The older I get the less I enjoy unpleasant books, even well-written ones. I think this is a fault but I cannot change. I didn't have this hang-up when I was younger, not at all. The style was all important then. I think having children made me more squeamish. My sensibility and power of imagination increased very much and I find it difficult to read everything in the newspapers, too. The nasty pictures stay for ever in my head and I have to fight them to fall asleep.

The older I get the less I enjoy unpleasant books, however well-written. I think this is a fault but I cannot change. I didn't have this hang-up when I was younger, not at all. I think having children made me more squeamish. My sensibility and power of imagination increased very much and I find it difficult to read everything in the newspapers, too. The nasty pictures stay for ever in my head and I have to fight them to fall asleep.

it's surely not necessary to revel in it [unpleasantness]

Martin, I think that's the key for me whether I will enjoy an 'unpleasant' book or not. Any time I detect a gratuitous concentration on a particular aspect of a story (be it violence of any type or the amplification of 'nasty' personality traits), I am put off.

When I was younger, I 'enjoyed' some of the true-crime classics such as Capote's In Cold Blood and Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, which were unpleasant to be sure. But they were also informative and extremely well-written, without being sensational just for the sake of being sensational (although sensational they certainly were). Later examples of the true-crime genre devolved into 'cut to the chase' type writing -- e.g., ghoulish descriptions of the victims' wounds, an almost admiring analysis of the perpetrators' methods and what made him/her 'tick', etc. I stopped reading those.

I haven't read A Tale for the Time Being. I thought I might, but I am reluctant and may just never get around to it.

The older I get the less I enjoy unpleasant books, however well-written. I think this is a fault but I cannot change. I didn't have this hang-up when I was younger, not at all. I think having children made me more squeamish. My sensibility and power of imagination increased very much and I find it difficult to read everything in the newspapers, too. The nasty pictures stay for ever in my head and I have to fight them to fall asleep.

Exactly! I've never been a huge fan of books that focus on horrific experiences or people's misery and my capacity for reading them has decreased a great deal of late.

I know that the main characters in any novel need challenges to overcome, but I prefer them not to include rape, incest or other horrific abuse.

In my local book group, one of our members always picks these types of books, and I dread reading them. There are bits and pieces of ROOM by Emma Donoghue, for example, that still occasionally pop into my head and make me feel ill.

I guess what I'm looking for in a book that is going to make me read through truly unpleasant contents is hope. For example, I loved Unbroken, by Lauren Hillenbrand about the life of Louis Zamperini. He lived through horror after horror, all detailed in the book, but there was always hope.

In any event, I tend to avoid books that I know will have significant nastiness in them. I see enough of that on the evening news, thankyouverymuch, I don't want it in my pleasure reading.

I read for enjoyment and information. I've been around the block, so to speak. I am fully aware that there are terrible things and awful people in the world, I just really don't want to know anymore about them.

I do often seem to enjoy books which deal with darker topics. One topic which interests me, for example, is the impact of disease on human history. I thoroughly enjoyed John Morley's The Great Mortality about the Black Death. I am also have an interest in disasters. Parts of my book shelves are by no means cheerful!

I also like classic crime, and some "true crime", but of a particular type which does not deal with sadism, sexual deviancy, etc. Call me a Pollyanna, but I really dislike books where animals or children are the victims of violence. I usually avoid anything to do with serial killers as these books tend to glamorize them. In Cold Blood, which Friedag mentions in her reply, is an exception because it is an important, literary book. The author also seemed to respect the victims, treating them like real people before they were victims of a horrendous crime.

To take this back to Martin's original question: it may be that as we readers get older we choose to spend more time on the books and topics we actually enjoy.

I don't like books or films or any media that deals with gratuitous violence/cruelty/sex or stories that are exploiting others for the sake of money.

I think it's important to determine how you define 'unpleasantness', as well. Some books definitely take me out of my comfort zone and for that reason, you could say, they were unpleasant. But if I learn something and it is legitimate --as in the Time Being--then I don't mind at all. The bullying scenes in that novel were based on real events in Japan, and it helped me understand that culture. Depressing, according to my own values, as Martin said, but I am glad to have learned that. Similarly, I have read numerous 'unpleasant' stories about women in other cultures. Horrific stories in my opinion, but that is life for them which they usually find acceptable for reasons of religion or whatever. We all have different values based on our culture and upbringing. I have lost count of the many times that I thank the powers-that-be that I was born here. So in these cases I do enjoy reading 'unpleasant' stories.

I try to avoid dysfunctional family novels, they get to be somewhat predictable and for a while, that seemed to be the only thing that was being written. They all seemed to end badly. I don't read true crime novels, I get the newspaper for that. And sometimes I feel they are exploiting victims and giving the perpetrator some time in the sun when they should be forgotten...and ultimately someone is making money out of others' misery.

