In fact few of my favorite books would pass a 50 page test on first reading.
Yeah, I don’t trust this rule either. Some books haven’t become good for me until after I’ve finished them, and sometimes not until a second reading.
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Robert Heinlein knew of this rule and took advantage of it. He has several books which are dry for the first 50 pages and only start on page 51. One of them I was reading years back was literally night and day when you flipped to page 51. I need to look up and see if he every talked about it, but a a reader I could hear him mutter “Still with me? Okay, hold on, this part’s going to move quickly!”
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I had an english professor who offered advice on how to get through a really hard reading assignment. I was struggling to read Henry James’ The Bostonians. He said, just skip the first chapter or two. By then, the story should be in full swing, and if necessary, you can go back and read the chapters you skipped when if you want.
It didn’t help. I got an incomplete on that reading assignment.
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I generally know it’s time to stop reading when I’ve flung the book across the room.
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Psssst… this one is better.
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I try to vet bad books before I even properly start reading them. When I consider a book I usually read the first page and the last page. And if I’m not sure I’ll read a few random pages in the middle.
And with books to drop: if it’s boring, I stop reading. The only recent exception to this rule I made with Rushdie’s Midnight Children. It was well boring but that seemed to be a part of the idea so I persevered to find out it was thoroughly ‘meh’ all the way through.
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My problem is in series of books. Take Peter F. Hamilton as an example. I have yet to read any series from him that has a decent ending. The books are great and enjoyable, but it’s like he doesn’t know how to write an ending to a series and just lets it fall flat. Not just one, but three or more times. I’ve sort of given up on him.
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I won’t start reading any series that hasn’t already been wrapped up by its author. (I did make an exception for Discworld because most of the books can be read as if they were free standing).
Endless series with cliffhanger endings are truly the plague of SF and fantasy these days. I am sure that if Tolkein had been born in 1955 we’d be seeing Volume 19 of LOTR about now.
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Kafka’s The Castle is still on the shelf after I started it at least 22 years ago. (Well, different shelf – I’ve moved in the meantime)
EDIT:
I actually finished GR. I picked it up at the right time. My brain was in high gear; I never felt as smart before or after I was 23 or 24 years old. Now, Finnegans Wake, I don’t think I got to page 5, much less 50.
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The pages could be very, very large. Another way to foil the dreaded Pearl Test.
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I read Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, found the book conceptually interesting but the ending felt irredeemably bad and ruined the entirety of the book for me. A lot of plot threads are also poorly tied up by the end (and the main character fails to accomplish the one thing she set out to do) that i was just livid, felt like a waste of my time.
??? Ya know, I think there have been quite a few good, adult-level short stories out there. Libraries are full of 'em.
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Stephen King has written quite a few short stories.
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True, but such a delight. And a very easy read. And the best intro to magical realism I can think of. Early on there’s this substance introduced to the village or the children (pardon me it’s been decades since I’ve read this) and it is pure magic. It is cold. Oh, so cold! Colder than anything EVER before!! It is solid and opaque! It drips the tears of the Virgin Herself!!! Dios!!! What magic is this??? Ice, of course. I think that is where I fell in love with the book. And I was ready to believe in magic again.
Now, if you want something more difficult, you could always try The Green House by Mario Vargas Llosa where many characters are referred to obliquely and the non-linearity of the story is enough to make Tarantino weep. I’ll admit, that one was a tough go. Then again, there’s always Julio Cortázar who wrote Hopscotch, an odd thing where you could read chapters 1-56 and call it done, or you could ‘hopscotch’ thru all 155 chapters according to a scheme set out by the author. He generously encourages you to ‘choose your own adventure’ should you wish. And If you really want something heavy, you can always go for Carlos Fuentes’ Terra Nostra’. [ok this one is really difficult.]
Now, as to King, gad, he is so easy to read, and by that I mean he has a conversational tone (oh, hey buddy; you try it; not easy) that pulls you into whatever story he’s telling, even if it is one the the crappier ones, and there’s a few.
But, and for some reason this was the point I was trying to get to, there is absolute dreck out there that is horrifyingly popular and, no I am not talking James Patterson. I’ve read one and need read no more. Nay, I am speaking of that horror … Dan Brown! Dear God, this crap is on a level of, “It was a dark and stormy night”. No, wait. That is brilliance compared to Dan Brown. Dear fucking Lord, this person should have been strangled in the cradle like Hitler!! Well, they weren’t and here we are.
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When to stop reading a bad book?
At the end of course. Even a bad books have their moments.
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I have to admit, I wasn’t familiar with him at all when I read The Dream of the Celt; I read it soon after finishing King Leopold’s Ghost. I can’t say that I “enjoyed” reading either of those books, but they are both must-reads.
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Liked your comment just for this. I tried that Da Vinci thing of his, couldn’t get past ten pages because the writing was so gawdawful bad.
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I accidentally found the proper way to at least try to get thru “Finnegan’s Wake” and that is to get other idiots such as oneself to sit comfortably with some really good Irish Whiskey and read the sucker aloud. True, the thunder claps presented a problem, but it was a really funny problem. Actually, we giggled a LOT which I think was part of Joyce’s plan, but hoo nose.
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The ones i can think of off of the top of my head:
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A Confederacy of Dunces - Widely acclaimed and i have no idea why. Absolute garbage IMHO, gave up 1/3 into the book which is probably a record for me.
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The Silmarillion - I adore the LoTR series, but this felt like reading a dictionary cover to cover…
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Theres also another on kindle unlimited, which i’m not even going to name the title, that started off with rape in the first chapter THEN GOT MUCH WORSE.
I thought myself fairly unshockable, this book managed it in spades though…
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Well, that’s a good way to ensure that they won’t finish. Each subsequent book in a series gets published based on the sales of the last. So you and everybody else who waits: the publisher doesn’t care about hypothetical future sales that may occur when all the books are finished. If it isn’t selling now, there will be no more books, no matter how good you think it is.
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