Reading/Book Pet Peeves

[Cherry91]

We were just talking about, in another thread, the length of time one is expected to guard against spoilers (watch out for spoilers regarding Pride and Prejudice, Star Wars, and other things which have been out for a while!). It seems pretty unfair to NEVER be able to discuss plot twists! Sometimes, you need to get off your duff and keep up with the times, or suffer the consequences.

I remember when the show "Rome" was being discussed over on the TWoP boards. Someone complained about people "spoiling" the fact that Caesar was assassinated.  I think they added a disclaimer, "It's not a spoiler if its been aired on the East Coast...or if it happened over 2000 years ago."

I'm a big fan of The Lizzie Bennett Diaries, a modern adaptation of Pride and Prejudice as a series of vlogs. As everyone thought all the viewers would know the story, we were more speculating about how certain events would be adapted to modern day (eg, Lydia's elopement). Imagine our surprise when someone started complaining that we had "spoiled" that Jane and Bingly (or Bing Lee in the vlogs) reunite and Lizzie and Darcy get together!

[Petticoats]

Another recommendation here for Hawthorne's short stories.

Pod.  Although I wish you all would give "The Scarlet Letter" and "House of the Seven Gables" another chance.  I think "God will give him blood to drink!" is one of the great curses of literature.

ITA. I enjoyed both MUCH more after having experienced "Rappaccini's Daughter"!

Now I have to go look up "Rappaccini's Daughter."

I haven't read the story, but there's a film version of it that I liked: It's part of "Twice Told Tales" with Vincent Price.

I haven't read House of the Seven Gables, but I have a real fondness for the film version with Vincent Price (playing a good guy for once) and George Sanders (an awesome baddie). Granted, the cheese factor is distinct, but I love all that gothic atmosphere.

When I was a teacher I used to assign Hawthorne's short stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Birthmark." For some reason I never did click with "Rappaccini's Daughter."

[cwm]

My current cutoff for spoilers: if it's older than my niece, it's not a spoiler and you can't get horribly offended. She's almost 2. I will try my hardest to avoid giving spoilers if I know for a cold hard fact how far someone is in the series, but I'm not going to be sorry for letting it slip who Luke's dad is. I won't even be sorry about it. It happened before I was born, not a spoiler.

This is going to sound really picky here, but I have to admit it to someone. I've been reading a book, and I love the roughness of the pages. But I absolutely hate hate hate it when the pages aren't cut cleanly and one or more sides is slightly ragged. Can't stand it. I have a hard time actually turning the pages, I have to stop and pull myself out of the book to make sure it's just one page that's being turned at once, I can't run my hands along the edges of the paper, it just irks me so much!

Also, cookbooks or music books that don't have spiral bound covers. What's even the point? It's nearly impossible to keep them open without breaking the spines.

[Arila]

CWM, I'm with you on the rough cut pages. Especially when I've paid a premium for a hard cover book!!! Come ON!

None of my mother's cookbooks are spiral bound. I am not sure I'd like that - you can't see what their title is when they are on the shelf, and the spiral is wider than the book is thick, so they don't shelve nicely. I guess there's give-and-take both ways. You know which ones are the favorite recipes because the pages have fallen off the binding.

[Lynn2000]

Are rough cut pages the same as "deckle edge"? I see that designation on Amazon sometimes, like they're warning people the pages might be funny and/or special depending on your POV...

[cwm]

CWM, I'm with you on the rough cut pages. Especially when I've paid a premium for a hard cover book!!! Come ON!

None of my mother's cookbooks are spiral bound. I am not sure I'd like that - you can't see what their title is when they are on the shelf, and the spiral is wider than the book is thick, so they don't shelve nicely. I guess there's give-and-take both ways. You know which ones are the favorite recipes because the pages have fallen off the binding.

Really? I've seen spiral bound with a cardboard cover around the spiral, so you could clearly see it. I've also seen cookbooks in what's like a 3-ring binder, except it has 5 or 8 rings instead. That's nice, you can actually rearrange the recipes so the frequently used ones are first.