The really unpleasant books are those that make a lot of money that are poorly crafted and badly written. :)

Unrelenting unpleasantness in fiction is a big no-no for me because it always makes me wonder why anyone would want to write something like that, be it about misery, suffering, violence, horrible people or other unpleasant subjects.

Unpleasant scenes in fiction on the other hand often enhance the story. A good example would be the rape scene from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, because it leads to character development, makes a point about the vulnerability of the victim who basically has to help herself because society doesn't care about her, and helps advance the story while setting up part of the story in the next book in the trilogy. (I still felt it was much too detailed).

As for non-fiction, sometimes unpleasant stories need to be told and read, in order for us to make sense of something, like genocide or war crimes (or politics, for that matter). However, I dislike when authors get busy describing in repetitive detail things that don't really matter for the big picture. This seems to happen a lot in true crime books.

I try to avoid true crime because of the above and also because I have occasionally felt I detected an undercurrent of an author's admiration for the "accomplishments" of horrible people like mobsters or serial killers. That, in my opinion, is genuinely unpleasant.

I wouldn't bother with unpleasant books normally but read my husband's copy of "The Godfather" to see what had kept him reading the whole book late into the night at one sitting.
It was fascinating and I did the same thing!
I think what took the horror off it was the logical 'reasonableness' of the crimes!
Can it be that if a book is told from the perspective of someone who acts outside the law the story is more acceptable?
Polly Adler's "A House is Not a Home", her story of running a brothel was interesting non-fiction and again not my usual choice. I read it many years ago and cannot recall why I picked it!

I agree with Janalyn about avoiding dysfunctional family books. I haven't and don't intend to read another book by Joyce Carol Oates after reading We Were the Mulvaneys." I don't want to end up depressed from reading a novel!

Leaving aside A Tale for the Time Being I remember someone here a while ago saying how they couldn't get on with Angela's Ashes as the subject matter was so distasteful. Now I admit I enjoyed the book and, for me, the 'distasteful' part was saved by Frank McCourt's humour. If it had been written from the angle of "Didn't we suffer as kids? Wasn't my Mother a drunk who starved us so she could buy booze? Didn't my Father run away and leave us when we got back to Limerick where we were forced to live upstairs in a hovel awash with raw sewage? Were we not beaten by the priests at school and wasn't I mocked over my 'yellow eyes' running with pus?
It does sound truly horrendous and perhaps the fact that most of it was untrue (except for the eyes) helped to take the sting out of it.
On the other hand We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (which I heard as a reading on radio) was most powerful (for me) at the end, when the 'why' came out.
I agree with netla when she says that some 'true-crime' writers seem to revel in and 'Big Up' the criminals. We may not have as many baddies as there are in the US but some of ours are/were very nasty people. Much was made of the 'Great Train Robbery' because the thieves got away with millions of pounds worth of used bank notes, most of which never found, nor were the 'brains' behind the operation. Books have also been written about a notorious family the 'Kray Twins' who beat up/maimed/killed/tortured with no compunction in the East End of London, an area that still offers 'tours' of the back alleys where Jack the Ripper carried out his horrible murders. I'm not suggesting nothing should be written about these subjects, but why do the writers need to dwell on the pools of blood/dismembered body parts. I suppose I know the answer. It is what sells books. :-(

Fundamentally, I think Tolstoy had it right in Anna Karenina.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

Stories about happy families are likely to be boring.

Martin, you are right. I was trying to think of an adult book about a happy family, and it was like one of those mental brain exercises that they recommend we do to stave off dementia. Right now, I can't come up with one...uh oh.

I've been thinking of this a lot, and the only answer I can come up with is 'It depends." Not a good answer, I know. And come to think of it, not only can't I think of a good adult book about a happy family, I don't have any interest in reading one.

I like books that have a good resolution, and some conflict and probably downright nastiness is to some extent necessary. I enjoyed A Tale for the Time Being immensely. I think it is beautifully written and it addressed subjects that fascinate me, and I liked the ending. Bullying is a subject that I find intensely interesting, possibly because I was never bullied, not even close. I am Girl #4 in a large family and believe you me, I can take care of myself. And if I couldn't, my older siblings would have killed anyone (almost literally) that tried to bully me. I greatly enjoyed the Zen references, the WWII sub-plot, the topical treatment of Japanese culture, and the interesting relationships and characters.

On the other hand, I usually cannot and do not read books or watch films that have violence to children or animals. I have walked out of films, to the great amusement of friends (well, not good friends).

I can take some violence if it enhances the story and the plot, and builds the characterizations. A perfect example for me was "The Hunger Games" trilogy. The premise is horrible but Collins weaves the story so well that the reader is drawn in and cannot wait to see what happens next.

OTOH, I just finished Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms". It was filled with so much violence and so much suffering, with no redeeming features anywhere, that I was left depressed. I know he was considered to be a "great" writer, but I think that novel needed a lot of editing.