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The Most Abandoned Books on GoodReads (2019)
- theodorewiles 7y agoWouldn’t the least abandoned books be more useful?
- save_ferris 7y agoI’m not sure that the author was trying to find utility in the data so much as purely going through the exercise of analyzing it.
- gwern 7y agoIt would be less entertaining, however, as everyone enjoys taking books down a peg, and it's not possible because as I discuss, GR hides the low absolute count entries from public display. Ideally you'd want all the books with 0 'abandon' tags, but GR will not show you those. It only shows books with at least 40 abandon tags. So you can estimate the least-abandoned within the most-abandoned, so to speak, but that's a pretty arbitrary thing to look at.
- rossdavidh 7y agoIf a book is almost never abandoned, that might only indicate that it is short, or really easy, neither of which are hard to tell from a few seconds inspection. This tells you something you might not otherwise know from a few seconds' inspection.
- bobbyi_settv 7y agoI imagine the least abandoned would be something that comes late in a series (or at least from an author with many similar books), where basically everyone who picks it up already knows that they will like it (those who don't were filtered out by the earlier books).
- goatinaboat 7y agoThis is unsurprising, the target audiences for Harry Potter and grim social realism probably don’t overlap so much
- vlunkr 7y agoI don't know about that, considering the success of Harry Potter the target audience seems to be almost everyone.
- lostgame 7y agoEh - I’m not sure the type of intellectual who I’d guess is the target audience for ‘Gravity’s Rainbow’ or ‘The Three Body Problem’ are not the types to be highly enthusiastic about Harry Potter. Just like someone who is into some of the best/most intellectually challenging Anime probably wouldn’t be all that impressed by The Simpsons.
- cooperadymas 7y agoAs someone who enjoys all 4 of those things, hello.
- lostgame 7y agoHey! Myself as well - however, we are an incredible minority. (Actually a Simpsons junkie, go to trivia nights etc, also attend Anime North, etc - we are very edge-case folks.)
- vlunkr 7y agoSomeone who appreciates the subtle, carefully crafted humor of the early Simpsons wouldn't be interested in Anime. I can engage in silly media elitism too. My point is, you don't make something as successful as Harry Potter or the Simpsons without making some smart decisions and appealing to at least a few very intelligent people.
- 7y ago
- bostik 7y agoHah, Gravity's Rainbow definitely belongs on that list. I tried to read it. Really, really tried. For my head it's utterly unreadable. Had to give up after ~30 pages. The writing flow and style of that book can be best described as "long-winded, over-extended, bloated and bloviating, rejected entry to Bulwer-Lytton contest".
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- MrMember 7y agoHaha, I tried reading Gravity's Rainbow this year and also abandoned it after about that many pages. I had no idea what was going on.
- nefitty 7y agoI'm very near to giving up as well at page 78. I lost the perspective. Am I looking at the world through one character? Is time jumping around? Before giving up I'm going to try to read one of those book summaries or an analysis to try to regain my footing.
- hanklazard 7y agoKeep reading! I felt the same way but ended up really liking it when I (finally) finished it. His style is tough, especially in that one. The Crying of Lot 49 would be an easier way to get into Pynchon, if you haven’t read that one yet.
- slothtrop 7y agoIt is often described on the surface level as a zany espionage novel, thematically about psychology and paranoia, over the backdrop of the war. Confusion I suspect is part of the experience, but you gain a clearer picture of it as you go on (maybe). Anyway, not for everyone.
- deleted 7y ago
- ianai 7y agoVery cool application of math. Wish there were more than just the top 5. Maybe a link to a page with more listings?
- kevinwang 7y agoThere are more results below: https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads#modeling-with-covariates https://www.gwern.net/GoodReads#modeling-with-covariates
- gwern 7y agoHere you go: https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2020-01-05-goodreads-bookshelf-abandoned-posteriorproportions.csv https://www.gwern.net/docs/culture/2020-01-05-goodreads-book...
