Hooray for pee!
Ok, I’d like to support this rant. I often hate critically acclaimed books. Which book is it?
What We Can Know by Ian McEwen. Ostensibly a meditation on the effects of climate change (the story is told by a literary historian in 2119 who is obsessed with this time period), but in reality this book is about highly unlikeable people and their marital affairs.
Ah, that’s different. If retribution is your mission – and I don’t blame you in the least for that mission – then go for it!
Over-rated books deserve condemnation!
Aw, damn. Thanks! Already added that book to my list. Thank god for the library. I’ll give it 20 pages.
I do get books that I give up on, but I have the Amazon “Kindle Unlimited” subscription, which for me has incredible value. I devour books like a wolf at a buffet. I don’t read books, I read series. Seriously, I’ll read one or two books a week on average. And you’ll find some incredible gems available in their library, and some absolute garbage. It’s hard to tell them apart at times, so I will sometimes try a chapter or two and then delete the book.
The worst one, I think, was one that was supposed to take place in the Boston area, but it was written by someone from the UK and all of the slang was British. It was so jarring that I could not get past it. I left a scathing review along the line of actually trying to learn a bit about a culture before you try to write from its perspective. At least learn how to sound even remotely like the characters you’re trying to represent.
I know my mom is frustrated with a book when she slams it down on the arm of a sofa with a little huff. She’ll try to tough it out unless there’s something that completely removes her enjoyment of the story, like stream-of-consciousness stuff or a cast of characters so lengthy that you have to take notes to keep track of them all.
If you are deeply interested in poetry and historical literature, maybe you’ll enjoy it? The book drops the names of a lot of writers and I’m not sure how many of them are real references.
A lot of romance on Kindle Unlimited. Not saying good romance. But that’s where many of the subgenres live. I finish, conservatively, maybe 1 out of every 10 romance novels I read. Most of the time it’s, “I can do this better. Back to writing.”
A lot of what I read is LitRPG and/or superhero stuff, and those are definitely some niche subgenres.
It’s like the literary equivalent of snack chips. Easy to binge on them, but fortunately I never get heart burn. 
Those types of books can be fun, for sure. It’s just as a writer I’m going for more of a four course meal. I just don’t know if anyone wants that anymore.
I do on occasion. There are books I consume voraciously, and others I savor because of their higher quality. I think those readers are out there.
A bigger question is how many people read books, period.
Oh, stop. People are still reading. I would say some of us are reading to escape the current horrors. And that’s ok as long as we are still occasionally remembering to call our congresspeople and protesting.
Not when you are in the middle of watching a show and have to hit the pause button, un-recline your chair, and dash to the bathroom.
I’m still reading, but I would be reading a lot more if I weren’t always distracted by the Internet.
I’m considered an oddball at work because I read a print magazine at lunch. I think I’ve mentioned here that my coworkers refer to these publications as books.
I do like electronic readers, mainly because I can haul a nice selection of things around on my phone.
Maybe they meant the Boston in Lincolnshire?
Anyway: mini rant
I used to be the one who wouldn’t get sick, or would maybe get a hint of a symptom when others I worked with were plague-ridden snot monsters. Sometime in the last few years, this has switched, and now every time a bug goes round the office, I seem to be getting hammered by it, while everyone else is basically shrugging it off.
C’mon immune system, you used to be good at this!
I’m a big fan of scathing reviews. Witness my recent posts in the Whatcha Readin’ thread.
Sometimes the best part of finishing a book is reading its bad reviews at Goodreads.
You know what they say… when your wife says she’ll be ready in five minutes, that’s the same amount of time as when you tell her there’s only five minutes left in the game. 
Federal grant to submit today. Due Monday but I don’t like to fuck around with deadlines.
More general incompetence. This time changing around what’s getting funded at the last minute meaning I had to change the budget and I still have to rewrite portions of the narrative. There’s gonna have to be a conversation. I don’t know how to have the conversation without yelling. I’m one of those conflict averse people.
To add to the stress my husband wants me to pick up our son, bring him home and change him into his Bowser costume by 6pm so he can take him to Trunk or Treat, when I would really be better served by working on this through dinner. This is one of those cases where the kid’s wants may have to be secondary to the family’s needs, namely me getting a paycheck.
Since we’re doing that I only have two hours left in the day before I have to go pick him up and I don’t know when I’ll be able to get back to the grant tonight.
The thing that pisses me off is it won’t be funded.