Won't Pickup Again.

[david5th]

I had a recent clear out of all my Black Library books and came across two that despite buying have only been read once. The first was an old novel called ' Eye of Terror '. It was about rogue traders and also had a Dark Angel who had been in suspened animation from the HH. I only brought at the time because i needed something to read on holiday.

The second might come as a shock and will probably result in lots of negative posts.
It was ' Emperors Mercy ' . I read it once and have had no compunction to read it again despite all the great reviews. I just was'nt as interested in it as Eisenhorn or Ravenor.

Has anyone else brought a book and only ever read it once for whatever reason and just left it there to gather dust before taking to a charity shop, bining it etc.

[fade_74]

To tell the truth....I very rarely read anything twice. There is just to much new stuff and I have so little time lol.
I don't get rid of books though. I have tons. I have an entire closet full of shelves that are packed 4 rows deep. I have every DnD book from 3rd edition....every one from every setting. I have a Huge 1st and second ed collection. Hundreds of novels from every genre. (excluding romance lol) I just don't have the heart to get rid of a book. Even really crappy ones. I picked up a couple X-files books in the airport one time....terrible. But they got me through a 24 hour flight. So there they sit on my shelf.

[lordbubonicus]

Wow, "Eye of Terror". I haven't seen that in a while. I think I still have my copy, which I won at the local GW a looooong time ago, somewhere in the house. From what I remember it was a decent enough book, with some good characterisation and reasonable story, but that was lacking that indefinable something that makes a great book.

As for reading stuff twice, I'm with fade_74 on this. I have so many books at home, some of which I haven't even read for the first time because they're later novels in series that I only started and got bored or forgot about, or stuff that I've always wanted to read, picked up cheap, and am still trying to get through the 'to read' pile to get to! I also hate throwing books away; I tried to last summer when I was doing a big clear out, but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it and they just went in the loft.

There are some books that I've read more than once though. They tend to be books that I read when I was younger, and have done back to to see what they're like when read from a more mature perspective. It's an interesting experiment, but one that I only tend to conduct with books that I really liked as a teenager, or with stuff that's really quick to read.

[Melissia]

Not a BL book (mostly because I don't read Marinewank, which tends to be written by crappy authors to begin with), but one in particular called Angelica... I have no damn clue what caused me to pick this religious raomantic sappy sack of crap up, but I did. And my brain still hurts thinking about it... keep in mind that I'm in love with the religious crusader nature of the Sisters of Battle, and that when I roleplay it's almost always a good natured hero character whom is trying to make the world a better place.

[DarkLink]

There are tons of fairly good books I've only read once. See, if I have a choice between getting a new book and rereading an old one, I'll get a new one. You should see my bookshelf.

On the other hand, there are some other books that will never get old no matter how many times I read them.

[Shagrath]

I somehow accumulated goto...Need I say more really.

Eisenhorn really can't be topped in my mind.

[wittdooley]

Not a BL book (mostly because I don't read Marinewank, which tends to be written by crappy authors to begin with)

Sadly, this means you haven't read any of the new, pretty damn good, stuff.

[Melissia]

I've read the stuff I'm interested in, which equates to Guard, Sisters, and Orks. I don't think it is possible for me to somehow care less about the Horus Heresy.

[RocketRollRebel]

To tell the truth....I very rarely read anything twice. There is just to much new stuff and I have so little time lol.
I don't get rid of books though. I have tons. I have an entire closet full of shelves that are packed 4 rows deep...

Same boat sir. I gotta catch up on the HH series. I haven't read A Thousand Sons yet and I'd been waiting a long time for it to come out!

[RogueGarou]

I read voraciously. It has been a desire of mine to write since I was a teenager so I try to sample all kinds of styles and genres. I often read books multiple times, even bad books. Some that I just did not enjoy were the Black Fleet Crisis and The Crystal Star of Star Wars books. Way back when there was very little of anthing Star Wars out there, my childhood love of the Star Wars universe, and some good initial books like the Thrawn trilogy, had me buying every book that came out. When the New Jedi Order came out, though, I stopped and have not bought anything since. Thanks to Wikipedia, it looks like I would not have enjoyed most of what has come out.

In the 40k universe, I had read some of the older stuff that was atrocious and am somewhat leery of buying most of the 40k books. Dan Abnett was the saving grace of the lot, though. I was always a fan of the Last Chancers and bought those books based on my enjoyment of the little blurb in the 2E IG Codex and envisioning them as the Dirty Dozen. Sadly, I hated the novels but have read each one twice, once when first released and again when the third one was released. The style and story is largely unappealing to me and almost made me decide to never again pick up any 40k prose. However, the Gaunt's Ghosts books had gotten so much buzz that one day I picked up the first three when I needed something to read and I really enjoyed them. From there I have bought quite a few others. I liked the first two Uriel Ventris books but not the third. The Deathwatch novels were drivel and I just did not care for most of the Grey Knights books. Most of the Horus Heresy novels have been good reads but I did not care for Descent of Angels or Battle for the Abyss. Like the Last Chancers books, they had good bits, particularly cool scenes or ideas interspersed with things that just bored or did not interest me.

A couple of books that I have read many, MANY times are a pair of multiple author books from Larry Niven, Steven Barnes, and Jerry Pournelle. The Legacy of Heorot came out while I was in 7th grade and I have enjoyed the book for well over 20 years. I have worn out softcover copies and recently found an old hardcover copy at a used book store. There was a sequel written about 9 years later that I did not enjoy as much called Beowulf's Children. It was nice to step back into that setting and see the characters 20 years later but it was a pretty different story. I found them both to be quite entertaining and still read them every so often. There are classics which are worth re-reading, too, Beowulf and The Once and Future King spring to mind.

Unfortunately, most of my last year has seen my reading time devoted to studying text books for the MCSE I completed last year and now preparing for my SQL DBA exams and MCITP upgrade this year. I am taking some time to read A Thousand Sons at the moment and have enjoyed the first 200 pages quite a bit.