OMG my experience exactly! I’m 300 pages in and nothing has happened! How can you make fighting Napoleon in Spain boring?! I wish I could say I liked the characters, but I find them insufferable. It’s on my kindle and I’ve taken to reading it about 5 pages at a time while I brush my teeth. I probably won’t be done till next year at this rate!
@momofboiler1 I’m with you on the subject of quotation marks.
I read one Jo Nesbo and really enjoyed it but I also decided that it’s not the kind of genre that I want to spend 600-700 pages on! I love reading crime novels for fun but I kind of feel that if I’m going to read a book that long it needs to be more literary. I don’t know if that makes sense but it’s how I feel! So the rest of his books are a DNS even for me!
Same here! I like my crime novels no longer than medium length. I like some fantasy books but I rarely read super long ones in that genre either. My spouse likes Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson books but I don’t have the patience. What’s insufferable to one person is a fun escape for another. For me, if it’s long, it’s gotta have something else going for it besides mystery or worldbuilding.
ETA: My spouse has a very vivid and rich mind’s eye. Entire detailed scenes spring to life in the mind. I, on the other hand, have aphansasia and can “see” basically nothing in my head. We’ve wondered if that has something to do with our different experiences reading books. I get SO bored reading lengthy visual descriptions (laaaaandscapes)) and I don’t picture characters. I’m not usually disappointed in screen adaptations for any their visual choices. We’ll watch an adaptation of a book we both read and my spouse will be like “oh, that’s really different than I pictured it”, and I’ll be like “it’s SO cool to see that in all its vivid detail on the screen since I didn’t see anything in my head!”
I recently started a book written by the former book critic of the local paper. Big publishing house, so it should have decent editing, right?
I love a parenthetical, but multiple ones on every page pushed me to my limit. I didn’t even skip to the end — just shut it down and returned it to the library.
The last Elizabeth George book I checked out needed a good 500 pages cut out of it. From what I’ve read, she doesn’t like editors.
My kids and partners are super into Brandon Sanderson. Every time they visit, some one is working their way through one of those doorstops. I’m not that much into fantasy, but S lent me a special edition one he’d got of Sanderson’s that he said I’d like --“Tress of the Emerald Sea.” He said it wasn’t too long and very charming and I didn’t need to know the whole mythology to follow it. He was right on all counts. I did enjoy it (very vivid imagery so I see where your H is coming from). But I have no desire to start another, especially those 1000-pagers.
Some of these are just so long they are boring and unreadable - there were quite a few like that between 2005-2015 or so… but I found two of hers superb, length and all: The punishment she deserves and Something to hide. Both were really about life right now in Britain (England, more accurately) and Something to hide has the most odious villain I’ve met - granted, I don’t read serial killer novels and anyway this one was scarier because he’s very realistic; and the fear&horror as Tani tries to save his little sister from being sold/mutilated is real, because you know he could well fail. The punishment she deserves could be about molesters in the clergy but really is about a small town coping with budget cuts in all its important services, including policing.
I’m hoping the next one, out in September, will be in that vein.
I didn’t see any mention of this book in a search of this thread.
I just finished The Page Turner by Viola Shipman. A hearty 
book for me. Set as some of her other books on the shores of Lake Michigan and also the east coast.
It was worth reading this book for its content but I was also really affected by their words to the reader in their acknowledgments. They tell a beautiful story of the why behind their pen name. They talk about how we do - and shouldn’t - judge people for the type of books they read . They basically talks about how books do and can save people and humanity.
I was really touched.
They also shared this quote by Carl Sagan which I may have to print out and keep near my desk. I’ve sure many of you have read it before:
“ What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."”
Keep reading! It’s important for your brain and soul! 
Viola Shipman is actually a man — Wade Rouse, a “queer kid from a conservative Ozarks community.”
I read one of their books way back when, maybe one of the first published. I remember being surprised because it was such a women’s fiction book. Not that that’s bad, just atypical of man writing as a woman.
Yes I think I made all references as they/their since I do it know their preference!
You did. I didn’t catch that!
This just reminded me of another book I loved, The Abundance, by Amit Majmudar. Such a beautiful story.
