I am having the same trouble with The Emporer's Children..I know I am supposed to love it, but I just don't. Shrugs...oh, well. There it sits, in full view on my bookcase with the Albert Einstein bookmark sticking out, challenging me to "come on back, pick me up, give me another chance"...but nope, not gonna do it. I am firmly in the grasp of a cozy mystery and intend to stay there for at least the weekend. And then, who knows? I have 93 unread books that whisper "read me, read me" until I pick one and they shut up for a couple of days! Oy, what a noise! ( I was gonna send The Emporer's Children, really I was, but you see my problem. Ah, well, surely someone will mooch it from me, and then it can sit unread in their bookcase.) Happy reading, my dearest one. Mom
Mom, I got Emporer's Children from someone at work. I've been wanting to read it for a long time and still will. In my case, I don't worry so much about what I am "supposed" to love. If I don't like a book and I dump it, I don't worry about it. It's more that I think something sounds good, and usually it is, and then it just doesn't strike my mood.
Happy Easter and give Emperor's Children another chance at some time -- it is one of those "you have to get into it" and then it makes sense. I have a whole stack waiting to be devoured!!!!
I am exactly like that. Exactly.
M, I knew I couldn't be the only one! (Besides my mom, which proves it isn't genetic. LOL)
Pavlova, I definitely intend to finish The Emperor's Children. I lost interest less because of the book than because of my own...well...promiscuous book behavior! 
Hello! I just discovered your blog about, oh, 15 minutes ago, and immediately my eyes were drawn to the title of this post. I laughed out loud when I read it because I, too, am a promiscuous reader. I have probably a dozen unread books on my nightstand, ranging from classic Brit lit (Ann Radcliffe's "The Mysteries of Udolpho") to self-help ("Why Men Love Bitches") to mythology (Joseph Campbell's "The Hero of a Thousand Faces"). I flit from one to the other, depending on my mood, which invariably leads to my not finishing any of them, at least not under 3 months. Thanks for the afternoon diversion. I will certainly make sure to check out the rest of your website!
JFC...I hope you enjoy. It's mostly about perfume, and about books when I can find the time. There never seems to be enough!
I'm becoming quite promiscuous with perfume, too, so it seems as though I'm in good company!
Oh dear...it's a terrible addiction! It never releases its hold!
As you can see, I am a promiscuous reader, yet I don't recognize myself in your description. How much I commit myself to a given book depends on the book. There are books I read slowly, taking notes as I go, interrupting the work with other books, more immediately pleasurable to read. I might read three or four of the latter before I finish the former, depending. The Brothers Karamazov took me about a month to read, so there must have a dozen others I read during that time.
"Commitment"? What's that got to do with it? Some of your other commenters here find it difficult to finish the books they read. I find it difficult not to finish a book, no matter how bad or dull or infuriating it is. Real "commitment" in the sense you're alluding to, I think, would mean reading only one book in one's lifetime, committing to it and it only till do them part. Some religious nuts talk as if they had just such a relationship with their favored scripture, but I don't think many people would see that as an ideal.
I'm promiscuous in the sense that I read all kinds of things, from high theory to comic books, from Wittgenstein to murder mysteries, from Noam Chomsky to Rush Limbaugh. I once read somewhere that James Joyce would unwrap fishbones to read the newspaper they were wrapped in. So I'm in good company.
The link I put in the URL field will take to you the first book review I published where I used the persona of The Promiscuous Reader, over 20 years ago. You might find the opening paragraphs entertaining.
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