At Worlds' End
What are the Unread?
What is it that makes a book sit on a shelf for years without being touched? Why buy a book just to decorate your house with it? What robs the reader of the motivation to read?
At 12:40 AM on December 31, I finished reading the 100th book of the year, meeting my reading goal with less than 24 hours to spare, and having read 95 Unread books over the course of the year. There was no need to cut it so fine; at one point I was fourteen books down, at another I was fourteen books up. But that's 95 books that I'd bought, but hadn't read, as of the beginning of 2017.
I guess that one can answer the question by just asking whether the books were any good. It's a fair question, partly because it's not by mistake that this year's sole one-star participant was on the shelf longer than any other: "The Pendragon Chronicles," an impossibly dense and indulgent anthology of Arthurian literature, waited some 25 years to be appreciated. Of this year's books, 33 were three-star or less. Three stars delineates books that, while not "bad," nevertheless don't inspire continued reading. They feel like assignments. They're work.
But that doesn't explain the thirteen five-star books on this year's list. There must be some explanation why books like "Rat's Reputation," "Connecticut Yankee," and "Black Dogs" sat on the shelf for so long without being appreciated. Or why the vast four-star midlist went untouched.
There might have been some intimidation factor. When one sees a pile of 119 neglected books, one doesn't see 119 pleasant weekend afternoons spent reading; one sees a Sisyphean task without end. Hell, some of the individual books might have contributed: "Cryptonomicon" was 1200 pages, "First Words" and "Proud Highway" were 800 pages each, and "A Song of Ice and Fire" clocked some four thousand or so pages all by itself. It does the heart poorly for the reader to haul down another dictionary-sized volume with a looming deadline. Even the good books added bulk to this mountain of literature; it's increasingly difficult to see the "Howl's Moving Castles" among the "Dr. Zhivagos."
Some books were a little difficult to get into. "Wolfhelm" and "Orn" were both sequels, and took some time to get traction, given the narratives they were written to follow. The books on writing could be infuriating. Some just weren't very good. Truth is, there are lots of reasons for a book to go Unread, but the result is the same - a huge hoard of untouched books.
Books are not for hoarding.
There are still something like 25 books left in the Unread. That's better than the 119 I started with, but they should be dealt with in the coming year. Of the books now read, many of them will probably find their way into second-hand shops and booksellers where they can be appreciated again; the three-star books will most likely be sent to new homes.
Got to make room on the shelf for more books.
What is it that makes a book sit on a shelf for years without being touched? Why buy a book just to decorate your house with it? What robs the reader of the motivation to read?
At 12:40 AM on December 31, I finished reading the 100th book of the year, meeting my reading goal with less than 24 hours to spare, and having read 95 Unread books over the course of the year. There was no need to cut it so fine; at one point I was fourteen books down, at another I was fourteen books up. But that's 95 books that I'd bought, but hadn't read, as of the beginning of 2017.
I guess that one can answer the question by just asking whether the books were any good. It's a fair question, partly because it's not by mistake that this year's sole one-star participant was on the shelf longer than any other: "The Pendragon Chronicles," an impossibly dense and indulgent anthology of Arthurian literature, waited some 25 years to be appreciated. Of this year's books, 33 were three-star or less. Three stars delineates books that, while not "bad," nevertheless don't inspire continued reading. They feel like assignments. They're work.
But that doesn't explain the thirteen five-star books on this year's list. There must be some explanation why books like "Rat's Reputation," "Connecticut Yankee," and "Black Dogs" sat on the shelf for so long without being appreciated. Or why the vast four-star midlist went untouched.
There might have been some intimidation factor. When one sees a pile of 119 neglected books, one doesn't see 119 pleasant weekend afternoons spent reading; one sees a Sisyphean task without end. Hell, some of the individual books might have contributed: "Cryptonomicon" was 1200 pages, "First Words" and "Proud Highway" were 800 pages each, and "A Song of Ice and Fire" clocked some four thousand or so pages all by itself. It does the heart poorly for the reader to haul down another dictionary-sized volume with a looming deadline. Even the good books added bulk to this mountain of literature; it's increasingly difficult to see the "Howl's Moving Castles" among the "Dr. Zhivagos."
Some books were a little difficult to get into. "Wolfhelm" and "Orn" were both sequels, and took some time to get traction, given the narratives they were written to follow. The books on writing could be infuriating. Some just weren't very good. Truth is, there are lots of reasons for a book to go Unread, but the result is the same - a huge hoard of untouched books.
Books are not for hoarding.
There are still something like 25 books left in the Unread. That's better than the 119 I started with, but they should be dealt with in the coming year. Of the books now read, many of them will probably find their way into second-hand shops and booksellers where they can be appreciated again; the three-star books will most likely be sent to new homes.
Got to make room on the shelf for more books.
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