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Could anyone recommend a book ?

edited March 2010 in - Reading
Recommendations. Can you resist them ?
I think I have an innate inability to NOT resist when something is recommended to me, no matter who is the recommender. Well, not everything. Films, TV programmes, music, restaurants, holiday destinations , shops – with these I can listen to someone extolling the virtues of the item or place in question then forget about what they have said, but with books … no chance. Suggest that I would like a particular book or that you like it yourself, and regardless of whether we have anything in common or not, I am likely to seek it out. If not actually buying the book then certainly searching the library for it.
Needless to say this has resulted in me reading and owning a multitude of books that I may not necessarily have chosen myself, but feel obliged to read because someone suggested it. Of course, sometimes this is a great blessing as I might have otherwise missed out on a great read, but sometimes it seems like a mania that I have !

Anyone else like this ? And if so, could you recommend a self help book on the subject ? ;)

Comments

  • I actually find it annoying if people give me books now, because they feel so certain that I'll enjoy it as much as they do...I far prefer a book voucher to have the liberty to choose. Especially as they assume that since I'm officially an adult, I must read adult books: the only adult books I've ever read and enjoyed enough to read more than once are Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series and Trudi Canavan's Magician trilogy and Magician's Apprentice.
    I only let my boyfriend choose me books for occasions, and he chose some beauties that drove me crazy.
  • edited March 2010
    my best friend regularly loans me books, I invariably take them back unread and waffle on, having looked at a few chapter headings ... She thought Kate Mosse's Labyrinth was brilliant, I thought it was rubbish, both storyline and writing. Ah me ... we are all so very different.

    My Big Hate though is cook books. I refuse to cook. I eat out. I told my mother I detested cook books and she not only bought me one, she bought me a 'farmhouse' one, which involved things I had never heard of, let alone cooked, and no, I was not about to try anything in it. It went to the charity shop the very next day. Some things you don't forgive, that's one of them ...
  • edited March 2010
    HA HA dorothy ! I have been to the charity shop this very afternoon - didn't come back with your cook book though (thankfully)
    I have ended up today with Boris Johnson - The Dream of Rome (??????) and Sophie Hannah - the point of rescue ... which was er... recommended by er.. a lady in the charity shop !

    TD - I have rather ignorantly never heard of the adult books you mention, so maybe they are now on the recommended list ;)
  • NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    *drops to the floor and begs forgiveness from the universe*
  • I agree with Tessadragon - I mostly hate recommendations. Especially if someone adds on "You'll really enjoy it," or "Oh but everyone is reading it," - that said, I read Eragon on a recommendation - but I wasn't told one of the 2 statements above - just that I should maybe try it. I prefer to choose my own books, and if I want to read something popular,. I like to come to it in my own time, not because, apparently, half the female population reads it, such as Twilight. (I really can't bring myself to read that one).

    Those things said, I do read fairly widely. My room is full of books.
  • Once a woman at the library was about to put a book on the returns trolley but instead she handed it to me and insisted I should read it because it was so good. I had to wander round the library holding it until she left and I could put it down!
  • yes, don't you just hate that?
    I'm battling my daughter at the moment who wants me to read her Paulina Simons 'wonderful' book but I am afraid I won't like it and disappoint her by not thinking it's the greatest book since books were invented.
  • Recommendations are fine with friends who have the same tastes. I only have two that I can trust.
    That's apart from my OH; we both know if the other will enjoy a particular book.
    The worst 'lend' was many years ago when a new friend gave me a Danielle Steel book and insisted I would love it. The worst thing about this was that I felt obliged to read the bloody book in case she asked me about it. Being a new friend I didn't want to hurt her feelings. And, yes, I hated the book and politely told her afterwards that it wasn't my thing in case she lent me any more! :)
  • Tessadragon just incase you don't know Trudi Canavan brought out another 3 book series as good as the Magicians Apprentice series (Well I think there as good lol) called the age of 5 series. You can always borrow my copies of them if you don't want to buy them :)

    Mt Grams is always giving me crime books and I'll admit the nearest I usually get to crime ish is John Grisham, but she always gives them me because she liked them she thinks I will bless her (I always give them to the charity shops)
    If someone recommends a book to me I'll usually read the blurb on the book and look on amazon ect and see what people say about it, but if it doesn't look like i'll enjoy it I won't read it for the sake of reading.
  • Heya Shell, I tried to read the Age of 5 but i must admit I don't like it as much as her Magician books, though I will try again sometime. Thank you very much for the kind offer of lending them but it's alright..I've checked the 3 local libraries, one of them has all the trilogy and the other has one of them :D
  • Magician's Apprentice...... Isn't there a movie coming out these days called that? With whats-his-name with the big eyes...... (thinking)......... Nicolas Cage! Is that based on the Trudi Caravan book? (It may be a stupid question... please forgive :-)).
  • We will forgive!
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