- egypturnash 7y ago"I also consider a model adjusting for covariates (author/average-rating/year), to see what books are most surprisingly often-abandoned given their pedigrees & rating etc." Infinite Jest? Surprising? Have you actually tried reading that bloated example of The MFA Guy's Novel? I also find myself wondering if American Gods would be #3 on the first version of this list if it had been compiled before the TV show version of that book.
- AlexCoventry 7y agoI read it alongside some page-by-page annotations, which made it fairly approachable and entertaining. These annotations, IIRC. https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/index.php?title=Main_Page#Page_by_Page_Annotations https://infinitejest.wallacewiki.com/david-foster-wallace/in... Wallace was pretty explicit about making readers of his books work for the privilege, though, which could get a bit annoying.
- 7thaccount 7y agoOddly enough I also quit reading American Gods (rare for a Gaiman book), but I don't remember it being difficult. I just kind of lost interest.
- dorchadas 7y agoAmerican Gods was the least favorite of the Gaiman books I've (tried to) read. I love Neverwhere, which might be my favorite book, and Stardust is up there too, but I just couldn't get into American Gods, and have avoided Anasazi Boys because of this.
- 7thaccount 7y agoI really liked Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book, all his short story collections, Coraline...and Stardust is probably in my top 5 favorite movies (so much to where I'm scared to read the book). I'm not a big Sandman fan...it is just so dark.
- officemonkey 7y ago
- cstross 7y agoSpeaking as a working author, Goodreads is a dumpster fire. One author of my acquaintance has been the victim of someone who has created at least six fake accounts in her name (taking her name and profile pics), in an attempt to trash her reputation; I've got off relatively lightly, but I've had one-star reviews posted of books of mine ... which aren't actually written yet, so these are basically fakes. Goodreads reaction to complaints by (verified) authors about this sort of abuse is to deny all responsibility. So there's zero curation going on there. (As to the list of abandoned reads, it's not surprising that the top five by ranking are all major bestsellers: and the shrunken, posterior proportions are for books with a difficult literary style to grapple with -- in other words, they're not easy reading. Between "hard to read" and "massive bestsellers, but require a reading age >12" we basically cover the obvious bases. I'd have liked to see some analysis of abandonment rate normalized for reading complexity, but that's hard to characterize ...)
- sedachv 7y ago> Goodreads reaction to complaints by (verified) authors about this sort of abuse is to deny all responsibility. So there's zero curation going on there. Goodreads was bought by Amazon in 2013, so the issues you are describing are not surprising considering that Amazon.com reviews have the same issues.
- adjkant 7y agoI think while the ratings system is a dumpster fire, it does a huge service for readers still. You can easily track your reading list, books you're read (and sharing it with friends), and their app's scan feature is lovely for me personally when in bookstores to quickly add a book to my list. And they could improve a lot on this areas for sure. In terms of reading tracking I think it's quite an interesting source and while the outcomes are not surprising, I think with just some better analysis this could be a very interesting piece. Props to the author for the idea alone.
- dorchadas 7y agoYep. I don't pay any attention to ratings, though I do go through and read reviews. Mostly the middle range ones (2-4 stars), because they're usually the people who can see some good and bad and comment on it more fairly than just those who leave 5 star or 1 star reviews. It's also nice to read reviews of people I follow and to see what they think of it. Otherwise, I use it mainly to track what I've read and what I think of it. I wrote reviews for a while, and might start getting back to that this year, but it's really good for tracking my personal star rating of a book and to see what I think of stuff. It can also be useful for getting recommendations as well, based on their recommendation algorithms as well as similar books and ones people mention in reviews.
- andrewprock 7y agoThis is a great lesson in "knowing your data" vs. "creating a model". The validity of the generated model is tainted by the GIGO principle. Said another way, modeling bad data will get you bad models. I see this shockingly often in my professional life. A data scientist will spend days, weeks, or months building a "perfect" model which replicates unclean, biased, or bad data. And when they are done, it gets thrown away because it cannot solve any real world problem.