Are rough cut pages the same as "deckle edge"? I see that designation on Amazon sometimes, like they're warning people the pages might be funny and/or special depending on your POV...

I'd never heard that term, but I looked it up, and YES! I can't stand it. It actually ruins books for me, there's some that I'm certain would be wonderful stories but I can't get over the feel of the paper edges.

[Lynn2000]

I don't mind the rough cut/deckle edges myself, but whenever I see the note on Amazon I'm like, "Okay, but I hope I'm not paying extra for these fancy uneven-cut pages..." Is it an artistic thing, or easier on the book printer/binder...? Is it considered upscale or low-cost?

[Winterlight]

Foreshadowning.

Susan Wittig Albert kept doing that in her newest Darling Dahlias novel and it drove me nuts! Mostly because she applied it with a club. Every other chapter had something.

[Piratelvr1121]

Not a book, but the foreshadowing is one reason I wasn't really crazy about POTC: Dead Man's Chest. 

There's the name of it for one thing.

Then Jack's entrance is out of a coffin, there's much talk of death, he falls into an open grave.  I keep thinking "enough already!"

[Bethczar]

Another recommendation here for Hawthorne's short stories.

Pod.  Although I wish you all would give "The Scarlet Letter" and "House of the Seven Gables" another chance.  I think "God will give him blood to drink!" is one of the great curses of literature.

ITA. I enjoyed both MUCH more after having experienced "Rappaccini's Daughter"!

Now I have to go look up "Rappaccini's Daughter."

I haven't read the story, but there's a film version of it that I liked: It's part of "Twice Told Tales" with Vincent Price.

I haven't read House of the Seven Gables, but I have a real fondness for the film version with Vincent Price (playing a good guy for once) and George Sanders (an awesome baddie). Granted, the cheese factor is distinct, but I love all that gothic atmosphere.

When I was a teacher I used to assign Hawthorne's short stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Birthmark." For some reason I never did click with "Rappaccini's Daughter."

We spent an entire month on "Young Goodman Brown" in high school. I now hate that story with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.

[Petticoats]

I haven't read House of the Seven Gables, but I have a real fondness for the film version with Vincent Price (playing a good guy for once) and George Sanders (an awesome baddie). Granted, the cheese factor is distinct, but I love all that gothic atmosphere.

When I was a teacher I used to assign Hawthorne's short stories "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Birthmark." For some reason I never did click with "Rappaccini's Daughter."

We spent an entire month on "Young Goodman Brown" in high school. I now hate that story with the fiery passion of a thousand burning suns.

<snipped quote tree>

A whole month? That sounds like overkill to say the least. Eegh.

Possible antidote, if you like (other) supernatural stories: Nathaniel's son Julian wrote a charming little-known vampire story:  http://www.online-literature.com/julian-hawthorne/2979/

[KenveeB]

I accidentally spoiled Sixth Sense for a friend. I saw it pretty late, after people had been talking about it for a while. I remembered Friend talking about having seen it, so after I finally saw it, we were chatting and mentioned I'd finally seen it and man, I saw Plot Twist coming from the end of the first scene! Except, uh, she hadn't seen it.  I felt awful.

We were just talking about, in another thread, the length of time one is expected to guard against spoilers (watch out for spoilers regarding Pride and Prejudice, Star Wars, and other things which have been out for a while!). It seems pretty unfair to NEVER be able to discuss plot twists! Sometimes, you need to get off your duff and keep up with the times, or suffer the consequences.

I definitely agree with a time limit, but Sixth Sense was still in the theaters, so I consider that within spoiler-time. I wouldn't have said anything if I hadn't thought she'd already seen it.

[Yarnspinner]

Dear Author:

I hadn't read your books in a while because you are so very prolific as to be exhausting to read.  So when someone who normally doesn't like your books suggested your "out of your genre" novel to me, I decided to dive in.  And...I LOVED it!  I loved your narrator.  Loved your minor characters.  Even adored the villain (never saw that one coming!)....and then, on the very last few pages you HAD to go and do the thing that turned me off of some of your later work....

