List things in books that you find obscurely depressing (and you're not even necessarily sure why)...

I'll kick this off:

* Reading group guide at the book, full of painfully obvious or pointless questions

* Seeing that the author is a professor in a creative writing course at a US university (this seems to be the case for every American writer under the age of 55)

* Book is set in the Appalachians

* Book by middle-aged female poet contains a poem about her feet

* Start reading biography of someone you're really interested in, and find that the book begins with a lengthy chapter (or more) on their grandparents

Any literary biography that is >350pp had better be about an author of unquestionable world standing who lived a life full of incident and tumult.

Used books where all the underlined passages are confined to a small section of the book.

* Seeing that the author is a professor in a creative writing course at a US university (this seems to be the case for every American writer under the age of 55)

this is usually iowa's when i notice it and not depressing

i like appalachian suff too. maybe we're just very different people

pinckney benedict is at least one good example of both of these imo

*knowing a book only by its most famous idea/line/passage, and finding out that passage/line occurs within the first 20 pages of the 700 page tome

haven't read swann's way yet but I have a good guess as to where madeleines make an appearance?

Used books where all the underlined passages are confined to a small section of the book.

― cwkiii, 20. oktober 2012 03:39 (16 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I once burrowed a danish book, called something like 'old cars after the war', and there is this weird flashback towards the end of the narrator going on a safari with a family, and having sex first with the teenage daughter, then with the mother, then with the father. in that passage, every instance of the words 'fuck' 'cock' and 'pussy' was underlined. It was quite hilarious, there were lines all over for like 15 pages.

I think the madeleine bit of swann's way are a bit further in (though i guess it'll depend on the edition). the first thirty pages or so is marcel wanting his mother to kiss him goodnight... it's definitely towards the beginning, though. everything famous in don quixote happens right at the beginning of part one...

* Used books with personalized messages written inside indicating that they were gifts. Particularly old used books.

* Old hardbacks missing their slipcovers.

i was in a used bookstore with a friend of mine who's an author and they had some of his books for sale and the owner recognised him and asked if he would mind signing them so he agreed and then it turned out one of them was already gift signed by him to one of his friends and i overlaughed about it.

i don't like it when first person narrators seductively describe the texture of their own skin.

god this is the thread for me. but I read a lot of non-fiction...

i get sad when i peek into HUGE monster best-seller books and they are unreadable to me. i looked at a paperback copy of Hannibal the other day at the store and my eyes glazed over in five seconds. it looked like it had been written by five robot monkeys. and people love that guy! (and i love genre fiction and horror and all that.)

Hannibal is both a great movie and one of the worst books ever shat out of an author's asshole.

being unable to finish reading a thick classic, and when you finally do finish it - discovering it was nevertheless a waste of time. (of course, when the classic turns out to be great as it "should" be - it's a pure catharsis pleasure)

finding out an editor made controversial decisions on the text, all of which u agree with

About eighteen months ago I took my book overflow to the run-of-the-mill charity shop near my house. Popped in this week for the first time since, thought their selection was unusually good - then realised everything that was catching my eye was one of the books I'd donated.

ha

that is depressing though, I would probably have been unable to resist the urge to buy half of them back

Author bios describing all the jobs they've had. Usually vaguely odd ones (undertaker & pastry decorator), or hard labor/factory jobs. Guess it's supposed to give them credibility?

Several pages of blurbs -- this actually made me put aside _Leaving the Atocha Station._

* Start reading biography of someone you're really interested in, and find that the book begins with a lengthy chapter (or more) on their grandparents

this kills. takes me back to reading isaac asimov's TWO-VOLUME autobiography as a teen.

* Seeing that the author is a professor in a creative writing course at a US university (this seems to be the case for every American writer under the age of 55)

seems this should be a hidden shame

"Volume one in a new fantasy tetralogy!"