This is really going to be what I'm not reading. Books I abandoned or got shuffled down in the NEXT! pile until they shuffled right on out. Except for the Schama, I didn't get far in any of these, although far enough in most of them.
* Beneath a Ruthless Sun, Gilbert King. His Pulitzer-winning Devil in the Grove is a book I have highly recommended for years but I got pulled in too many directions to get into this.
* Landscape and Memory, Simon Schama. The title feels like something essential but I dunno, medieval German art isn't doing it for me. I put it down to plow through a library book but with relief. I may leaf through & see if I can get back to it.
* The Editor, Steven Rowley. Loved Lily and the Octopus, but I was bored & skeptical from the start. Disappointing.
* The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz. This got great reviews but it seemed like a rehash of a million boring books about male writers & their angst. Maybe that was a satire but ugh.
* Hour of the Witch, Chris Bohajalian. Another recommended book but the language had moments of jarring anachronism. I put it down.
* Surviving the White Gaze, Rebecca Carroll. An adopted black child in a white family. I didn't believe she remembered things the way she says she did, & when you don't trust a memoir's author, it's all over.
* Colin Dexter. Another recommended (mystery) writer who bored me.
* Orwell's Roses, Rebecca Solnit. I'm a big fan of hers, for the most part, but I guess I'm not that interested in Orwell's soft side, & she took so long getting there. Like one of those people whose stories repeat "but to understand that, first I have to tell you this."