What are some things about books that really f$@king piss you off?

I hate it when they put Oprah's book club stickers on books. It makes me not buy them. And I hate it when they put suggested topics for discussion with your book club in the back of the books. It's so Carmella Soprano.

Amen, dear, amen.

Can I post it again? Please? I love it so much.

As to point 4: Cat writing, as I understand it, mostly consists of long descriptive passages about how brilliant naps are, how nummy the food is or isn't, how loud humans are, how fuuny they are when they sit on the white seats and do their business, and why smudges on the wall and free-floating dust-motes will do when there's nothing else to chase. They can write smells to make Suskind look like an amateur. Sure, there are moments when it attains almost to the level of contemporary best-selling fiction in its narration but cats just don't give enough of a f&*k about other creatures' interior monologues to make their characterizations even believable not to mention readable.

I hate that books are so expensive...and some authors, well I'll be dead before they're in a used book store...

Hate those Oprah stickers...

Those books that win awards tho they don't deserve them....but often are weighed with "truth" so are therefore "deep and worthy".

I hate paperbacks that have the extra-cheap covers that curl uncontrollably.

Things that annoy me:

1. as already mentioned elsewhere, large print editions with swear words deleted.

2. editions of children's books with adultified covers so you are supposedly less embarrassed to be reading them.

A friend swears that Martin's Throne of King series is incredible, but when I found that this was not a trilogy but closer to five or six book I have never managed to be able to bring myself to start.

I tend to like American editions of books (especially Penguins) more than UK/Irish ones, because the pages are thinner and the books stay open without me having to break the spine. I hate reading a book I can't hold in one hand.

I normally read on the way to and from work and often have to stand on the train. I want a nice portable paperback - which these days translates as wait another six-twelve months for new releases.

x-post: not a physical book complaint, but speaking of never ending fantasy books and waits, Alan Dean Foster's Flinx series is doing the same long wait/little payoff. Checking his website FAQ: "WILL FLINX FINALLY ENCOUNTER AND HAVE TO DEAL WITH "THE GREAT EVIL" THAT IS MENTIONED IN SEVERAL STORIES? Yes, eventually--but not for a while yet." Ho-hum. And second the J.K. Rowling impatience, but am at least grateful I started reading them with the fifth book, and haven't had to wait for each one. Two to go, figure Potter # 7 in 2007?

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0143035002/ref=pd_gw_smp_ts_b_1/002-2166673-3382448

Trade paperbacks are pretty nice, though. They're not nearly so heavy as hardcovers.

You could also look at Clueless and think the same, but Clueless was a great Emma. I realise I may have the Austen Society breaking down my door now.

I'm impatient for the next Harry Potter too, but at least the Azkaban movie is out now and I'm anxious to see it (Gary Oldman and Emma Thompson as well as the usual jolly crew! Can't wait!). I say give Rowling all the time she needs--it's always worth the wait.

When I read the first of Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy, I couldn't find the second one, and it made me nuts. The book ends on such a cliffhanger. I was in Barnes & Noble searching the stacks and encountered a tough-looking black guy who was downright incensed that it wasn't there. One finds soulmates in the oddest places. Well, maybe a bookstore isn't that odd a place.

People who come in the store I work at not knowing the name of a title or author of a book, but also not whether it is fiction or non-fiction -- that's not so good.

(It happens often, btw)

Reading group/book club editions are a bit weird with their list of discussion questions in the back.

Something else that pisses me off (but is my own fault) is having a series with all different sized books. For His Dark Materials I have the first two in a nice trade size but the third in a small mass market size. They end up looking weird when shelved together. And when I start reading a series and like it so much I'll go out and get the newest one in hardcover. Then those look odd/misshaped next to each other. [*sigh*]

AND YES! (see Peanutduck below):

Those books that win awards tho they don't deserve them....but often are weighed with "truth" so are therefore "deep and worthy".

-- PeanutDuck (peanutduc...), June 3rd, 2004.

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Here's mine: this goes for CDs too: The fact that the dollar is so weak against the Euro right now that it costs insane amounts of money for me to read anything current that isn't American. Not that thsi screwy place isn't generating innaresting things, it's just about variety being the spice of life and all.