I didn’t know aphantasia was a thing but…that’s totally me. Just did the quick apple test online. Probably a 3.5. I can see a “3” level apple for a quick moment but it disappears quickly and then it’s a 5.
I never see images when I’m reading.
I hate long descriptions in books and usually skip right past them.
Thanks for the info!
I found out about this a couple of years ago from a friend who has it. He had never understood why people talked about “picturing things” - he didn’t understand he was different until he read about it. He says he literally cannot “see” anything in his mind.
Slight drift but I had a similar experience when I read a book that mentioned synesthesia a few years ago, I did not know it was a thing until then and just assumed that everyone could “see” music the way I do.. .
My younger son owns everything Sanderson has written and even sprang for the leatherbound copies. I gave up after number six or so. I just don’t care about his world or his magic system. I do like fantasy. I am currently reading my way through Robin Hobb. Multiple trilogies and one quadruple mostly 600 pages, but I love them.
I have very much been enjoying this thread - thank you all for sharing your books! Are we allowed to ask for suggestions or is that off-topic? If not, can anyone suggest something(s) for me?
Here’s what I’m looking for:
I need a book or books to read while I commute on the metro. My son has my car for the summer, so I’m doing public transit. I like real paper books, not eReaders, but because I’m taking it on the metro and carrying a fair number of things, I don’t want too big or heavy.
I’m tired all the time and more than a little dispirited about world events. I don’t want a book that is heavy in theme/tone either (as opposed to actual weight). Easy to read, and preferably something that won’t make me sad.
I’m good with most genres. I like your general good guy / bad guy books (Vince Flynn, Daniel Silva, Lee Child), your romance/romantic suspense (Nora Roberts, Julie Garwood, Jayne Ann Krentz), a variety of SciFi/Fantasy (Kay Hooper, just read the Rebecca Yarros Fourth Wing series, haven’t read a ton in this arena, but would be open to more - just need suggestions), and some biographies (enjoyed Jon Stewart, Dave Grohl, Anthony Fauci, Ina Garten, Stanley Tucci - others have been too full of themselves).
Thoughts? Basically, what people would consider an airplane read or beach read is the kind of thing I’m looking for these days.
I also like Silva and Lee. Have you read the Lucas Davenport/Virgil Flowers books by John Sandford?I like those. I also read some books by Charlie Donlea which I didn’t think were quite as well written but still enjoyable. And the Tana French Dublin murder squad series is good (I like some of her others less). For classic older ones, Minette
Walters (some of those are more psychological thriller types though).
If you’re interested in more romantasy, either Sarah Maas’ Court of Thorns and Roses or Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart series are good. If you like Jayne Anne Krentz, try her Jayne Castle Harmony series of future/sci fi. Jennifer Crusie books are fun, either the ones on her own or in partnership with Bob Mayer.
Finlay Donovan is killing it
Newly divorced overwhelmed romance writer mom is mistaken for killer, funny hijinks ensue
Good girl’s guide to murder
Year 13 pupil wants to write her English EPQ (research paper) about a local murder rather than something about Jane Austen
Stranger Diaries
Murder at a British comprehensive+ meet delightful characters
Ryder&Loveday: Fatal Obsession
Just-graduated, enthusiastic Trudy is the first (probationary) Woman Police Officer in 1960s Oxford.
Oh and a really fun one if you haven’t read it yet - Iona Iverson’s Rules for Commuting. That will definitely not leave you feeling sad at the end!
If you enjoy English mysteries, I recommend all of Anthony Horowitz’s “Hawthorne & Horowitz” mysteries, best read in order. “The Word Is Murder” is the first one. His trilogy featuring book editor Susan Ryeland is excellent, too. Start with “Magpie Mysteries.”
For memoirs, I recommend Jacques Pepin’s “The Apprentice;” Julia Chlld’s “My Life in France;” and “L’Appart” by David Lebovitz. If you’ve never read “A Year in Provence,” it’s a delight. (Yes, I’m am a francophile.)
For smart, lighter fiction, I enjoyed “The Nest” and “Good Company” by Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney; anything by Elinor Lipman; “Eligible” and “Romantic Comedy” by Curtis Sittenfeld; and anything by Barbara Pym.
I miss commuting by subway for the sole reason that I don’t read as much as I used to.