Constant Reader discussion

OK, I'll start. The first weekend in June, I was so absorbed in the book Stoner by John Edward Williams that I nearly missed a live performance of our local symphony. Also, I have just this year discovered the books written by Louise Penny and have found that I must plan when to read them or else I will be late/make others late.

When I first read The Lord Of The Rings years ago I took the book to bed one night around midnight thinking I'd just read a few more pages because I had to get up early with kids in the morning. After a bit I checked the time and it was 4:30 am. Those books mesmerized me.

Dianne wrote: "When I first read The Lord Of The Rings years ago I took the book to bed one night around midnight thinking I'd just read a few more pages because I had to get up early with kids in the morning. Af..."

Gosh, I do what that's like Dianne! Back in the 80's a friend of mine and I were hooked on Romance novels. We were two bleary-eyed ladies at work the day after our favorite writers' newest books were published ;-)

The Girl Who Played with Fire did it for me. I really did miss my bus stop! I had to whip off my reading glasses, jam the book into my tote, and hoof it to my office.

I had the same experience with Lord of the Rings--I was living in Waltham, MA just after college and taking the train into Cambridge then a bus into Boston. That's when I first read Lord of the Rings. I'm sure that at least once I nearly missed my stop. That's also when I read the Witching Hour and I remember trying to get one more page in before I had to get off the bus.

Oh and I remember staying up all night to read Practical Magic.

Then there was the time I was on vacation in London and didn't bother to leave the hotel room because I was so absorbed in Margaret George's Mary Queen of Scotland.

Mary Anne wrote: "The Girl Who Played with Fire did it for me. I really did miss my bus stop! I had to whip off my reading glasses, jam the book into my tote, and hoof it to my office."

Me, too! I didn't miss a bus stop, but I couldn't stop reading it at home. I actually think I need to read it again because I read it so quickly that I don't think I absorbed as much as I could have.

Books that kept me up way too late reading in bed:

Bastard Out of Carolina
The Life and Times of of Michael K.
The Ginger Tree
Tree of Heaven
Housekeeping

I'm sure there are many others, though it's been a few years.

Waiting for Mr. Goodbar was an all-nighter for me. In an experience similar to Mary Anne's, I started reading after dinner one Saturday night and then looked at my Venetian-blind covered apartment window and noticed it was getting light outside.

The Once and Future King was like that for me. I read all four volumes (nearly 700 pages) in a day and a half because I couldn't bear not to be reading it. I kept sneaking it out of my bag in work and reading it under the desk. Then when I got home I think I only paused to eat then didn't look up until I couldn't keep my eyes open. I also had it recently with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I felt like I was in Savannah and knew all the characters like old friends. I love those totally immersive books experiences, when you get one it's just the best kind of magic!

Personal Demons personal demons did it for me and then again with the second book Original Sin original sin. first it was friday night then it was 5 am monday morning. i dont think i slept or ate at all while i was reading them

Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
by Doris Kearns Goodwin...though i am halfway to complete the book; i feel blessed to learn of a person as great as Abe. I thank Doris from my heart for putting Abes' life in a paperback/ebook.

Alison Bechtal's graphic novel, Fun Home, kept me on the couch all of a rainy January afternoon.

Soph wrote: "The Once and Future King was like that for me. I read all four volumes (nearly 700 pages) in a day and a half because I couldn't bear not to be reading it. I kept sneaking it out of my bag in work ..."

You've made me want to go back and re-read it!

Beth - it's on my 'Up For Re-read' list too! Hopefully I will get to it this year and have another great experience with it, there's so much I don't remember.

Portia - you talking about your one-sitting wonderful reading of 'Fun Home' makes me want to put it aside until the weekend and devour it all in one go! Maybe I'll do that :)

The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Soph wrote: "Beth - it's on my 'Up For Re-read' list too! Hopefully I will get to it this year and have another great experience with it, there's so much I don't remember.

Portia - you talking about your one-s..."

Soph, please let me know when you do. I'd really like to hear what you think of it.

Well, if we are not counting passing up bus or train stops.... :)

The entire Outlander series! Housework, cooking, the computer, could all go to blazes. I simply read.

But I have to say that happens a lot, when I'm lost in a book, I go for the total immersion of self. Even my most recent book finished. The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos held me for hours at the time.

It's a good thing my husband likes to go out to eat....and is the same as I am. :)

Dianne wrote: "When I first read The Lord Of The Rings years ago I took the book to bed one night around midnight thinking I'd just read a few more pages because I had to get up early with kids in the morning. Af..."

I enjoy The Lord of the Rings :) And to think most people think that book is boring.

The last three books that were hard to put down were Defending Jacob, Caleb's Crossing and The Painted Veil.

☯Emily wrote: "The last three books that were hard to put down were Defending Jacob, Caleb's Crossing and The Painted Veil."

I'm reading The Painted Veil now and I completely agree! I've gotten a late start twice this week because I just had to read one more chapter. If my days were a little freer, I'd already have finished it.

1984. At 2am I said I'd stop reading, but then something really astonishing happens in the book and I could not stop reading until the end.

Two that I can recall: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara and An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer. I'm guessing it's because they both give detailed descriptions of significant, devastating battles after introducing some of the people involved. Heyer's is, of course, fictionalized, but I've read a nonfiction account and know that she stayed true to the basics. I just had to keep reading.

Beth wrote: "☯Emily wrote: "The last three books that were hard to put down were Defending Jacob, Caleb's Crossing and The Painted Veil."

I'm reading The Painted Veil now and I completely agree! I've gotten a ..."

