The End – Booking Through Thursday

Published on by Margaret

This week’s question is:

You’™ve just reached the end of a book . . . what do you do now? Savor and muse over the book? Dive right into the next one? Go take the dog for a walk, the kids to the park, before even thinking about the next book you’™re going to read? What?

(Obviously, there can be more than one answer, here’“a book with a cliff-hanger is going to engender different reactions than a serene, stand-alone, but you get the idea!)

I can’t generalise here. It really all depends upon so many things. Sometimes the book I’ve just finished was so good that anything else is an anti-climax and I don’t want or can’t decide which book to read next, even though I have a long to-be-read list and piles of unread books. So then I pause and wait for the right book to appear.

I read on impulse sometimes. It may be a book I’ve picked up at the library, or a book recommended on someone’s blog, or a friend has lent me. Sometimes it depends upon my frame of mind, and a book might or might not be right one just then. Sometimes I know just what to read and dive straight into it. Usually I have more than one book on the go anyway, so there’s no decision to make and I carry on reading that and pick and choose another book to start.

If it’s a book that’s part of a series, then I’m impatient to get to the next one. I recently read the first two of Olivia Manning’s books in The Balkan Trilogy, but didn’t have the third. It’s about two months ago that I finished the second and I was eager to read the third, but the library and bookshops didn’t have it. So I ordered the complete trilogy in one volume. At last it arrived yesterday, but I’m not diving into the third book just yet – the time isn’t right.

9 thoughts on “The End – Booking Through Thursday”

  1. When I post my comment it’s definitely going to be an ‘it depends’ answer as well, although too often in my case it’s a question of what’s going on on my reading schedule rather than the nature of the book.

    Like

  2. When I’m reading part of a trilogy, I don’t usually dive into the next one… I tend to pick another book and then pick up the remaining installments. I suppose I want to take a break in between to read other books but all in all, it has to depend on my moods. 😉

    Like

  3. I tend to wait for the right frame of mind too. Having said that, I often force myself to start something I’m not in the mood for and then can’t put it down…I think time plays a big part in series – if you have to wait too long for the next one it’s just not the same.

    Like

  4. I try to read vastly different genre from what I have been reading! But then, I am reading three books at any time. So, it hardly matters if I finish any one! Two more to go..:DBooking upto ending

    Like

  5. I agree with you, fully. You said pretty much what I did, or I guess I said what you did. Anyway…it is a hard one to answer in a concrete form!

    Like

  8. On point, last night I finished reading a short story by Edith Wharton called “The Muse’s Tragedy”. After I finished it, I started reading the next story in the book but stopped reading in order to ponder the theme of the story I had just finished.”The Muse’s Tragedy” is about a woman who is seen by the world as having been a poet’s inspiration. The poet is now dead, and the woman tells a young man who is pursuing her on a romantic level, the story of her relationship with the poet. The story touches on the different needs of men and women in a love affair and, for me at least, was very thought provoking.”The Muse’s Tragedy” made me think of Henry James’ “The Aspern Papers” and what might have happened had the old woman talked to the male protagonist about her relationship with Aspern.

    Like

  9. Once I get started on an author I like, I tend to read everything all at once, especially if it’s part of a series. Otherwise, I’m like you and it depends on my frame of mind. I always find it hard to start a new book after finishing one I really loved (like I just did, with Rosy Thorton’s Hearts and Minds!)

    Like

Comments are closed.