- barry-cotter 7y agoIf you have a criticism make it.
- andrewprock 7y agoI thought I was pretty clear. The data is garbage, ergo the model is garbage.
- PaulHoule 7y agoThis kind of analysis sells because it is like a Rorschach test. People will see a book they know and have some feelings and think that gwern and his algorithm felt it too. The creation of multiple lists is a good bet on his part because it has more ways to win, lacking an objective criterion for success.
- andrewprock 7y agoIf by "sell" you mean "create a model no one in their right mind would pay for", then sure.
- mattkevan 7y agoNot surprised Space Opera was on the list. Hated it, and only finished it because I was hoping that eventually the style would settle down and the book would improve. It didn’t.
- com2kid 7y agoIMHO Space Opera got way better as it went on. The first 1/4th or even 1/3rd is just not good. Once it gets to the actual aliens though, some amazing ideas. First time in awhile I've felt that the aliens were really alien, some great ideas in there. FWIW I listened to the audio book version, the reading of it was rather nice and added to the humor.
- hug 7y ago> First time in awhile I've felt that the aliens were really alien, some great ideas in there. If anyone is looking for very alien aliens, give Embassytown by China Miéville a read.
- mattkevan 7y agoYeah that was why I stuck with it - there were some good ideas buried in there. I’m quite happy to endure thin characters, wooden dialogue and clunky prose (hi Asimov and PKD) if the ideas are good. But the tone of this one was trying too hard. Just wanted it to settle down and tell a decent story.
- com2kid 7y agoThe book is trying really hard to be the next Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy. Trying a bit too hard at times. I honestly think another few manuscript revisions, and a pass or two from a brutal editor, and it might have ended up there. But as it is.. parts of the book just aren't good. Which is sad because some parts are great!
- furyofantares 7y agoThere are a lot of nonfiction books where I expect the data would show me as having abandoned it, but really I think the books are just too long. Popularizations of scientific research fit this category very well -- halfway into most of them I'm pretty convinced I've gotten everything out of them already.
- booleandilemma 7y agoThat’s the way I felt when I read The Blind Watchmaker. I was thinking, alright, alright, I get it already...
- slothtrop 7y agoI had actually abandoned the Glass Bead game, but enjoyed Demian and others. I read half and didn't see it going anywhere interesting.
- syndacks 7y agoI was so excited to read Glass Bead Game. I waited till the end, having read most of Hesse's other major works before tackling his magnum opus. I was so disappointed in it, and I too put it down. Part of me wonders if something was lost in translation with that work.
- zwieback 7y agoNo, it's bad in German too. Millions of German high school students read the other Hesse books but nobody finishes Glassperlenspiel.
- chadcmulligan 7y agoI read it when I was young and enjoyed it. Tried to reread it recently and didn't get very far. Maybe it hasn't aged well.
- weavie 7y agoI suppose technically I have abandoned it too, but I will never admit to it. I fully intend to pick it up again and finish it so it sits on the shelf and stares at me instead.
- brmgb 7y agoI read a French translation of it a decade ago and remember it as a fairly interesting book. It has an intriguing premise which it uses cleverly to explore a large range of subjects, is fairly well written and is an interesting commentary on what constitutes a bildungsroman. It is not particularly plot driven however so I'm a bit confused by the idea of it going somewhere.
- gwd 7y agoI laughed when I saw this list -- I've abandoned both American Gods and Catch-22 at some point. Technically I also abandoned The Glass Bead Game, but I don't think that counts since I was like 14 or something. (Someone had given it to my mother. I'm pretty sure she started and then abandoned it though.)
- greatquux 7y agoUm sorry but I really liked Dhalgren and Gravity’s Rainbow and Infinite Jest. I may actually use this list to find some new books to read.
