Sounds like me and my wife! She reads 2-3 books a week (sometimes even more if she’s got time) whereas I’m more like you, and regard myself as a reasonably quick reader. She, however, jokes that she’d best read books before me because she might die of waiting by the time I finish it (1 week later…)
2 Likes
WIFE: Are you done with that book yet?
HUSBAND: Sorry, no.
WIFE: Ha! At the rate you’re going, I’ll be dead of old age before you’ve finished.
HUSBAND: Oh, you don’t need to worry about that, dear. Looking at how fast you rush through those books, and how quickly you turn the pages, it’s far more likely that you’ll die from blood loss.
WIFE: What?
HUSBAND: You know, due to a massively terminal case of paper cuts.
WIFE: …
HUSBAND: Paper cuts! Get it? Ho ho! C’mon, that one was funny, wasn’t it?
HUSBAND: Where are you going?
HUSBAND: …Darling?
4 Likes
I used to really struggle to not finish books. Then I launched on a project to get a grip on my reading pile, and boy did that convert me. Life’s too short to read books that aren’t enthusing me, let alone ones I actively dislike.
I haven’t managed much reading this last year though.
Same
Also same.
The protagonist (and to a lesser extent, other characters) are crucial. I have pretty much a blanket rule against what I inaccurately refer to as “Booker Prize Winning Novels”, because my experience of literary fiction is of unlikeable characters being miserable and/or unpleasant to each other. I don’t want to spend my time in those people’s heads.
Another one that’s stopped me is where protags have to be incompetent for the sake of plot, especially when they’re canonically very competent. The Oversight had this issue. Essentially, the villains’ plot is largely outlined over the course of the first hundred pages. Then the Goodies have a conversation:
Male Protag: “Hey, I’m worried about the thing that’s happened. I’m concerned that [pretty much the exact plot] may happen. We should [take simple, obvious, reasonable steps which would basically foil the plot] to avoid it and fulfil out duties.”
Female Protag: “No, we can’t do that because I am emotional right now. I feel bad about things, including that I was emotional earlier and allowed my emotions to make me do something unwise. I will briefly exposit the point of our organisation and pretend this addresses your reasonable suggestions in some way, and now the conversation will end.”
Minor Character: “You two are so into each other.”
(yes, the “emotional female character ruins things for logical male character” trope also got my goat)
Things where the villains’ plans are incredibly intricate, relying on extremely accurate predictions and detailed information, with no in-world reason why they would have either, yet somehow still work out. Bonus points if even the simplest plans go awry for the protagonists.
Sometimes just one or two really jarring affectations. A friend bought me The Keltiad, a book they thought would be right up my alley, because it’s about Celts in Spaaaaace! The book begins with a note explaining it’s spelled Kelt throughout, so the reader will know to pronounce it with a hard K instead of an S (because apparently that’s a thing Americans do?). I got two pages in and I found it so constantly jarring that I had to give up. Weirdly, I wouldn’t have the same issue reading in German, where it’s also Kelt - no idea how that works. Why the author was so fixated on controlling the reader’s mental pronunciation I don’t know.
5 Likes
That is pretty stupid. Why not just make a note of how to correctly pronounce “Celts” instead? As for Americans mispronouncing it, I blame the Boston Celtics (sell-tics).
1 Like
The Boston Celtics are called “sell-tics” because a lot of Americans didn’t know how to pronounce “Celtic” even before they got the name.
Looked it up, because it slightly confused me that it goes both ways over here, as the Scottish football team is also pronounced with a soft c: Why We Pronounce 'Celtic' Music And Boston 'Celtics' Differently
Basically seems like it’s just a recent development that we’ve switched back to a hard c to undo various pronunciation shifts because it’s not an English word.
What stops me reading? Children… 
3 Likes
When Yoon Ha Lee was first gaining notice, I took a look at the Amazon preview of Ninefox Gambit. The second sentence was “Said instructor had once witnessed a winnower in use.” That killed the book for me right there. I don’t think of “said” (or, more often, “the said”) as an expression that any human being would ever use in actual conversation or narration; it comes across to me as the sort of thing one might see on a police report filled out as a matter of bureaucratic routine involving no actual thought about the meaning of the words. I couldn’t imagine reading an entire book written with that insensibility to language.
1 Like
I have routinely used it. 
And Ninefox Gambit (and the rest of that trilogy) are a) really really smart and good and b) beautifully written.
1 Like
I wouldn’t say routinely but ive definitely used it
The band Led Zeppelin misspelled Lead so that they wouldn’t get called Leed Zeppelin by mistake.
1 Like
Reminds me a bit of how CHVRCHES is called that because that way you can actually search for them.
2 Likes
Little did they realise that in the twenty-first century all the kids would assume it was pronounced “El Eee Dee Zeppelin”.
2 Likes
Frodo: Perhaps the giant eagles could fly the ring to Mount Doom?
Gandalf: I’m really emotional right now.
6 Likes
I don’t even like LotR, and seeing this everywhere still infuriates me. I don’t know how the fans survive in this cruel world!
(From Oglaf, which is a great comic, but is often NSFW.)
3 Likes
I am not able to comment on Ninefox Gambit’s aesthetic merits, or lack of them, as I haven’t read more than a couple of pages. But that small sample was very much not to my taste. It’s probably not profitable to discuss differences of taste.
I did a good amount of reading over the holiday which stopped abruptly when I returned from my Xmas break and that’s not due to a lack of books to read.
This week I cleared the junk off my armchair, pulled it over to the window/radiator and stacked my books next to it. I’m now making an effort to at least read on my lunch-break and in this cold weather it helps that it’s cozy over there 
2 Likes
No matter how many times I hear people suggest that, it never seems like a flaw in the book to me.
Gandalf: That wouldn’t be very stealthy. The Big Eye would spot them in an instant and scramble balrogs and flying ring-wraiths, besides opening up with AA sorcery. Besides, the eagles go where Manwë sends them and he didn’t send any here.
2 Likes
Cue the Turing Test. I am an AI.
6 Likes