I’ve been avoiding a book – a book that I have to read for an upcoming meeting of one of the library book groups.  It’s by an author who just doesn’t, shall we say, “do it” for me.  I’ve read one other book by this author, also for a book group meeting, and finishing it was pure torture for me.  Why this second book by an author I firmly dislike, you ask?  Because the book group members suggested it and then voted on it, and it received a lot of votes.  There was no avoiding it: after the vote, I knew I was going to have to read it.

So it’s sitting on the arm of my comfy Ikea chair right now, all 581 pages of it, sitting heavily and glaring at me as I write a post to avoid the inevitable reading.  Obviously, I’m not going to identify the book or the author, because that would just be mean-spirited, but I will say that one reason I struggle with this author’s body of work is that this author uses an awful lot of detail, so much detail that a reader can’t even begin to skim for fear of missing something really important.  I tried to skim the last book, and sure enough I’d miss something key, then have to backtrack and find out what I had missed and then go forward again – ultimately taking more time than if I had just read carefully from the start.  Actually, the detail wouldn’t be such a problem if I enjoyed the genre and the author’s style; but I don’t, at all.  Torture, I tell you, torture.  I’ve allowed myself three full weekends to read this book; but so far I’m only on page 25, and one weekend is now officially over.  Not promising!!

But oh, look!  It’s bedtime.  No more reading tonight!  Instead I’ll just procrastinate until next weekend…