It was easy to do that because many of the chapters were so short, you can say, "It'll only be a minute." Of course, the next chapter is even shorter!

That happened to me when I read Paris was Ours by Penelope Rowlands.I got so wrapped up in the story about a couple from Iran that were living in Paris at the time of the hostage crisis that I completely missed my stop on the train and had to go to the end of the line and come back up the line so I could get off at the right station.The story was so compelling it was worth missing the stop.

☯Emily wrote: "Beth wrote: "☯Emily wrote: "The last three books that were hard to put down were Defending Jacob, Caleb's Crossing and The Painted Veil."

I'm reading The Painted Veil now and I completely agree! I..."

Exactly!

Two books: The Godfather kept me reading until after 1 a.m., and I had an early business meeting the next day.

Another time, Shadow Divers also kept me up after 1 a.m. Had to force myself to put it down. The cover was a bit of a spoiler, but it was still exciting.

Those are the only two I can think of.

Four books for me in four days. The Beautiful Creatures Series. I was an emotional mess. If I wasn't laughing, I was crying.

Sounds perfect to me. Hope you laid in a good supply of tissues !

Absolutely! That's what I look for in a book. The more emotions I feel, the better the book.

I read the twilight saga "Breaking Dawn" in about 8 hours... on a school night. i was not on time that day. I also get absorbed in the "Cat who books"

Portia - I did my one sitting with Fun Home today (it has even been raining all day!) and just finished it. I loved it, definitely a five star read. I think reading it in one go allowed it to be at its most engrossing and the story layered up again and again until it had so much depth I forgot completely I was reading a graphic novel. It felt very literary and so, so smart which I loved. Also it was sad, every time I thought I had a handle on what Bechdel was saying she would add something, or go back in time and detail an event from a different angle. I really felt the confusion she felt over the death of her father, it was like she was working through her feelings about him, herself, the secrets, the lies, life and death as I watched. It was intimate and uncomfortable at times but ultimately satisfying and very affecting. An extremely successful first foray into graphic novels I think, definitely a genre I need to consider more!

Violet, I used to enjoy the Cat Who books too. If you love cats, they are great escapism. :)
Have you read any of the Joe Grey series by Shirley Rousseau Murphy ?

Soph, what a great review! I hope you've added to your review page. Bechtel has another book about her family: Are You My Mother? I haven't started it yet but I think I will move it closer to the top of my TBR pile. So glad you like Fun Home. It took me awhile to realize that Fun is pronounced Fune, as in funeral home. I bet you got that right off :-)

Thanks Portia! I don't have a review page, maybe I will start one with that review. No I didn't catch the pronunciation of Fun even though I knew it was short for Funeral. Ah well I have at least learned something today! :)

Sharon Kay Penman's Welsh Trilogy

Here be Dragons

Falls the Shadow

The Reckoning (balled my eyes out in the end)

Brilliant novels!

I have to say, it was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez for me. I completely forgot that I was reading it for my exams and honestly speaking, I try not to make reading stuffs for exams a pleasurable affair! This one just blew me away!

I'm normally quite good at reading while also keeping one eye on what stop I'm at, but one time it didn't quite work…!

I was reading Room and, without giving anything away about the story, there is a pivotal moment in the book that had me so engrossed that I missed not only one stop, but two (!) Looking back it's actually quite funny, because for a second I was so disorientated and thought that two of the train stations must have been closed and that the train had just sped through them without stopping!

There are so many books I find riveting but then, I had to stop because of some worldly reasons.
The first novel I read that's riveting enough was Pride and Prejudice. I finished it in less a day.

The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's one of my absolute favorite books and is enthralling the whole way through.

The first book I remember being riveted by is Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. Still my favorite book of all time.

Others that I read straight through: The Exorcist and The Clan of the Cave Bear

Book Concierge wrote: "The first book I remember being riveted by is Harper Lee's [i][b]To Kill a Mockingbird[/b][/i]. Still my favorite book of all time.

Others that I read straight through: The Exorcist and The Clan o..."

So did I, both of them. In fact, I read the entire "Earth's Children" series when it first came out, though I haven't had a desire to read Jean M. Auel's 2011 book, "The Land of Painted Caves."

Joz wrote: "The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It's one of my absolute favorite books and is enthralling the whole way through."

I concur--that's a fantastic book.

The last book I read that kept me up late reading (not too many trains or buses for me) was Stephen King's 11/22/63, and it's not a short book so I was in trouble.

This pretty much happens to me with every book I read. I always need to know what is going to happen next. I try to tell myself when I start a new book not to let this happen, pace yourself girl, but I still do it, every single time. I just cant help myself, even if its not a GREAT book.

Dawn wrote: "The last book I read that kept me up late reading (not too many trains or buses for me) was Stephen King's 11/22/63, and it's not a short book so I was in trouble."

I listened to the audio and there were many days when I sat in the parking lot at work to listen to "just one more track" ... and "just one more track" ...and " I think I have time for just one more track" ...

Book--none, but Zemlinsky's Mermaid, the symphonic poem, blew my mind away when I first heard it.

I wish I was better at stopping when I planed, but when my current novel is good. To Kill a Mockingbird I find myself saying "10 more pages and then I will go to sleep." Then morning show up way to quick and I think next time. But now I am on
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore and staying up to late again.

Like Joan, the most recent book I couldn't put down was The Road by Cormac McCarthy.

Greer wrote: "Like Joan, the most recent book I couldn't put down was The Road by Cormac McCarthy."

Ditto.