Suggested by Janet.

I’ve read some bad books but I have a firm policy of ditching the book after 50 or so pages if it just isn’t doing it for me. However, for book group one month, we read Nobody True by James Herbert. James Herbert is Britain’s number one bestselling author of horror fiction. We had not really read anything from that genre so we gave it a try.

Boy, were we sorry.

The main character is murdered by a serial killer. BUT, and there is a big but, he is having an out-of-body experience when it happens so he comes back to his body only to find it, well dead. He goes through the story inhabiting other bodies so he can catch his killer. There is a lot of lurching around (think Igor or Dawn of the Dead) as he takes over body after body and then has to learn how to make everything work.

My book group was in tears discussing this! We were hysterical and I’m sure that was not Herbert’s intent, but the storyline was so ridiculous and it was just so far “out there”. I really just wanted to character to stay dead. We all did. If I had been reading it on a plane I would have popped the emergency hatch and called it a day. It was THAT bad.

I thought about reading another Herbert book to see if this particular book was just an oddity but after some time passed, I just can’t bring myself to do it. If anyone has read anything else by him and thinks I should give it a shot, let me know.

1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read?

2. If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?

It’s been a long time since I participated in a BTT post but this one caught my eye. Mainly because I haven’t had any quality reading time at all. Do I get to read as much as I want? Never. No matter how much time I get, I always want more. I think the ideal job would involve reading all day long and getting to talk about it. Now why can’t I have that life? Oh yeah… the mortgage. Sheesh.

I tend to lean towards literary fiction but if I had all the time in the world to read, then I would read a lot more non-fiction. Travel narratives used to be a guilty pleasure of mine but I can’t seem to fit them in when there are so many other books I want to read and so little time to do so. However, I take what I can get so if only 20 minutes here and there, I usually speed read through my current pick or go for a magazine article that I can finish in one sitting.

How ’bout you?