only I guess there are a few exceptions. I was ready to be finished with the Twilight series before the end of the first book, but I read the whole series anyway. But that’s because I want to actually know what I’m talking about when I get into debates about it with fans. So that’s a bit of a special case.

I often read books because it was mentioned in another, or because they’re recommended to me after reading and liking certain ones, or sometimes because the authors of the books I like recommend other authors. Considering the depth of some of the intellectual books I read, this can still be quite a choice to make, since there are pages of references.

Anyway, right now I’m reading Witches Abroad by Terry Pratchett. I just finished Making Money. I’m on a Pratchett kick right now. That’s another way to decide, just going in a series.

I have a very long reading list and I’m over-eager. I’ve got six books going now because I can’t help stuffing myself when it comes to books. I don’t feel obligated to finish every book I start, but I will slog on through books that I find difficult if I think I’ll ultimately get something out of it. In some cases just being able to bitch about it is sufficient reason. coughfaustcough

I have two criteria:
The book has to either entertain me, or educate me. If it does neither, I stop reading. I have no problems with reading five chapters and stopping. I even stopped reading a book with five chapters to go because I just didn’t care what happened to any of the characters.

I’ll read it if it contains spaceships and laser beams.

Don’t forget little green men @Rarebear.

@Dutchess_III I had no idea that Andrews was not her real first (last) name. Now I’m more intrigued than ever to read Julie Andrew’s biograpy. Just the fact that she talks about the 1950’s and before (in England) is enough for me to be interested.

My profile always lists my current and recent reading. I tend to alternate among several categories:
• strong, good fiction;
• nonfiction in my areas of interest;
• light throwaway fiction (which still must be well executed); and
• miscellaneous.

Examples of the first category:
The Likeness, by Tana French
The Refiner’s Fire, by Mark Helprin

Examples of the second category:
On Being Certain, by Robert Burton
The Meaning of Everything, by Simon Winchester

Examples of the third category: mysteries, science fiction.

The fourth category can include everything from books written by people I know (The Home for the Friendless, by Betty Auchard) to books that for some reason excited my curiosity (The Zimmerman Telegram, by Barbara Tuchman).

I’ve just finished the Tuchman, and I’m now reading Follett’s World Without End; up next will be either I am Hutterite (curiosity) or People of the Wolf (recommended by a friend), depending on the mood I’m in when I finish the Follett thousand-pager.

I do follow authors I like, and I do follow some series, but usually only when I have the entire series in hand so I don’t have to wait for a sequel (example: Larsson’s Millennium trilogy)..

And I always, always give myself leave to abandon a book I don’t like, no matter how popular it is, no matter who recommends it, and no matter how distinguished the author is. Most books I will give to the halfway mark before discarding them, but if an author annoys me enough, it can be all over by page 2.

@Jeruba I have World Without End on my bookshelf to be read after I finish Dune, Ender’s Game, and The Color of Magic. Have you seen the mini series for Pillars of the Earth? It was very well done.

Yes, @tranquilsea—I rented it very recently. It reminded me of much of the detail of the book that I had forgotten in the twenty-some years since I read it. That’s what prompted me to purchase the sequel.

Dune is a great read, but you can skip the sequels. Not so Ender’s Game: the sequels are definitely worth reading, although not equally so.