The Perks Of Being A Book Addict discussion

Which books have you not read that you're probably supposed to have?

I haven't read many classics.

I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice after being told I'm not a proper bookworm if I haven't read it, and honestly I'm not loving it all that much. It's so dull. What do these characters even LOOK like?

I haven't read Harry Potter. I've tried but I just don't like the books. I really enjoyed the movies though.

Really? I feel that to really understand the HP movie, you need to have read the books. It makes so much more sense

*movies

I set myself the challenge of the 100 books to read set by the Guardian Newspaper and I read them all but I honestly HATED some of them! I don't understand the lure of SciFi so I couldn't finish Dune by Frank Herbert and I LOATHED Russian fiction in its entirety, however the movie of Anna Karenina was so beautiful I was wondering if I should try again.

Nicola wrote: "I set myself the challenge of the 100 books to read set by the Guardian Newspaper and I read them all but I honestly HATED some of them! I don't understand the lure of SciFi so I couldn't finish Dune by Frank Herbert and I LOATHED Russian fiction in its entirety, however the movie of Anna Karenina was so beautiful I was wondering if I should try again. "

I once tried reading Dune. I personally thought it was trollop and didn't enjoy it, but I know a few of my friends loved it. I'm no stranger to sci-fi but I've only really enjoyed Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis.

Have you tried other Classic English lit?

Nicola wrote: "Have you tried other Classic English lit?"

Yeah, I've read Oliver Twist (which I loved) and Great Expectations (which I didn't), all of Shakespeare (who I generally love) and Canterbury Tales (hilarious!) as well as lots of Romantic poetry (Wordsworth, Coleridge etc).

Classic lit demands patience. It cannot be read in a jiffy like popular lit, hence the difficulty. Plus it operates on various ideological layers beneath the story layer, so it requires more attention and the willingness to think over it once it is done with. Among tragedies, I love 'Tender Is The Night' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Tender Is the Night

I read Pride and Prejudice recently and also Sense and Sensibility. I have to say it was a relief when I was done with them. They were good books, but not something I would read again. However, I also read a few Dickens books recently, such as David Copperfield and was really impressed at the end how he ties everything neatly together, instead of leaving so many loose threads like I thought it would be. I will be reading all of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen, just to be able to say that I have, but I am more looking forward to Great Expectations and his other books more than I am to Persuasion and Mansfield Park....

That being said, I have a ton of books to-read that really should have been read a long time ago. They are on my list, which is entirely too long. Most of the classics are books that I really want to read.

I haven't read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. I own it but the thickness of it keeps putting me off, it would certainly be a great time investment. I think I'll save it for the summer if I take it on a beach holiday perhaps I'll have the courage and free time to read it, fingers crossed.

Ashley wrote: "I read Pride and Prejudice recently and also Sense and Sensibility. I have to say it was a relief when I was done with them. They were good books, but not something I would read again. However, I a..."

It too have been in a Dickens phase as of late. I haven't read David Copperfield. Hopefully you'll really enjoy Great Expectations, I know I did (:

Cora Linn wrote: "Nicola wrote: "Have you tried other Classic English lit?"

Yeah, I've read Oliver Twist (which I loved) and Great Expectations (which I didn't), all of Shakespeare (who I generally love) and Canter..."

I've just bought Canterbury Tales this weekend, I remember studying it in the first year of secondary school. We all had to copy out passages of it for handwriting practice and to take in what we were reading. Hopefully I'll enjoy it more this time round when I'm not copying it out (:

Molly wrote: I've just bought Canterbury Tales this weekend, I remember studying it in the first year of secondary school. We all had to copy out passages of it for handwriting practice and to take in what we were reading. Hopefully I'll enjoy it more this time round when I'm not copying it out (:


It was explained to us when we were reading it, and I don't remember it all that well. There was a lot of comedy in it, dry humor it seems. The way the people were described could have been totally overlooked if it hadn't been explained. I think when I read it again I will get an annotated version or something if available.

Molly wrote: "I've just bought Canterbury Tales this weekend, I remember studying it in the first year of secondary school. We all had to copy out passages of it for handwriting practice and to take in what we were reading. Hopefully I'll enjoy it more this time round when I'm not copying it out (: "

Yeah, that's how I was introduced to it - we read the Miller's Tale out loud in the original Middle English as we had to memorise it for our exams and I enjoyed it so much that I went and bought the whole lot.

Cora Linn wrote: "Which books have you not read that you're probably supposed to have?

I haven't read many classics.

I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice after being told I'm not a proper bookworm if I haven'..."

Watch the movie. It's ten times better than the actual book. Your'e right. It's extremely dull.

I'm taking a class this semester that is all about the Canterbury Tales. It's an interesting class because we really discuss all of the tales, plus how each tale relates to the other tales in the collection. I'm "supposed" to be working on my Chaucer project now, which is incorporating story into the tales and then discussing how it works within the larger collection. I'm rewriting the Tinderbox by Hans Christian Anderson for it.

Cora Linn wrote: "Which books have you not read that you're probably supposed to have?

I haven't read many classics.

I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice after being told I'm not a proper bookworm if I haven'..."

