What are your nos with books

As I mentioned in Monday’s post, I only read 7 books in May. That feels like a little and it is the least in any one month I’ve read for a long while. Still, I’ve now read 45 for the year, which is an average of 9 a month, and is not shabby at all.

Here’s the haul:

 

Non-fiction: Fiction 2:5

Physical: Audible: Kindle 3:1:3

Notable reads

  • Both non-fiction (I probably should write about those)
  • Something in common – Roisin Meaney

Something in common was a gorgeous, gorgeous book and I devoured it in a day and a bit. It’s very typically Irish fiction (not much is rosy and “perfect”, but is all very real, with a sense of hope and warmth woven through the pages).

If you haven’t yet tried the author, I always recommend The Daisy Picker but this one will be my new favourite to recommend. In fact, get whichever you like – I love them all 🙂

 

Book club mention

We read Behold the Dreamers in book club and I rated it 4 on Goodreads, but that’s a 3.75 pushed up to a 4. I wanted to like this book more than I actually did.

Have you read it? What did you think?

And now for the bookish discussion:

Anne Bogel interviewed Laura Vanderkam on the What should I read next podcast early this year.

It’s one of my favourite interviews primarily because of how well Laura knows the type of books that work for her and those that don’t.

I was so impressed by her self-awareness that I’ve started keeping track of the type of things that I don’t want to read about:

  • Abuse of children
  • Slavery
  • Suffering
  • People in mental hospitals
  • Historical fiction, esp. war settings.
  • Most blog to book titles (blogs and books are very different writing styles and most bloggers should not be writing books)
  • Fan memoir (where you can only follow along and appreciate the book if you’re a fan of what that person has done)
  • Most multi-generational books (exceptions are Maeve Binchy novels like Tara Road)
  • Weak protagonists – the person doesn’t have to be likeable, but they need to have something interesting – I need to care about them in some way)
  • Too much weirdness (Where’d you go, Bernadette and one of this month’s reads, The Time of my Life)
  • Too many viewpoints/ characters (I feel like I’m unable to care about them all…)
  • Titles described as “laugh-out-loud romantic fiction” (I usually don’t find them funny at all, and there’s usually gratuitous s*x
  • Nicholas Sparks 😉
  • Young Adult fiction (I can manage about 1 a year)

As Anne Bogel says, some books are not bad; they’re just not for you.

So tell me, what did you read in May? And what do you not want to read?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Comments

  1. This post is so interesting, we seem to be very different. I will read everything and anything. I have always been this way, and it has not changed. I do however, read in moods. Sometimes, I just want something not too serious and then I read my “bubblegum books” and then sometimes I will read very serious stuff like a holocaust account or something like Khaled Hosseini. (I was unable to watch the movie Kite Runner…too much)
    Or I am my parents house, and I will pick up and read whatever my dad or sister happen to be reading. I also pick books by cover…it has to have some design in there that I like and the fatter the book, the better….then I know I am not going to run out of book too soon.

    • I’m going to do one next month on my book yeses.

      But tell me, is there anything you don’t want to read?

      • Nope…I do read everything. I just need to read like I need to eat, so I read all the time…and now I have audiobooks, so even while I work. Eat, Pray, Love…that is a book I don’t want to read…and it is one of the very few books I have not read to the end.

    • Terisha says

      My reading style and likes are very similar to your’s MamaCat. I also haven’t watched The Kite Runner yet, because of all the emotions. They making the Nightingale by Kristen Hannnah into a movie and also think I am going to give that a miss as the book devastated me.

  2. Terisha says

    I like a variety of genres and also read them according to my mood like MamaCat. My absolute favorite kind of book used to be deep and heavy tear-jerkers like Khaled Hosseini’s books and historical fiction especially war settings, but these days I am enjoying lighter happier books. On my “NO list” at the moment are very long books, like the 1600 page book I attempted. I was half way through and couldn’t remember who was who in the book anymore. I also don’t enjoy books where I feel the author is too self absorbed – this applys to memoir types books. As for what I read in May, I was staying at my mum’s place for the first 2 weeks after my injury and didn’t have any of my books, so I ended up reading her Danielle Steel books – not my favorite type of book but it kept me occupied during those nights when I couldn’t sleep.

    • Marcia Francois says

      I feel like I need to defend most memoirs. The good ones are not self-absorbed but entertaining and I find I learn a lot.

      Danielle Steel is apparently the most widely-read author.

  3. Love your list a lot of my donts as well.
    I love anything from Francine Rivers and was gifted her latest “the masterpiece” for my birthday and over the festive season I go amazon kindle crazy and search for any book with the word Christmas on it and read it bk to back in a matter of hours or few days it’s what I call my peak reading season, then after Christmas I search for anything with New Years in it and do the same – this silly search hasn’t disappointed me yet , they always feel good happy uplifting stories so if I’m not devouring every Hallmark Christmas movie made I’m reading xx

    • Marcia Francois says

      Ana, Terisha (above) and I are the same with Christmas novels.

      PS I’ll invite you to our book club at Christmas time 🙂

  4. Terisha says

    I completely agree with you regarding mosts memoirs and they still remain one of my favorite genres, but I did abandon 2 where the authors were so self involved and they took issue with everything in life personally. Since then, I more careful with choosing memoirs. But I still love the goods ones.

    • Marcia Francois says

      I would LOVE to know which two those are – you don’t have to put it here if you feel uncomfortable, but do WhatsApp me 😉

Trackbacks

  1. […] mentioned in this post a few months ago that it’s quite life-changing when you know the types of books that […]

Speak Your Mind

*

WP2Social Auto Publish Powered By : XYZScripts.com