Patricia Abbott (pattinase): Have You Ever (since childhood)

Monday, November 04, 2013

Have You Ever (since childhood)

Picked up a book and read it straight through, despite everything?

I pretty much read TRUE GRIT straight through a few years back. Also Stewart O'Nan's LAST NIGHT AT THE LOBSTER and Willeford's NEW HOPE FOR THE DEAD and SIDESWIPE.

How about you?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...: You mean at one sitting? No breaks? I'm sure I have though I can't remember the last time. The O'Nan is definitely short enough to do it.

Jeff M.; 9:13 AM
Randy Johnson said...: Same response as Jeff. More than a few and I don't remember the last time I did though. New novels are generally longer these days, which makes it harder to do however much one might enjoy them.; 10:08 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...: I did it so often as a kid but lying on my bed all day reading was pretty common before I hit puberty. Now I feel guilty no matter what I am doing.; 10:12 AM
J F Norris said...: Yes, I have. And fairly regularly these days. Usually very short books (old Gold Medal paperbacks which run less than 150 pages, for example) while on long airplane flights from coast to coast. I also remember fairly recently being home sick with an awful virus and reading two or three books one right after the other. Obviously these were also short vintage books and not heavy contemporary doorstop tomes.; 10:39 AM
TracyK said...: I read Katherine Howell's Frantic in one afternoon when I was sick recently. It wasn't short but it did read fast (and frantic). I have read several Pronzini's (Nameless series) in a day (each). But usually I read much slower.; 11:01 AM
Rick Robinson said...: As a slower reader, I couldn't read a book without a break or two or three for meals and perhaps sleep. If you just mean without reading anything else, or watching TV or that sort of thing, then yes, I do. Did it with the Ross Macdonald book just a week ago or so.; 11:36 AM
Prashant C. Trikannad said...: As a kid I read the Hardy Boys, the Secret Seven, and the Three Investigators without a break. As I grew up I read A.J. Cronin, Frank G. Slaughter, Lloyd C. Douglas, Oliver Strange, W. Somerset Maugham, and a few other authors in one go. Now as I'm growing older I take longer to finish books.; 12:24 PM
Kieran Shea said...: Last Night at the Lobster, what a great one.

I think I read Dr. Bazell's Beat the Reaper straight through and Winslow's Savages.; 2:34 PM
Graham Powell said...: I read a couple of books this weekend, one with only brief pauses, and the other, which I had already read 50 pages but finished off the last 285 in one sitting.; 4:56 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: You are Batman!; 4:59 PM
Kent Morgan said...: I can't remember the last time so it must have been many years ago. I have all four of the books you mentioned sitting around somewhere in my house plus Don Winslow's Savages that Kieran mentioned. I'll try to read one in one sitting, but it will have to be when I'm having a problem deciding what to read next. Have both Craig Davidson's Cataract City and Larry Watson's Let Me Go in transit to my nearby library so one of them will be up next.; 5:15 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Larry Watson-Love him. Right on my library list. I read BEAT THE REAPER pretty quickly but not in one go. Bausch I need to savor. Pronzini comes close. Making a list here.; 5:24 PM
Anonymous said...: Provided the book is short enough and my day isn't busy, I can read a book in a day (I've done it a lot with Simenon's books), but it's been a long time since I read a book without any breaks. The last one I remember was Calvin Trillin's memoir about his late wife, Alice.

Deb; 6:02 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Oh, I remember that one.; 6:20 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Oh, I remember that one.; 6:20 PM
Chris said...: With travel, I usually do a few a year that way.; 6:38 PM
Kelly Robinson said...: I know I did it with Jim Thomspson's THE KILLER INSIDE ME, the first time I read it.; 6:42 PM
Todd Mason said...: Yes, I have, but it's pretty rare. Even with novellas such as THE LOVED ONE (which I read as a teen) or WAITING FOR NOTHING, I might've read them in two sittings rather than one. Oates's ZOMBIE and Gault's DON'T CALL TONIGHT are short novels that I believe I read in one sitting in the last decade+...; 11:19 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...: Very rare but I am always hearing people say it. "I couldn't put it down."; 6:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Patti - I have to say, I've not done that. I often wish I had the time...; 7:48 AM
Charles Gramlich said...: Generally I simply don't have the chance these days. the last book I did that with was Misery, back when it was first published.; 11:42 AM