Unfinished Books, a short essay of a sort

This evening I was reading a murder mystery that won all sort of awards and I saw at the very beginning what I thought were major faults. The protagonist did things that I did not understand and found a body that he considered to be a very old body and not a new one. Why? I had to read the back of the book to find out if the body was old or new. I hated the book, but I paid good money for it. What to do? I put it on a stack of unfinished books that is on a book case.

There is a best seller, by someone who won the National Book Award AND a Pulitzer Prize Award. The book is on the New York Times Best Seller List. I am bored with it. I just get get through with it. I try and try and I just don't care what happens to the characters. It goes on the list that is on a book case.

There is this book that everyone that I know is raving about. A friend buys me a copy and I read it over lunch. I hate it. It is nothing but warmed up Buddhism. It, too, is on the best seller list. I put it on my reject list. I know the friend paid very good money for it, but I skimmed it which is the same as not reading it at all.

I have a lot of books I start and never finish and books that I don't enjoy. On the other hand, I have books that some people hated and I loved them. I am trying so hard to read this book by a poet who died very young and everyone around the world say he is a genus. I hate the book.

On the other hand, I have tried to read books at one time in my life, was confused by them and then read them years later and loved them. That was how it was with "Of Human Bondage" by Somerset Maugham. I just did not understand the plot as a young person but did as an adult. Some writers I loved as a teenager and as an adult such as Ernest Hemingway. I throw away a lot of murder mysteries as being just too stupid. I don't want to know who the murderer is by the first three chapters. Of course, reading classic novels has that problem in that the reader often knows the plot only two well because it is part of the culture. I have not read "Don Quixote" by Cervantes as yet and am planning to soon, but I know the plot. Its still worth reading. I love F. Scott Fitzgerald especially "The Great Gatsby" but I think I never really understood it until I was over middle-aged. These authors are the more well known ones. I still feel guilty for not finishing a book especially one that is rated highly. I have one book I paid full price for two years ago and I am still trying to finish it. It won the National Book Award too. I just don't care what happens to the characters. I love Sarah Addison Allen who writes romantic fluff but I love her romantic fluff and I read through her books in one or two sittings.

Now, in my house I have a fairly large library and stacks and stacks of books that I started and never finished. What to do? What to do? I wish I could just put them someplace. I have thought about going to the public library late at night, making sure all books don't have my name and putting them in the slot. I just might do that. I have done that in the past. I put all of my Michael Crichton 's books down the slot when I had to admit to myself that I did not want to read his books. He had written me some nice letters once a long time ago. I had felt guilty for it since. Yes, I need to throw those books down the library slot because the books that I don't want to read might be the ones someone is dying to read. People read Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts' books and I never do, but I don't have them. I certainly won't throw them away in the trash. I might take them to the Veterans Hospital and there is a place for veterans to take them if they want for free.