A few DNFs - Christmas 1945, Mansfield Park and The Queen of Last Hopes

I've always been a fickle reader, prone to read only so far and then abandon books but then return to them for a 2nd or even a 3rd try. It's just how I read, really. If a book doesn't grab me, I'll often have trouble forcing myself through it -- and, yet, 6 months or a year down the line I might find that same book becomes a personal favorite. Great Expectations is one of my favorite examples. I didn't get very far on the first 2 attempts but on the 3rd attempt the reading went quickly and I absolutely loved it.

Since history has shown that I will be less likely to like or positively review a book if I shove myself through the reading, I've continued to abandon those that don't grab me, although I do fight guilt when I set aside Advanced Reader Copies. Here are a few that have recently fallen into the Did Not Finish category, why I didn't finish them and whether or not I plan to give them another go.

Christmas 1945: The Story of the Greatest Celebration in American History by Matthew Litt

I got Christmas 1945 from History Publishing Company, a small press I'm quite fond of, unsolicited. The portion I read was really enjoyable -- very illuminating. I set it aside around Christmas because I was feeling a little overwhelmed with the seasonal doings and then decided I didn't much feel like reading about Christmas after Christmas ended. No surprise there.

While I did think it was a little on the dry side, it's a book I will definitely return to -- probably when it gets hot and I want to think about the cool time of year. WWI, the Great Depression, WWII and the post-war years are all of particular interest to me, possibly because my parents and grandparents lived through them, but also because I've always been very impressed with the gumption of people who lived through those major events.

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen - The first ebook I attempted to read from the beginning (I read a bit of Peter Pan on my husband's iPad, last year), I thought Mansfield Park was okay but I've discovered something fascinating: I'm really not an ebook type of gal. I have a tendency to pick up the paper books and forget I'm reading an ebook. Hmm. This is something I've never seen mentioned by other bloggers.

At any rate, I was chugging along just fine but not finding Mansfield Park the most enjoyable Jane Austen I've read and it seemed to be awfully easy to set the book aside. So, I finally decided I'll come back to it another time. I was encouraged by a few friends who told me Mansfield Park is their least favorite work by Austen.

I also own a paperback copy of Mansfield Park, so it'll be interesting to see whether I end up reading the ebook or the paper copy when I return to it.

The Queen of Last Hopes by Susan Higginbotham is a perfect example of Bookfool's Moody Reading. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the book -- nothing at all I dislike about it. From the first page, Margaret of Anjou was a compelling narrator. When I began reading The Queen of Last Hopes, however, I knew it was going to be a struggle simply because I wasn't in the mood to read historical fiction.

Since the book is an Advanced Reader's Copy I received from Sourcebooks, I forged ahead and made it about 30 pages. Then, as often happens when I'm not really in the mood to read a particular book, I set it down and didn't pick it back up. After about 10 days of looking askance at the book, I picked it up again and reread the same 30 pages. Same thing, round 2. I just wasn't in the mood for a large-cast historical fiction -- and it might at least partially have to do with the fact that I've read a lot of medieval fiction in the past year. Again, I plan to return to the book and I hope to read it as soon as humanly possible. I like Higginbotham's writing style and The Queen of Last Hopes is a story I've been looking forward to reading. I'm really quite fascinated by my inability to force myself through a book if the timing is wrong.

There are two books in my sidebar that I'm struggling with and which will probably soon disappear. One is the gluten-free French cookbook by Chef Alain Braux: Living Gluten and Dairy-Free with French Gourmet Food. Like Mansfield Park, the "struggling" can be wholly blamed upon the fact that it's an ebook and I keep forgetting it's there. I plan to have that one printed and bound, as soon as possible, because I honestly am dying to read it -- I loved Alain Braux's first cookbook; we're still using it -- and we want to try the recipes but I just can't talk myself into bothering to look at it on the reader. This is very frustrating. I hope my reader doesn't become a toy that only gets used for checking email and reading during vacations. I don't even leave home very often!!!

The other book I'm having trouble with is The Procrastination Equation by Piers Steel, PhD, an ARC from HarperCollins. I have no specific policy about what page number I'll read to before abandoning an advanced reader but I recently read a favorite blogger's policy and decided 50 pages, her stated minimum, is a good number to shoot for. I'm finding I tend to quit around page 30-50, anyway, if a book isn't clicking with me, but I think it's very reasonable to read at least 50 pages before abandoning a book and I'm attempting to do so with The Procrastination Equation.

Guess what page I stopped on? Go ahead, guess. Ahhh. 30 pages. Figures. If I stop reading The Procrastination Equation, it will not be a book I return to because at this point I'm finding that I have a strong desire to give the author's marvelously oversized balloon ego a good pop. His arrogance is seriously annoying. In addition to that, I'm finding the whole equation thing is not explained well at all. The idea with this kind of book should be to create a practical guide to enacting change in the reader's life, a simple way to put improvement into effect, right? I'm not seeing it. But, as I said, I'm going to give it another 20 pages to see if it becomes more readable after the initial explanation of the "equation" that's supposed to help me stop procrastinating.

Speaking of which . . . I'm actually doing pretty well at getting things done, lately, anyway. I just added up my "Books In" for the last 5 weeks and subtracted the number of "Books Out", then came up with a net figure. In 5 weeks' time, I've received quite a few books but my net has been 103 books out the door. Wahoo! I think 20 per week is a solid start. I've still got a long, long way to go but we're also getting rid of clothing we no longer wear and games we don't play, so we've opened up a good bit of space in our little home, already. It's been really helpful having Kiddo back in the house. His presence is motivating me to get the job done so he doesn't have to worry about clutter and can just focus on studying.

And, now I leave you with Izzy under the dresser, your daily dose of Kitty Cute.

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