I can't really say I pick up any books expecting to dislike them, as that would probably be disqualifying for me in the first place. I don't really feel compelled to read anything that doesn't inherently sound interesting or enjoyable to me. So if there were something that seemed dislikable to me, I would likely never start it in the first place.

So that said, I go into every book expecting to enjoy it. I probably give up on 1 in 10 books or so, maybe more, which end up not being enjoyable to read. Most recently I gave up on War in Heaven by David Zindell. I hadn't enjoyed the earlier 3 books in the series all that much, and at this point didn't really see myself getting much fulfillment out of finishing the final book even though I had made it that far.

Lol ok I'm not gonna bother arguing with your landlord brain and defense of rentierism. Well done sticking up for corporations who do nothing but act as parasites siphoning value from the work of others.

No way to answer this without knowing more about your tastes.

As evidenced by Sanderson's actions, there is indeed a desire to fight for a greater share of the revenues from audiobook sales to be returned to the people that create them rather than the platform that distributes them. I don't see how you could come away with any other impression here.

Platform capitalism is a particularly insidious way many tech companies have completely restructured certain markets. It is good that Sanderson is standing up to Amazon who are arguably the worst offender, but he is doing so by getting into bed with another company who should also be treated with extreme skepticism. Ultimately, I don't foresee this really having any sort of knock on benefit for other authors, but I would be open to hearing from small-time authors' opinions on that front. It's one thing for a superstar like Sanderson to take his following elsewhere, but for people who don't have a built in fandom, there aren't a lot of options, and they don't individually have a lot of power to fight back. I.e. they either put up with Audible's extortion, or risk having even less of a potential audience.

Yeah this comes across a lot on here. As if it is sinful to stop reading books, or there is some sort of personal XP bar that goes up with every book "read" and has some sort of moral weight to it. I think a lot of people treat reading too seriously compared to other artforms. You would rarely see someone taken to task for skipping songs on an album or quitting a TV show halfway through a season. But here we have daily threads of people wracked with guilt about how they might not be reading something the right way. Very strange.

There is no book cop in the sky making sure you read every word, so I don't see why this would be a source of worry for anyone. You can "read" a book however you want to read it. Personally, I don't know why someone would deliberately skip sections. If I don't want to be reading the book, I'd just as soon put it down and move on to the next things than keep turning the pages w/o really reading the content. But if that's how someone wants to handle things, then so be it.

Stuck up little bitch

Email, social media DM, any avenue is probably fine.

Plenty of artists get fan mail. Don't say weird stuff, but otherwise it would be totally fine/normal. Worst case scenario it gets ignored.

I just have a pile of already purchased books, and when I'm done with one I just pick a new one out of the pile based pretty much solely on vibes. New books get added to the pile from time to time from a longer list of books I'm interested in which I keep in a note.

Wikipedia contains some links to reviews of some critics who had positive things to say about it. Assuming you're actually open to hearing from people who have read it, you could start there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ducks,_Newburyport#Reception

Additionally, you can find other reviews here: https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/ducks-newburyport/

The "What am I missing about this book?" question always gets me. When it's a celebrated or popular book - as is the case with Ducks, Newburyport - there is usually plenty of writing out there explaining what people found enjoyable or impressive about the book. The answers are already out there, and I am skeptical that anyone on this subreddit is really going to provide some unique insight in this regard. As you have said, it's just a veiled way to complain about disliking the book. And it's fine to dislike books, but it is much nicer to see someone wright thoughtfully about why they dislike the book rather than just use trite, nonspecific hyperbole to disparage it.

When I'm not enjoying what I'm reading, I just put it down and move onto the next thing.

No one is paying attention to how many books you say you've "read." The only person this number matters to is you.

It is actually extremely abnormal to remember everything you've read.

People who are described as "book addicts" are almost never actually addicted to reading. It is usually meant exaggeratively to describe someone who really enjoys reading. The term "addict" gets used euphemistically to describe lots of behaviors which do not really amount to true addiction.

If someone were truly addicted to reading, I think the people in their life probably would be very concerned for them and it would be very disruptive and damaging to their overall well-being and relationships.

If I found there were a category of books which seemed to never be enjoyable for me, I would simply avoid reading books in that category.

Do whatever makes you feel like you're getting what you want out of the books you read.

This is a bit dramatic

How is it "ruining reading"?

I don't really see it as any better or worse than any other sort of web 2.0 outlet for book discussion. Seems to me that it has all the same upsides and downsides of booktube, bookstagram, etc.

Rearrange the room, or simply do not worry about it.

I don't really read to say that I've read something or just to "know" its content, so I can't really think of anything that would actually be more enjoyable as Cliff's Notes. I read for the pleasure and experience of reading whatever it is I'm reading. Reading Cliff's Notes is reading a completely different work in that sense. If I'm not enjoying something, I'll just put it down.

The article literally opens with the following lines:

>The first and only time I visited Ukraine was in 2019. My book “The Possessed”—a memoir I had published in 2010, about studying Russian literature—had recently been translated into Russian, along with “The Idiot,” an autobiographical novel, and I was headed to Russia as a cultural emissary, through an initiative of pen America and the U.S. Department of State.

The author of the article did write an autobiographical novel called "The Idiot" and yes it is a reference to Dostoevsky's novel of the same name, as alluded to in the following paragraph.