When it comes to books, I tend to move on quickly.Too quickly, perhaps.
What I mean is, I will finish a book and almost immediately pick up a new one and start page-flipping.
I go into some kind of epileptic panic if I am not CURRENTLY reading something, I guess.
I liken the discovery of no book in my backpack to..... a seagull landing on the blowhole of a snorkeler's......... snorkel..... dealie.
Get the picture?
Something needs to happen, and happen fast.
Perhaps many of us are similar in this area.
The people that tend to visit Bookpuddle are generally prolific readers -- I think it would be safe to say that. If you weren't a rabid Bookavore, you wouldn't be here, am I right?
But for me, the downside of this insatiable appetite is that by the time I want to speak of a completed book [ie., do a book review].... well this may be a bit too intestinal of a metaphor for the squeamish out there, but it's like while I'm still digesting the last thing, all I want to really talk about is the new thing that is now mixing with my saliva -- as it were. I have a high metabolism when it comes to books and all. So, the last book is now on its merry way to my colon, [so to say] and the new book is..... well, you get the picture, right?
Perhaps some of you have noticed this thing about me?
I say more about books while I'm still eating them then I do when I'm doing the dishes?
[I'm the same with hamburgers, actually.]
VORACIOUS! OUT-OF-CONTROL!
OVER-ZEALOUS!
GLUTTONOUS!
So, apologies to Jennifer Egan, whose book The Keep deserves a 5-star review.
Apologies to Ann Patchett, John Irving, [he pats his chest.... is that gas?] -- Saul Bellow, Richard Bausch, even Mark Twain...... oh God, too many to mention -- all of them gorged upon with the ferocity of three starving tigers --
but, I just wanted to check in here with my peeps, and tell you that this latest book by some Barcelonian author named Carlos Ruiz Zafon [buuuuuuurp...] umm, I just started it yesterday and seriously [as he puts the thing down to type...] I CANNOT PUT THE THING DOWN!
It's too good. [He pops a Rolaids....] like REAL good!
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon.
This is one of the best halfway-through books I have ever belched about here on Bookpuddle!
*******
That’s one of the reasons I stopped doing reviews for publishers – too difficult to go back and think clearly about a book while engrossed in/digesting a new one...
ReplyDeleteThere was way too much burping going on...not ladylike... ;)
Agreed!
ReplyDeleteAnd yet I have to now and then do legitimate reviews because I keep on asking for books from the publisher!
It's like eating a huge meal and then having to go and discuss things with the chef when all you really want to do is...... go and eat some more! [This explains not only why I don't do a lot of reviews lately, but also why a lot of my wardrobe doesn't fit me anymore....]
I know! I totally literally could NOT put this book down -- my nose was in it on escalators (and I'm a firm believer in not walking and reading at the same) and I'd take it with me to the grocery store just in case. I'm pretty much over it now, but what a great ride! (And I really hated Shadow of the Wind and fully expected to hate this too.)
ReplyDeleteI'm so bad I read several books at once. That way if I finish one I don't feel it's urgent I replace it immediately. Some books I have to mull over a bit and having something else on the go somehow helps me do this. I'm presently reading What Happened to Henry by Sharon Pywell but have a book of Munroe's best selected short stories (aren't they all?!) so that I have something to fall back on after I finish the novel. I see more clearly one book when I'm not thinking about the next one.
ReplyDeleteI suppose I also qualify as a "bookavore".
C.
See, that's one reason I have as many as 10 books in progress at any given time. That way I am always guaranteed to in the middle of something. I have The Angel's Game waiting patiently by my bedside. I've not picked it up yet because I know once I do I won't be able to stop.
ReplyDeleteI'm suffering this same rapid-reader conundrum. I have five or six books I've finished and want to talk about but I've picked up a few more instead of writing about the ones I'm done with. But I have to make some notes or the reading experience fades before I can write it up.
ReplyDeleteIsabella:
ReplyDeleteIt truly is..... umm... at least the opposite of boring, this book? Really. It has me immersed.
I've wondered about the Shadow book, so thanks for your warning....
C.
You are DEFINITELY a Bookivore.
Bookivorous Champignonious!
[You'd have to be French-speaking to understand this, so never mind...]
Stefanie:
10 Books?
That is delightfully CRAZY!
Yes, you will really love The Angel's Game.
My byline for this book is going to be "The Opposite of Boring."
Melanie:
I know the malaise you describe! So well.
I am still waiting to meet the book that keeps me from reaching for the NEXT one.
We get greedy... we get greedy... because really, something chemical is going on, with a pure reader.
The equivalent of adrenaline!
Or... you know.... cocaine!