It seems that I do like reading after all

[andrewducker]

I bounced off a few books recently, and haven't felt really _grabbed_ by anything in months, if not a year or two. I enjoyed my re-read of the complete Earthsea books, but I didn't feel compelled to read them, and I thought that maybe I wasn't in the right place for books right now.

And then I came home this evening and basically spent the last four hours glued to the sofa, with my eyes glued to the last quarter of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, and it is quite clear that I do like some kinds of books very, very much after all.

I had part of this conversaton with widgetfox last Friday, and decided that I need to make a list of what I value and enjoy in writing, and what I really don't care about. And then get you lovely people to recommend things to me.

So that sounds like a plan for the weekend. I'd do it now, but I need to be in work tomorrow morning early. I'm only writing this post because I'm buzzing from the ending. The very next thing I want to read is the author's notes. And probably some decent discussions of the book.

Comments

[flick]

Is Methods of Rationality finished, then? I remember reading the start of it, years ago.

[andrewducker]

Yup. Last month.

I stopped reading it in real-time when production slowed waaaay down, and decided to wait until the end.

Which did mean that I got a spoiler for something which happened 2/3 of the way through. But it was really great reading the whole thing end to end. It takes a few chapter to get going, and frankly could now do with an edit job to make it more seamless, if it was going to be published as a book, but is nevertheless very good.

[flick]

Cool: I'll go and have another look!

[flick]

Yay: there's an ePub!

Boo: it's not been BritPicked after chapter 17, and boy does it show....

(I am enjoying it, though, other than the infodumps.)

[andrewducker]

I was glad that it got less infodumpy as it went along.

[flick]

I have that to look forward to, then!

[rmc28]

I've been finding that recently - I'll bounce off several books in a row and go "huh, am I just anti-books" but when I find something that works for me I'm completely happy reading. I think I do need to trust my own "time to read something else" judgement more[1], even if I can't always specify what it is that's triggering that.

I have noticed that I need to mix up my genres now and again; I can't read endless category romance, or for that matter endless mil-sf or endless murder mystery; I need to read one or two at most and then change it up.


[1] Funnily enough, Methods of Rationality didn't work for me at all, but I know a lot of people who really liked it. My brother was enthusing at me very recently.

[andrewducker]

I'm now in a bookslump, I think. Time to play computer games for a couple of days :-)