- corrigible 7y agoCould you possibly explain the point of Infinite Jest? I got through about.. 40% or so. The incessant tennis wore me out.
- pfortuny 7y agoI have read it. There is no “point” in it, as with any other novel. It is a huge style exercise by a gifted writer, as far as I can see. I gather lots of chapters are autobiographical or nearly so. The book is obviously too long and it becomes boring at places but there are certainly extraordinary passages (in style and in feeling). But as with Wagner’s operas, delight comes at a price.
- greatquux 7y agoExactly. The "point" is enjoying it. If you enjoy it, it hardly matters what it's about or trying to say, and vice versa. I enjoyed it, so that's why I kept reading and rated it 5 stars.
- mrweasel 7y agoI don't think it means that nobody is enjoying those books, it's just that their reputation is rather high, but their actual target audience is much more narrow, or that the writing style isn't something that most people enjoy . For instance I abandoned Lord of the Rings. In my view it's poorly written, boring, long-winded and to difficult to follow. That hardly means that it's a bad book, it's just not for me.
- syndacks 7y agoSomewhat orthogonal, I've never been so disappointed by a follow up work than I have with Marlon James; from Brief History of Seven Killings to Black Leopard Red Wolf (the most abandoned book on the "to" list). Seems I'm not alone in this feeling!
- jayroh 7y agoAbout a week ago I put down "Black Leopard Red Wolf" after a few hundred pages and absolutely little desire to continue slogging through it. So when I saw the book on this list and blog post mentioned often throughout - ha. I had to chuckle. As many others have said before, I'm sure there's an argument for it being an objectively great book, but for me it just did absolutely nothing. I learned a long time ago that there was no shame in stopping when you realize you get no enjoyment from reading a book. I have no problem writing off that sunk cost.
- syndacks 7y agoHave you read BHo7K? If so, what did you think? If not -- read it!
- lazyant 7y agoGlad I'm not the only one with Catch-22. A great book but could have been 1/3 the length; after a while it's all the same thing over and over and I only finished it because I had nothing else to read and just wanted to see if it had any ending (not happy about it either). I get that the repetition may have been done on purpose as literary artifice to reflect war or whatever, just found it too long and stretching the gimmicks.
- ng12 7y agoHeartbroken to see "I Am A Cat" on there. Granted, it's probably too fanciful for many (and a lot gets lost in translation) but Soseki is one author I'd like to see get more attention in the West.
- hhmc 7y agoI think page/word count would have been an interesting covariate to investigate.
- larnmar 7y agoBorges once wrote something about his father’s library. As a boy, his father told him that he was allowed to read anything he wanted from his vast library, on one condition: that if he found himself reading something he wasn’t interested in, he should immediately put it back rather than try to finish it. This is a liberating perspective that I try, and fail, to maintain. If I abandon a book it’s no failing on my part, it’s a sensible reallocation of my time based on improved information. Continuing to read something you don’t want to read, just because you started it, is a terrible dunk cost fallacy.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoI generally try and stick to that perspective. I have no reluctance to just stop when I've lost hope it's worth continuing, or I'm not enjoying something. There's been a few I came back to years later and have been very glad I did. Or with more recent works where trilogies are more common, stop when it's clear the second isn't a patch on a promising first. My exception more than validated that I should never feel I "must" finish, that makes just stopping quite easy now. The only exception I can think of turned out to be an exercise in extreme foolishness (and a little ignorance), that turned into bloody minded penance to finish the set come what may. Love Arthur C Clarke, loved Rendezvous with Rama, it really deserved a great continuation. Read Rama 2 and it was slow, plodding and amateurish whilst being a mostly terrible follow-on that ignored most of what was in the original. OK, even Arthur's allowed a dud, it has to get better. Garden of Rama was far, far worse, plot so weak you cringe, bullshit characterisation and even the science was awful. Probably the worst book I have ever read, bar none. Wife assures me the only times I have had a habit of muttering or yelling at books were Rama 3 and 4, probably to "fucking get on with it", maybe to make sense. No detectable trace of Clarke in 3 whatsoever. Fool that I am, I tried again with Rama Revealed. 