Books you couldn't put down

[scott43]

I could not keep track of any of the characters and there were so many allusions to historical events that I wasn't familiar with I just was forcing myself to keep reading.

Try reading the Divine Comedy...

I felt like I was in Purgatorio while reading..which made me Infernio..until finally I achieved Paradiso when I quit reading it...

 

[Sibhusky]

This is someone who read the entire "Clarissa: ... etc."
Said to be one of the longest English novels.

I don't give up easily.

 

[cantunamunch]

Speaking af Dorothy Dunnett, I tried King Hereafter and only got to 58% before giving up. I could not keep track of any of the characters and there were so many allusions to historical events that I wasn't familiar with I just was forcing myself to keep reading. I had read daily for several hundred days and it ended up putting me off reading at all for months. The book needs some character lists and a glossary or something.

The first thing she does in King Hereafter is blend the mythology of Macbeth and Godiva and Guinevere and Jarl Thorfinn into a completely baroque plot (you are supposed to notice the parallels to Arthurian mythos; it is taken for granted that you've read The Once and Future King).
The second thing she does is dial up to 11 something she did only as a background effect in both the Lymond and Niccolo books. It is this: she uses a third person observer as a narrator. Ok, fine but so what? The trick is that the narrator is exactly as smart and as informed as the least smart and informed person on scene. Therefore, when multiple characters are present, you get only a rationing of what actually happened. Therefore, when only the smartest and best-informed characters are on scene, pacing skips through fast, and with the very minimum amount of information required to keep both action and atmosphere sustained. In Lymond you see this with the Francis-Mallet , Francis-Oona , Francis-Pippa and Francis-Nostradamus pairings. In Niccolo you see this even more often, but usually only once or twice per book. In either case the reader can just barge through and be only slightly mystified, until it is all resolved.

In King Hereafter it is the overwhelming majority of the book. Point being - it is absolutely trivial to lose the plot because it is very intentionally not being given, but must be picked out from incidentals using full, absolute engagement and a well-developed set of crossword-solver like skills. Think of it as a Macbeth & Thorfinn- themed novel-format crossword, and you will see that just having an index won't help much.

 

[geepers]

 

[Powder High]

I'm really jumping around here, but Crazy for the Storm blew me away for reasons I didn't expect. I picked it up because it supposedly was a book about the survival of a young champion skier after a plane crash in the mountains. But that's not what the book is really about. Rather than try to describe it, I'll quote a pretty good review.

"In a spare, brisk prose, Ollestad tells the tragic story of the pivotal event of his life, an airplane crash into the side of a mountain that cost three lives, including his father's, in 1979. Only 11 years old at the time, he alone survived, using the athletic skills he learned in competitive downhill skiing, amid the twisted wreckage, the bodies and the bone-chilling cold of the blizzard atop the 8,600-foot mountain.

"Although the narrative core of the memoir remains the horrifying plane crackup into the San Gabriel Mountains, its warm, complex soul is conveyed by the loving relationship between the former FBI agent father and his son, affectionately called the Boy Wonder, during the golden childhood years spent in wild, freewheeling Malibu and Mexico in the late 1970s. Ollestad's unyielding concentration on the themes of courage, love and endurance seep into every character portrait, every scene, making this book an inspiring, fascinating read."

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival: Ollestad, Norman: Amazon.com: Books

Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival [Ollestad, Norman] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Crazy for the Storm: A Memoir of Survival

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It's also an easy read, and held my attention very well.

 

[Andy Mink]

I like anything by Clive Cussler (RIP). I'm not into heavy reading, never cared for the "classics" we had to read in school though I do recall liking Animal Farm.

I do have a few more scattered around.

 

[Sibhusky]

The first thing she does in King Hereafter is blend the mythology of Macbeth and Godiva and Guinevere and Jarl Thorfinn into a completely baroque plot (you are supposed to notice the parallels to Arthurian mythos; it is taken for granted that you've read The Once and Future King).
The second thing she does is dial up to 11 something she did only as a background effect in both the Lymond and Niccolo books. It is this: she uses a third person observer as a narrator. Ok, fine but so what? The trick is that the narrator is exactly as smart and as informed as the least smart and informed person on scene. Therefore, when multiple characters are present, you get only a rationing of what actually happened. Therefore, when only the smartest and best-informed characters are on scene, pacing skips through fast, and with the very minimum amount of information required to keep both action and atmosphere sustained. In Lymond you see this with the Francis-Mallet , Francis-Oona , Francis-Pippa and Francis-Nostradamus pairings. In Niccolo you see this even more often, but usually only once or twice per book. In either case the reader can just barge through and be only slightly mystified, until it is all resolved.

In King Hereafter it is the overwhelming majority of the book. Point being - it is absolutely trivial to lose the plot because it is very intentionally not being given, but must be picked out from incidentals using full, absolute engagement and a well-developed set of crossword-solver like skills. Think of it as a Macbeth & Thorfinn- themed novel-format crossword, and you will see that just having an index won't help much.

At 70, I can't remember what I had for dinner last night.

 

[cantunamunch]

At 70, I can't remember what I had for dinner last night.

What, you don't just check the... nvm.


I guess there's always Nigel Tranter.