Sir, I hate to be the one to inform you but if you are writing a book that is essentially non-political in theme for the first 200 pages, trying to squeeze an agenda in during the last few pages is irritating at best and downright ugly at worst.  Intimating, however subtly, that a public figure you despise should have died while someone you admire should have lived is nasty, no matter who it is.  I would also like to say that if, in your experience all "wealthier" people who have a particular outdoor hobby and subscribe to a particular religion are mean, rotten, ignorant, greedy, vicious jerks, then perhaps you are hanging out with the wrong ones.

I would further point out that your hatred of people with money (which, by the way you have more than enough of yourself and since I helped you to that situation, could you give me some now since you despise having it so) borders on the pathological and you may need to see a counselor about that.

Otherwise, the murder mystery, wrapped in a coming of age story, tinted with hints of the supernatural was not just a fabulous read, it was also charming, beautifully written, seamless in the way it went back and forth through time and I was sobbing at the end.  It was lovely enough that I plan to read your new novel...I hope I won't have to see a whole lot of bashing of people of certain groups though.

[Redwing]

Dear Author:

I hadn't read your books in a while because you are so very prolific as to be exhausting to read.  So when someone who normally doesn't like your books suggested your "out of your genre" novel to me, I decided to dive in.  And...I LOVED it!  I loved your narrator.  Loved your minor characters.  Even adored the villain (never saw that one coming!)....and then, on the very last few pages you HAD to go and do the thing that turned me off of some of your later work....

Sir, I hate to be the one to inform you but if you are writing a book that is essentially non-political in theme for the first 200 pages, trying to squeeze an agenda in during the last few pages is irritating at best and downright ugly at worst.  Intimating, however subtly, that a public figure you despise should have died while someone you admire should have lived is nasty, no matter who it is.  I would also like to say that if, in your experience all "wealthier" people who have a particular outdoor hobby and subscribe to a particular religion are mean, rotten, ignorant, greedy, vicious jerks, then perhaps you are hanging out with the wrong ones.

I would further point out that your hatred of people with money (which, by the way you have more than enough of yourself and since I helped you to that situation, could you give me some now since you despise having it so) borders on the pathological and you may need to see a counselor about that.

Otherwise, the murder mystery, wrapped in a coming of age story, tinted with hints of the supernatural was not just a fabulous read, it was also charming, beautifully written, seamless in the way it went back and forth through time and I was sobbing at the end.  It was lovely enough that I plan to read your new novel...I hope I won't have to see a whole lot of bashing of people of certain groups though.

Hmm, who could Yarnspinner be talking about?  I wonder...

[Yarnspinner]

Why do I think Redwing knows of whom I speak? 

Big house.  Northeastern State.  Spiders.  Many movies made of his books.  (One of them three times and I am so looking forward to the new version!) 

I LOVE the guy, but does every single solitary evil character of late HAVE to be a wealthy, politically corrupt, supposedly conservative, gun totin' whack job with delusions of Jehovah?  Does everyone who believes in a certain faith have to also be a fundamentalist lunatic on the verge of equating Jehovah with Chthulu?  Religion doesn't screw up everyone's life, Mr. King and for many it is not an opiate but a deep and abiding comfort. 

This doesn't mean that I don't think Margaret White of "Carrie" is a boring one dimensional or even evil character: her sick interpretation of her religion made her who she was and destroyed herself and Carrie and that made the story deeply human.  King excels at creating deeply human characters that you KNOW deep in your heart that you have met.

But lately, he just seems to have a bag of stock characters he plugs in whenever he needs to have a bad guy.  Granted I haven't read ALL his books (he lost me after IT), but every story I pick up of late is either red neck (Desperation) or rich, evil and definitely suggested to be of one particular party (Bag of Bones) or, in the case of Joyland, one character is portrayed in the broadest strokes as a religious nutjob with too much money and a firm grasp on his gun.  (He's not the bad guy, but he might as well be.)

I LOVED Joyland....but I would love to see something with a happy hippy dippy character turning out to be the bad guy.