My thanks to Natalie for alerting me to this article about reader's block. I like the references to the global shortage of bookmarks and "the want of application and total spinelessness that is common in the modern age"! And what about the Basil Boothroyd solution - any books good candidates for that?
Later:
You can read Norm's response to the article here, and I'm with him on Ishiguro, Whipple and Trevor (can't comment on the others as I haven't read them!).
And even later:
Here's Edith Sitwell's view - "A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits".
OK, I just read Ferney in two glorious days at the beach.
LOVED the ending but help! How was Gally Billy Bunter? And who was the woman in the hole?
I'm rereading but can't find the key to this all.
LOL!
Posted by: Loretta | 25 July 2008 at 01:40 PM
I love the idea of cleansing your palet with 'Heat'!
My problem is not that I don't read, but what to read next. I spend a terrible ammount on books and many sit on my shelf for years before I read them, because I've always found something else to tempt ... If people could hold off on writing new books for a couple of years, I'd be most grateful!
Posted by: Becca | 25 July 2008 at 02:00 PM
I love the idea of cleansing your palet with 'Heat'!
My problem is not that I don't read, but what to read next. I spend a terrible ammount on books and many sit on my shelf for years before I read them, because I've always found something else to tempt ... If people could hold off on writing new books for a couple of years, I'd be most grateful!
Posted by: Becca | 25 July 2008 at 02:00 PM
I am so glad that the article was not about how we should all read more and then for it to dictate to us exactly what we should be reading and why. I am so tired of that kind of book snobbery.
Love the idea of throwing a book out of a train window if it no longer pleases - if only I had the courage to do such a thing!!
I now read purely for pleasure. Done are my days of reading required texts and so called classics. I will try anything - but if I don't like it I have no qualms about putting it down.
Posted by: Carol | 25 July 2008 at 06:05 PM
Dark Puss found the article interesting, but I think I suffer less than some people precisely because I do not have either a pile of books awaiting me like some guilty conscience, nor (whisper it quietly) any list at all of books "to be read". My Basil Boothroyd solution - borrow your book from the library, if you can't get on with it then take it back the next day and breath easily again. A candidate for such treatment - too many to mention (some are Cornflower readers' favourites and I don't wish to be pilloried), but how about that old favourite "Ulysses" by Joyce - actually I still have my copy.
Posted by: Peter the flautist | 26 July 2008 at 02:29 PM
I have put my list of books of the year over on Dove Grey, so won't repeat it here, but only to say: Anthony Powell was my discovery of the year and I'm now reading the Michael Barber biography which is most fascinating.
Cleansing the palate: instead of HEAT try LEE CHILD...he's terrific! And not what most readers of Cornflower would choose to read, I bet.
Posted by: adele geras | 27 July 2008 at 10:39 AM