People who succeed for reasons other than talent and effort. The trust-fund baby writer or the movernshaker form one big lucky roaring thundering bete noir in my skull. Hypocritical, I know, since there's a lot of luck involved in talent and developing just the right work ethic as well. I keep forgetting that no one will remember these schmucks in 100 years, and writing is a distance-runner's game.

there was a review a few years ago in which the reviewer extensively quoted sex scenes from a william f. buckley novel because they were so very very awful

Which is precisely why if you're going to do it, you need to write "hard" porn.

B. "Never ending Fantasy series." comment by oblomov. Yes. Oh gods yes. The same thing happened to me after about the 6 Dragon book. We ALL know he's the Dragon Reborn, the rest of the world he's in knows, the author knows, so why doesn't Jordan just say it. GET IT OVER WITH! Same with that sci-fi David Feintuch series. Hope this and Hope that, you'd think he'd write a book with some "hope" in it. But its just whines on and on. Had to stop after 4 or 5.

C. Oprah Picks. Pick something worth reading. Kay thats a little judgemental, as not everyone likes the same genre of book. I detest frilly, sappy, twinkletoed, dance through the valley in the sun, life lessons, chick-flick genre books. Give me a thrilling sci-fi, deep space, even some magic, some adventure and violence. Just because its the former doesn't mean its a good book and just because its the latter doesn't mean its a bad one. There are other genres that can have a "good" pick chosen out of them, she needs to expand her horizons into something else.

D. this isn't really about the books that pisses me off, rather the people who see me reading one. Just because I'm a chick and over 30 doesn't mean I'm reading Romance.

How many times have i restrained myself from responding something along the line of " Well I suspect that if you could break away from your regularly programmed reality TV and sports lifestyle you may actually be able to find the time to read something as well.

I think the problem people have is partly that they see reading as a chore, as something that's physically harder to do than watching television. Like how some people can drive a car without thinking about it and some people who are just starting out can't. They have to think about everything they're doing and the whole action of it just seems wrong and takes so much effort that they really would rather walk everywhere. They marvel at people who can drive and talk at the same time or make right turns and do hill starts without breaking into a sweat. People who aren't readers from an early age see reading in this way. And, as is natural for people in those situations, they try to make you into some kind of weirdo for doing it.

Actually, it's more likely to be lots of 'get it over quick so I can get back to my book'.

Am I even on the right thread?

LOL Exactly!! I read on the bus for 10 minutes, I read at lunch, just before bed, when I'm in the loo, when I'm waiting in the car. And thats just little bits and pieces. Everyone has a few minutes to spare while they are waiting for something or someone. I carry "emergency" books with me or have them in the car and at work in case I finish the current book I'm reading.

In fact I hate not being able to read... have you ever sneak-read while at work, or been tempted to buy books on tape just so you could listen to them at work instead of the radio hehe. Though books on tape aren't as good as reading itself, as a person always puts their own inflections, tones of voice, sounds of the character into a book, creating a movie of it in their mind.

Mikey, if there's a hosepipe ban this summer, you're in big trouble.

and what's so bad about waiting tables?

What is a boy to do?

Forgive me.

I'm sorry, I have to go and have a little cry now.

2: Oblomov, accentmonkey: Quite agree with both of you.
Sometimes I meet people who ask me; Why do you read so much? Reading is boring.
Then I usually ask; what do you know about that?
Then they will often begin to tell me a lot about exactly how boring it is and that´s when I ask them in a very high and surprised voice: Can you read???
They always know it´s an insult(revenge!), but they never understand the point. As accentmonkey wrote above; you have to learn to read. It´s not enough to know the alfabet. You have to learn patience, you have to learn to sit still, to block out other peoples noice and your own thoughts about everything else. You have to concentrate.

About a year ago I got two cats. (Ps:loved Michael White and peanutDucks reflections on cat-writings).
On that occasion a friend of mine said to another friend of mine(who later told me): I´m so happy for Jens. Then he´ll finally have something to live for.
Arrrgggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh. I was shocked, I was angry. Seldom have I been so upset and enraged. Listen: She´s a finansiel lawyer, she goes to the opera and art exhibitions. She´s not stupid. And I don´t think she meant to insult me. I mean, she´s a good friend. Well, ????????

All your arguments are true and yet they don't add up to it being harder to watch TV. TV makes some connection to a center in your brain and grabs you and suddenly you've watched five hours of VH1's latest countdown and you didn't notice the time pass at all. That is easy.

cf. Da Vinci Code, Armageddon: The Musical.

It's quite weird when you read a passage in a book that was written seriously (Brown), when you've read an almost exact, yet unrelated, passage as satire (Rankin).