400 pages of badly imagined, plotless, garbage science rambling, that's taxonomy and biology of alien spiders and essentially nothing else, followed by "oh shit, almost out of pages, better figure out a point to this drivel", so immediate pace and plot change to 50 odd of pages of a weak, cliched, poorly imagined wrap up of the "why" of all 4. Entirely predictable cliche as ending. Second worst book ever. So carrying on for 2.5 books was pointless self-torture. Eventually found out, as it wasn't mentioned anywhere (it's tucked away on Lee's Wikipedia page, or was), that Clarke revealed he contributed only some ideas, Lee did all the atrocious writing on 2-4. Clarke on the cover is an outright con. Reread Rendezvous to cleanse my soul. Live and learn, and oh boy did I learn. :)
- ptrik 7y agoThe website itself is also interesting, with informative content and minimalist aesthetics. The link previews on hover are particularly interesting, similar to the Wikipedia one. What's the tech stack behind?
- vidyesh 7y agohttps://www.gwern.net/Changelog#august https://www.gwern.net/Changelog#august popups.js
- gwern 7y agohttps://www.gwern.net/About#design https://www.gwern.net/About#design
- lordgrenville 7y agoThe popups are really cool - I don't think I'd realised before that it's for more than just Wikipedia. The Amazon previews are great. I know nothing about design/typography, but I find it easier to read sites that are more spaced out, use sans-serif fonts, and have colours. I think the site looks beautiful (especially the drop caps!) but I wouldn't call it minimalist.
- n_t 7y agoThat website design is quite irritating. Reminds me of 1990s web pages, only in monochrome.
- Jenz 7y ago> That website design is quite irritating How so?
- gamesbrainiac 7y agoI find myself reading a lot of fantasy, and I use GR to track the reading that I do. I have to be honest, I find it really useful, especially if you are undecided as to whether you want to purchase a particular book or not. The negative reviews (1 or 2 star reviews) will often highlight the parts of the book that the reviewer did not like, and that is often something that determines whether or not I purchase the book or not.
- anitadig01 7y agoNice list!
- sixstringtheory 7y agoThe only book I’ve abandoned was Naked Lunch. I’ve enjoyed some slog books like Infinite Jest which the article mentioned, I enjoy shocking fiction and films, but something about that book cut to the quick of my imagination and just freaking grossed me out. I couldn’t power through it. I still think about finishing it one day. The thought of it won’t leave me alone and it’s been years now. To many other books to read though, and time is scarce!
- AndrewStephens 7y agoI've read The Naked Lunch. The first 10-20 pages are an interesting window into a different world, and the writing style really grabbed me. Then it gets incredibly repetitive and boring. Don't feel bad about not finishing it.
- GoodJokes 7y agoI think its fun to try out your chops on big sets of data, but I also think one should look for better data than something like Goodreads. The user data and book progress is hardly up to date relative to real life and like Rotten Tomatoes or Amazon reviews in general really say NOTHING about the actual content being rated or tracked.
- 8bitsrule 7y agoFunny thing, reading books. There are many that I read at one time and enjoyed. Today, I look at them again and wonder how I got through them. Would I still read all of Godel, Escher, Bach? Ehhh... The clock keeps ticking. That was before internet. It completely changed my reading habits. There was a (surprisingly) huge backlog of non-fiction things I wanted to know more about. Books about history, for example, were always a snooze; that changed when I was able to pick the creator, exact era, topic and dosage. Reading about places? Nah. Watching videos about them? Yes. How long will mortals enjoy such powers? A few living authors still have the power to pull me in just by publishing. But one or two books I bought years ago are still waiting - pre-abandoned?