I was struggling to come up with a topic for this blog post, so I started perusing previous posts to try and spark my creative writing. Many of our posts are about items we recommend, because they have stuck with us, had an impact and/or meant something to us (and that’s great!). It made me wonder if anyone else had experienced a book or movie, that afterwards you couldn’t remember what you had just seen or read?
There have been a couple of books that I have had that experience with, and I don’t think it’s because they are poorly written. They just don’t have the same impact that so many other books have had. I mean, I have 773 books on my Goodreads list — I joined it in 2012, so that’s about 200 books a year on average — and sometimes when I scroll through, I see a title and can’t remember what happened or how the book ended. Like at all. I see the title, and I think “Did I really read that? What the heck is that book?”
Here are the top three books that I’ve read … apparently … but cannot remember:
Mystic City by Theo Lawrence
In a Manhattan where the streets are under water and outcasts called mystics have paranormal powers, Aria Rose is engaged to Thomas Foster and the powerful Rose and Foster families—long time enemies—are uniting politically; the only trouble is that Aria can not remember ever meeting Thomas, much less falling in love with him.
What I do remember about this book is that it is part of a series, and it is in the dystopian realm. If you like series because you know exactly what you are going to read next, then give this one a try. I know it seems weird that I’m recommending a book that I don’t (entirely) remember, but I gave it 3 stars!
City of Falling Angels by John Berendt
An intimate look at the “magic, mystery and decadence” of the city of Venice and its inhabitants.
I remember I wanted to read this book because it was about Venice (I’ve traveled there), and it was about a fire that destroyed a historical part of Venice (I was also a history major). I’m not a HUGE fan of nonfiction though. I’ve always struggled getting through them for some reason (I’m working on it).
The Dante Club by Matthew Pearl
In 1865 Boston, a small group of literary geniuses put the finishing touches on America’s first translation of “The Divine Comedy.” When a series of murders erupt throughout Boston, only the scholars realize that the style of the killings are stolen directly from “Dante’s Inferno.”
What books have you forgotten?
-Abbey
Eleventh Stack 
Like you, I read about 180 books per year, so I do forget some of them – especially if they are crime fiction with similar themes to others I’ve read, or part of a series. In fact, at one point, before I made lists of books read on Goodreads, I used to pick the same book twice at the library (a few years apart) and only realise about 50 pages in that I had read it before.
I have done that as well! Thank you for your reply.
-Abbey
I don’t read een close to as many as you, but I recently came across a reading list from 5 years ago and could only remember about half of them! I put it down to my age, but who knows!