The Sunday Salon: Abandoning a book (and one book I can't wait for you to read!)

This weekend, I came across an interesting post that got me thinking. It was by no means a new topic or a different look at already-known things but for some reason, it motivated this post. I was reading an article by Dave Astor at Huffington Post about not finishing books, especially the well-known ones. It's an icky situation we have all found ourselves in, occasionally. There's this book that every one is raving about and the next time I see the book at a library or bookstore, I want to experience it for myself. And the book is truly good, but just a few pages in and I abandon it. Or the book is nothing like the images inspired in my mind and the whole anticipation balloon just deflates.

The cover of this book
perfectly describes my situation.

I've done this many times. If I had to count all the books I abandoned this year, the count would already be in the double digits. And these aren't the books I hated. There are those books too - books that bored me to death right from the start, or books that are so abysmally horrible to read (at least for me), and so I just abandon them and remove them from all my shelves at goodreads (which is where I catalog my reads). But there are the other stranded books - books that are certainly good, enjoyable, intriguing, magnificent, and every-other-positive-adjective-that-you-typically-use-with-books. But a few pages in and something just doesn't click. I can see the brilliance of the book and I can see why others have been raving about it. But either the timing is bad or I haven't been able to read it as much as I wanted to, or I came across a more fascinating book, or you name it. The result is I don't get back to the book in days and before I know it, I've already forgotten what made the book feel fabulous. Rather than risk going through it again immediately, I shelve them back, hoping that someday I'll return back to them.

Some of the books that went that route include Annabel by Kathleen Winter (a book that I've been waiting to read since last year), The Devil all the Time by Donald Ray Pollock (which I started reading at a time when I needed a short break), The Descent of Man by Kevin Desinger (which I started reading at work, but then work got too busy for me to return to it), The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (I still remember how much I was wowed by this one), The Jack Bank by Glen Retief (I was reading this at one of the busiest times of my life this year) and The Map of Time by Felix Palma (once I realized this book will need a lot of time, I began neglecting it). And these are all books that I enjoyed reading, whatever few pages I had a chance to read before giving up.

Does that happen to you? Giving up on a book that you are truly enjoying?

In other news, I'm reading this awesome fast-paced book that is proving to be too hard to put down. It's been a long time since I slept late or woke up early just to read. The credit goes to Ready Player One by Ernest Cline, which you might have heard of. The book's already got a lot of buzz and is going to be released on August 16th. Apparently, it has also acquired a film deal and halfway into the book, I can see that it will make an excellent movie because it's got all the elements that would make it fantastic for the big screen - pacing, action, romance, a big challenge, dystopia, scifi flavor, and everything about it is very futuristic. The book is set in the not-so-far future where the earth conditions have deteriorated so much and people use this massive virtual reality system called OASIS on a daily basis to escape into. OASIS is everything the real world isn't but what's upped the interest is the contest introduced by the will of the creator of OASIS after he died, the winner of which will inherit the entire wealth of the dead heir-less owner. Sounds intriguing? I can't wait to review it! My brother's begging me to finish the book soon and send it to him!