I have, somewhere over the last six months, become far more of a literary gambler and I think other book bloggers are to blame…
This week I was checking out the newest arrivals in the public library and two books that I never would have taken a risk on a year ago were reserved before I could even blink. If I was going to be all geeky about it – and hey, why not – one of the books was about 70% likely to be my thing and the other was probably a 60%. I’d heard hype about them and seen good reviews but I didn’t know the authors and I didn’t really know the reviewers and how their tastes match up with mine. One sounded good but was being compared to a book I disliked and the other seemed to be being promoted mostly on the strength of its artwork, which is always a little weird.
Now I know for a fact that last year I would have treated reserving them via the library pretty much like I do adding books to my wishlist. I’d have searched for reviews, had a look at Good Reads and ignored books that didn’t seem like surefire hits.
Instead, I’m finding that somewhere over the last six months or so I’ve changed the way I pick up books and book blogging is definitely a factor in that change.
I’m picking up far more of my recommendations via other book bloggers, I’m reading more recently published (and recently re-issued classics) titles and I am reading more new-to-me authors. It results in a more varied reading life but it also means I set aside far more books unfinished than I ever used to and I’ve been thinking about how to handle them here.
I think the main thing I need to do is change the way I use the phrase ‘Did Not Finish’. Before I meant it as a waved red flag to warn fellow readers of plot holes, weird twists or maybe a dubious ending. When I list every book that gets set aside for any reason as DNF it looks like I am the most negative reader possible and I’m really not, I’m just curious and trying everything on for size. :)
So, from now on, DNF means I got well past page 100 and hit a roadblock of some description later in the book. I don’t read many DNF books but they’ll probably end up reviewed here as usually they make for interesting conversation. Anything that I don’t get to page 100 of will be briefly mentioned in my monthly round up and listed at the bottom of my reading log.
It’s minor tweaking really but I enjoy book-surfing and this seems a good way to acknowledge that and stop feeling vaguely apologetic for all the books I dabble with but decide aren’t for me. :)
January 31, 2013 at 09:19
Yay to literary adventures! I’m trying to be fearless in 2013 and tread into new areas, so I already know it’s going to be a bit tough at times. I like your DNF definition. When I’ve past the middle of the book and sort of fall out of love with it for different reasons, I usually skim through the rest of it because I’m reluctant to abandon it completely.
January 31, 2013 at 19:19
Yes, ‘literary adventures’ sums it up perfectly – I don’t want to stop surfing books but I don’t want it to seem like I had a bad month when I really only had a very inquisitive one!
January 31, 2013 at 10:20
I can’t abandon books. And sometimes I wish I could. I can certainly take a long time to finish a ‘slow’ book – years, in fact! I wish I was more flexible. Maybe my goal one year should be to never finish a book! ;-)
January 31, 2013 at 19:27
Hahaha, I used to be so strict about finishing books. I think it was the bleeding heart liberal approach – it might all come good on the final page… I like the idea of a goal to rebel and leave just one book unfinished. :)
January 31, 2013 at 16:14
I’ve just written a review for a book I have loved, but if it weren’t for another reviewer I would never have chosen to read it because it wouldn’t have appealed to me. It does make reading life more varied, but the chance of misses is much greater.
I like this, detailing what DNF will mean here in the future. It’s an idea I’d not thought about (then again I’ve only one DNF on my blog).
January 31, 2013 at 19:29
I’m intrigued to know what the book you loved was now!
I realised that if I kept my DNFs as they were it would look like there were *eight* terrible reads this month and there really weren’t – just lots of books that caught my eye and I fancied trying. :)
January 31, 2013 at 17:26
I’ve often wondered what to do about DNFs. I don’t review them ass it’s not fair to review something you haven’t finished but perhaps it would be a good idea to mention them in my monthly round ups (fortunately there wasn’t anything in January). ‘Gone Girl’ by Gillian Flynn was my most conspicuous DNF last year. It has been widely praised but I couldn’t see the attraction at all.
January 31, 2013 at 19:33
Hi Sarah. :)
See, that’s true for me as well – it’s the more mainstream, doing-fine-without-my-two-cents books that I’m more likely to put down early on. I haven’t tried Gone Girl yet but Hawthorn and Child and First Novel are both recently published books, loved by many bloggers but did nothing for me whatsoever. Hopefully this way I can mention that I’ve tried them with that being a positive book-exploring thing rather than a negative didn’t-finish thing.
February 1, 2013 at 03:27
I think it’s part of the fun of reading to try something different. There have been several times when I have considered a book I wouldn’t have otherwise read because another blogger suggested it. Why do we blog in the first place if not to introduce new books to others and find new books for ourselves?
February 2, 2013 at 09:33
Hi Lindsey, I think it was more the number of books I was dipping into that prompted the shift, I have no problem with dipping into out-of-comfort-zone books. I just wanted to keep it a positive thing rather than a negative, so-many-books-didn’t-work-for-me thing. :)
February 2, 2013 at 22:56
I think this is a good way of tackling things. I am a big believer in book-surfing – there’s no surer way to tell whether you’re going to enjoy a book than to give it a try, and life’s too short to commit to reading every single book to the end after you’ve skimmed the first few pages. But I have had some minor complaints in the past for posting reviews of books I didn’t finish, saying that it’s unfair to do so (namely Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, which I gave up on after approximately 600 of 1000 pages). But I think if you’ve read a big enough chunk of something you’re perfectly entitled to give your opinion on it as long as you’re clear about when you gave up on it and why.
February 5, 2013 at 17:54
I’d agree that anything over the halfway point gives you a feel for the story arc, character development and if you’re putting it down at that point there’s a problem or topic that makes it worth talking about as a reader – and definitely as a book blogger. :)