Flights of Fantasy discussion

So...

I have this weird mental block about long books. I have some sort of arbitrary idea in my head that I should be able to get through a book in X number of days... let's saying 3-5.

If a book takes longer than that, I feel like it's "slow" or "taking too long" - even if the reason is not that I'm procrastinating on my reading (which is what happens when I'm not really liking a book)... but simply because the book is longer than my usual fare.


I also have issues with ebooks in this regard. One reason I enjoy physical books is I like that tactile indicator of progress. I can easily see how far I've gone... how far I have left to go.

And the page and even percent indicator in an ebook just doesn't work for me on the same level. I feel like there's just no end in sight, even when there clearly is...


Anyway -

Just decided to share some of my weird, mental reading quirks and wondering if anyone else had any of their own.

Oooh. I'm so there with you. I have that issue with long books - especially long ebooks. I have gotten to a point that I can barely read a long ebook - I need a DTB edition to have that indicator.

And to be honest, its not even the length of the book itself, per se, it's the length of time I'm reading said book.

It's an annoying Catch-22 - because on one hand I prefer to read longer books on an e-reader so I'm not schlepping around this huge book... but, on the other hand, the e-reader make it feel interminable.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "It's an annoying Catch-22 - because on one hand I prefer to read longer books on an e-reader so I'm not schlepping around this huge book... but, on the other hand, the e-reader make it feel intermi..."

Agreed.

And the opposite side of that coin is the padded ebook. I hate it when I'm reading a book and the ereader says I have something like 50% left - then the book ends 2 pages later. The rest is full of snippets and advertising and FML.

OMG, I hate that!

There have been several times where I put a book down close to the end - mostly because my train's pulled in and I have to - and I'm thinking I have a good 15-20 pages left, at least, and then it's like, "Boom, I'm over... Now doesn't that feel anti-climactic? Have a random glossary and preview for the next book."

Which... I guess I could pay attention to the Table of Contents (if there is one)...

But I never do, so...

I have the same quirks, Colleen. I tend to shy away from any books that are over the 400 page mark because I know it's going to take me longer than a week to read. It helps if I double book with something shorter so that I feel like I'm at least making progress with my reading goals while still enjoying longer books. Just need to make sure that the second book is a different genre to not confuse the two.

I also tend to have an ebook and hard copy version of longer books whenever possible. It helps to see the physical progress plus I can pick up the book if I'm on the go.

I have a book mark quirk with physical books. I mark off where I started for the day and have a second book mark to mark off my progress. This way I have a physical indication of how much I read that day. It's satisfying when there are a lot of pages in between and I miss having that in ebooks since marking off the chapters doesn't do it for me.

The padded ebook is just...evil!!

Oh, and I also have a quirk with series where I usually take a break in between books. Unless I really enjoy it, I tend not to like staying immersed in a world for too long. This sort of goes back to the long book quirk...I become impatient.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "OMG, I hate that!

There have been several times where I put a book down close to the end - mostly because my train's pulled in and I have to - and I'm thinking I have a good 15-20 pages left, at l..."

That's because most ebooks are set up to bypass ToC when start.

I ignore them, too.

Jackie wrote: "...I feel like I'm at least making progress with my reading goals while still enjoying longer books. "

That's an interesting point about reading goals.

I wish I could cast my mind back to the time before reading goals - but I'm not good at that sort of thing.

But I'm sure the whole reading goals and tracking has to do with my feelings an antsiness when a book feels like it's taking "too long". I don't necessarily remembering focusing on such things back in the day...


Jackie wrote: "Oh, and I also have a quirk with series where I usually take a break in between books. Unless I really enjoy it, I tend not to like staying immersed in a world for too long. This sort of goes back to the long book quirk...I become impatient."

I vary... but I wonder if, in this case, that doesn't have something to do with it, too.

I went straight from 'Six of Crows' to 'Crooked Kingdom', and it's one of those duologies which is really just one story broken into 2 pieces because it's so big...

So, essentially, it's like I'm reading an over 1000 page book on one go...

Which, I guess I'm not actually making that bad of time, considering... but it still makes me feel like it's taking forever.

Jackie wrote: "I have the same quirks, Colleen. I tend to shy away from any books that are over the 400 page mark because I know it's going to take me longer than a week to read. It helps if I double book with so..."

I don't read most series back to back, either. I used to - but now it would probably drive me a little bonkers.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "But I'm sure the whole reading goals and tracking has to do with my feelings an antsiness when a book feels like it's taking "too long". I don't necessarily remembering focusing on such things back in the day... "

I didn't have any reading goals prior to Goodreads. I didn't keep track of any stats either. Don't even know what books I really read prior to joining other than the ones that stood out in my mind and I marked off as "read" when I joined. It was more like, go to the library and haul back as many interesting books I could find and read them as fast as possible so I could get more. My nightstand would have anywhere from 5-10+ books at a time.

I wasn't afraid to tackle longer books back then, but they had to be really interesting for me to give it a go because I've always been impatient with longer books. On another thought, reviews and ratings didn't matter back then either and that's something I rely heavily on now to sort through books I don't want to waste time on.

The antsiness of meeting challenge goals definitely started once I joined GR though. It started out as a fun thing, but then they did the challenge button on the profiles and it was down hill from there. lol. There were years that I stressed about being behind and would be frantically reading all the short books I could get in December. So silly since it's all arbitrary and I wasn't competing with anyone. Now, I just use it as a guide to stay on track, but I don't stress out as much if I get behind.


Oh, regarding Six of Crows...so I started Shadow and Bone during lunchtime because it was bothering me that I hadn't read the trilogy before reading the duology. And yes, I know I don't really need to read the trilogy but in my head it matters. Eep!

Well, if it's any consolation, I did enjoy the original trilogy...

Though it does suffer from YA love triangleness. Mech.

I too have trouble with longer books taking more time than it feels like they "should"... I'll try to trick myself into thinking of them as omnibuses from now on, thank you!

I've not yet encountered a padded e-book... thank you for the warning!

In the rare instances i have an omnibus, I'm always flipping ahead to the next 'change in ', so I can mark it off.

I read a mix of real and e-books. I do like the convenience, price and zero storage space (in real terms, beyond the reader) of the latter, but prefer the smell/feel of a real book.

My block is a little different, it's not so much tied to the page length, as when I reach about the middle of a book I start thinking back to whats happened so far, and if nothing really important to the plot has happened I have a hard time keeping reading, even if I had been enjoying it

I don't have that particular problem because I don't always care if the plot isn't moving forward as long as I like the characters and am still interested in the story.

Speaking of ebook bloat...

The book I finished last night was 522 pages total.

The story ended on page 468.

Luckily I had a feeling I was close to the end and checked the Table of Contents before I decided to call it a night.

colleen the convivial curmudgeon wrote: "In the rare instances i have an omnibus, I'm always flipping ahead to the next 'change in ', so I can mark it off."

I do this too.

Also agree with the Ebook bloat. I had that (oddly enough) with HP 5 recently... The ebook was still at like 80% or something, and Harry is in DD's office after the battle at the ministry, and I was sitting there like "HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?? Is my memory of this book THAT BAD that I don't remember 20% more happening??"

But no, 81% or something and it was over, and then there's half of the book as a preview of HBP.

SIGH.

Nicki wrote: "Absolutely agree with finding padded ebooks frustrating!

This is also why I find omnibuses a little off-putting, as I have no sense of how far I'm into any of the individual novels that comprise t..."

Why not just separate them? There's a pretty cool extension for Calibre that allows it - I think you can put a ToC in as well.