Ever got tired of reading a book?

I hope this doesn't happen to me too much. I had to give up on a book once (schedule didn't permit me to have free time to actually read) then I ended up not picking up another book to read for about 5 months!

Yes, reading a poor book can put you off reading. I try to go back to an author I know rarely disappoints like Jodi Picoult and Tess Gerritsen.

I think you have to be in a specific mood to read Kerouac. The books that made me feel the same way as you feel about him though, was Lolita and Anna Karenina. I read ALL of Anna Karenina. So much happens after the ending and after the "good part" which happens to be the first 3 parts of the book. I loved how the book was real and how it brought to light the things that women are facing after raising a family. I haven't finished Lolita. He just goes on and on and on and on that I couldn't take it anymore! I still want to "conquer" Lolita though. One day. One day...

I couldn't finish Lolita but I did read War and Peace.

Yes! A lot of people today don't see reading as pleasurable. Just last night, I was sitting in the bus on my way home, sighing in enjoyment at what I was reading (I was at the verge of the tying of loose ends in John Irving's "A Widow For One Year"). I feel the need to read more Stephen King. I think I'm brave enough for the Dark Tower series? I hope I am. I only have Clive Barker's first Abarat novel. Now that is a dude with excellent imagination!

It also helps me concentrate! Also, I studied literature in college, so I had to do a LOT of reading that I didn't like. Stopping from reading a book rarely happens to me but I've had this happen to me enough times to know better and persevere. When I reach that "boring point," I tend to just talk myself out of it, telling myself that "this is just me, and NOT the book. KEEP READING."

It's like the thing you love doing the most feels like labor! thekelz, I've had to deal with a book that took me forever to read. Then it kinda ruined my day that I had to finish reading it in the middle of my commute, so I *had* to lug the thing around the whole day! The book supposedly is a great story about New Jersey, but really, the narrative was bland and it was focused on just one guy who didn't know how to deal with himself but is a nice person anyway. Kinda tragic if you ask me. richnai,the current book I'm reading kinda gave me a dry spell. It's all well and good between that book and me though. There are a LOT of books in my personal library that I feel I should have surveyed first. I'll take your example and follow it! :)

I read a book review where the writer said if they read the first 50 pages and still weren't into it, they stopped reading and I think this is a good idea. There's only so many books we can read in a lifetime, so why waste time on a bad one?

It takes a lot of perseverance to finish a book, when really, it's sitting on the palms of your hands!

So it was a biography that didn't have much details on the subject's life? Makes me wonder why they're published. What was wrong with the book? Was the text leading to nowhere? I'm thinking the writer didn't put much development or "plot" into the subject's life. Was that the case?

What a trooper you must be! I'm a compulsive book shopper, and I tend to buy books half a dozen at a time, especially if they're cheap second-hands in great shape :) You can imagine my colossal back-log of books. In spite of that, I am still determined to read every one of them (and a few of them twice or thrice over).

Hmmm. What book did this to you? :P

Thanks for you reply! I sometimes read to oppose certain moods. The mood of the book I'm currently reading was fun and trivial. The narrative gets tiring and repetitive sometimes, and there is just too much information to handle, especially when you're just leisurely reading. I agree with you on reading and moods and how they have to kind of jive, but reading is an individual act in and of itself. You just need a break sometimes.

The thing is, the very book that I'm reading was making sense. In fact, it's a fun read. Also, the phrase "a lack of better word" is an expression when a word you're using to describe something isn't exactly what you mean, but you want to use it anyway. For example, when I originally said "his style is charming, for the lack of a better word" I meant that to describe his style as "charming," BUT "charming" isn't close enough to describe his style anyway, but I went ahead and used it. I felt that "charming" is too soft a word, but I can't think of anything slightly stronger than that. "A lack of a better word" doesn't mean "there aren't enough words to make it interesting enough."

I've browsed through a lot of books whose synopses are interesting enough, but fall short in the middle. This has happened to me enough, but I feel like I owe it to the writer to read it until the end. If I wrote a book, I wouldn't want people to stop in the middle and never finish. Anna Karenina made me feel this way in spite of its classic status but I kept reading anyway. My being a lit major is paired with people's expectations that my education gives me license to say certain things about a lot of books but the bane of this is that I have to commit to what I read. Kinda sad. Especially when was reading Twilight :(

I'm sorry to hear that.

Oh my goodness so many memories! Lol I had to do an academic research project for college and it involved reading 30 local (meaning Filipino) romance novels and analyzing them for something specific to language. Okay. This is not to say that Filipino writers are bad writers. A lot of them are really good and I was really thrilled to read a couple of these romance novels that are written by someone very accomplished (aka literary). But there are about probably 8 or 10 out the 30 novels I've read that were horrible. One had terrible dialog, like the writer was trying show off their English skills in giving their rich, successful and beautiful characters an edge that addresses something to the readers of these things. Then there was one about a girl who bought a house that was haunted by someone who knew her in a past life and is still in love with her (something like that). The point in the story came when the girl was moving stuff in and then she found something in the house that didn't belong to her and there was introduction to the "something" nor was there any mention of her moving in. Sadly, I had to bear with these things. I think I got an awesome grade though. Maybe my professor felt bad for me?

Getting tired literally should be the only way to get tired of a book then! :)