Books I Didn't


Why do we quit reading a book?  Often we don't really plan to -- we set it aside and think, "read more later."  But later gets consumed with another book we find more interesting.  It is then hard to get back into the old book.  Sometimes we stop because the book just wasn't connecting with  us.  I find that often true of Bachman books -- I have to try harder.  

Books I Didn't Finish
  • TheTalisman.  Though I promised a friend I'd read it soon.
  • Lisey's Story.  
  • Cell.  I have no excuses -- except the library wanted their CD's back.
  • Dreamcatcher.  Loved the beginning, but got stumped somewhere.  Then I watched the movie . . .
  • Roadwork
  • Rose Madder  (the tapes melted in my car.)
  • The Dark Half (The CD's got messed  up. . . sound familiar)
  • Danse Macabre.  I reference it all the time,  it has a very good index.  
Books I Haven't Read
  • The Long Walk
  • Black House
  • Wind Through The Keyhole
  • Cujo
  • Insomnia
  • The Girl  Who Loved Tom Gordon
  • The Library Policeman
  • The Regulators
Other Books I Quit Before The End:
  • Lucifers Hammer
  • Safely Home
  • Mark Twain's autobiography (it's a billion pages)
  • Carl Sandberg's Lincoln.  But it's good!
  • The Grapes Of Wrath.  I did see the movie, does that count?  And I love the writing.
  • Baal.  Did not have the magic that Swan Song had.
  • Several Charles Dicken's books.  Most notably, Bleak House.  My favorite Dickens is Great Expectations.  
  • A Study In Scarlet.  Usually I love Sherlock Holmes, but this novel mystifies me.
  • Something Wicked This Way Comes.  
  • The Day Kennedy Was Shot.  I, uh, came to the conclusion I knew how it ended.
  • The Beast Within.  I bought a hard copy after I threw away the paperback.  I wanted a copy to save when I realized: This might be the worst book I've read.  

7 comments:

  1. You need to read "The Long Walk" STAT.

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  2. I started it. . . several times.
    okay, as soon as I'm done with Buick 8.

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  3. the best book by this guy Bachman and you need to read Cujo too, one of the best King has written, the events in this work as a clockwork mechanism

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  4. In the case of Steinbeck, well, it's one of those rare instants of the film being better.

    Rare, but it happens.

    ChrisC

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  5. I found the writing in Grapes of Wrath compelling, even powerful. Great characters. But then college classes strated again, and I had to put it down and read assigned work.

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  6. I've read everything up to From a Buick 8 at least twice. Most I've read three times and the great ones like The Stand and The Shining I've read five or more times.

    You've got to read them all, good and bad (and there are some bad like Gerald's Game and some very bad like Lisey's Story) to completely appreciate the man's scope of work.

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  7. I'm trying to summon up the courage to read Dickens' Bleak House, which I see you discarded before finishing. The book is massive - but then again I plowed through Under the Dome and Duma Key so I should be all right. Bleak House currently sits on my bookshelf taunting me to pick it up.

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