Jane Austen's writing style can be a bit wordy, although she's easier to understand than Shakespeare and more engaging than Virginia Woolf, at least in my opinion. However, if you understand what she's trying to say, you will find yourself laughing at the plot. Personally, "Pride and Prejudice" made me love her. I tried "Emma" at first, but couldn't get into it. After P&P, I decided to give Austen another shot because I just found it so funny, and I'm so glad I did. She pokes fun at the social issues of the times, if you're into that sort of thing.

Well I haven't read many classic either..
Also I haven't read the Harry Potter series, I had a really hard time getting into the first book when I was younger... Then I never really had the urge to try again... I did read the last book because I wanted to know what happened, I know it's not the best thing to do but yeah I'll start reading them soon enough :) I'm sure they are great I maybe wasn't in the mood for it!

I can't do the copy paste thing but MOLLY - Russian literature especially Anna Karenina, War and Peace and Crime and Punishment are really wordy, like 'oh look, there is a bee, it flies like a small weapon of poison around the land. Ah a tree, so big and leafy a tower of strength storming from the ground reaching toward the gods.......and so on and so on' The story of Anna is beautiful and I think the film sucked out the best bits and highlighted them. I'd watch it first then read the book - I don't say that often but I wish I had done it that way round. I may re-read AK now but I don't know if I can face the hunting chapter eeek

I been trying to tackle my lack of classic by reading one contemporary followed by a classic. So far I have enjoyed what I have read, and kind of sad I waited so long on some of them.
Next to read will be and also I would like to get to and sometime soon

Bell Jar was a difficult text... I enjoyed it because it had obvious, explicit allusions to Plath's life, but not as a work of writing. Probably Plath was too disturbed to be intelligible to her readers.

Cora Linn wrote: "Which books have you not read that you're probably supposed to have?

I haven't read many classics.

I'm currently reading Pride and Prejudice after being told I'm not a proper bookworm if I haven'..."

I usually pride myself on finishing a book even if I'm not liking it that much, but I just couldn't get into P&P at all and I had to put it down.

There are a lot of classics that I haven't gotten around to yet. One of them is Catcher in the Rye, I've actually found it quite hard to find in England.

Hunger Trilogy and P&P and a lot more...I don't read the books that they suppose a normal bookworm would read.

There are a lot of classics that I haven't read, like Tristam Shanty, Tom Jones, Moby Dick, Frankenstein, the Great Gatsby etc. I haven't been through the Harry Potter series except for the first one. The book seemed ok, but the movie was better. I like Austen very much and have read most of her works. Most of my friends don't like her and find her novels tedious.Dickens too is good,though sometimes you have to battle your way through. Fitzgerad's Tender is the Night is a difficult text for me, and seems to me like a companion text to Evelyn Waugh's A Handful of Dust.Yet, the writing styles are so different. Bell Jar has a brilliance of its own and my guess is people who like plath's poetry will generally appreciate it.

I haven't seen or read the twilight saga which is supposedly weird for a teenage book fan :D

I haven't read the host by Stephenie Meyers but I want to

The host and the vampire diaries

Under Th Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
Perfect Chemistry by Simon Elkeles
The Selection by Kiera Cass

I've never read the Harry Potter series or watched the movies. Never even tried. Don't know why though. I've just never really thought about reading them.
Never read the Selection, Fallen, five out of six of the VA series, any Cassandra Clare books or Beautiful Creatures. I've never read a lot more that I think most people have read but those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.
I've also never read many classics. I mean I've tried to but they're just boring. I don't like historical fiction so books written in a different time period are no different. I've read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Anne of Green Gables though. Do those count?

Brittney wrote: "I haven't read Harry Potter. I've tried but I just don't like the books. I really enjoyed the movies though."

I haven't read Harry Potter either. I don't really want to but feel like I should because they are on all the lists of "You must read these books" on listopia. I didn't enjoy the movies. I have so many books that I want to read, maybe I will get around to reading them.

Classic English Lit kind of drives me up the wall. I can understand the importance of Shakespeare and Pride and Prejudice and all that jazz, but they just bore me. I'll read 'difficult' books but not something that just feels like a slog the whole way through.

I feel really bad that I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird.

I want to read Les Mis but it's called "the brick" for a reason...

Lina wrote: "I feel really bad that I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird."

WHAAAAAAAT?! THAT'S MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!! READ IT!!!!!!!

Apoorva wrote: "Lina wrote: "I feel really bad that I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird."

WHAAAAAAAT?! THAT'S MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!! READ IT!!!!!!!"

I haven't read it either and I feel equally as bad as Lina lol.

Robert D. wrote: "Apoorva wrote: "Lina wrote: "I feel really bad that I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird."

WHAAAAAAAT?! THAT'S MY ALL TIME FAVORITE BOOK!!! READ IT!!!!!!!"

I haven't read it either and I feel equ..."

I didn't read it either. Oops

The Alchemist It ranked #2 of most read books in the world, right under the bible. It should've been my duty to read it. But I haven't get...

I haven't read To Kill a Mockingbird either, but I will sometime soon I think.
I also haven't read Pride and Prejudice. I haven't read a lot classics at all actually. But I'm planning to read some this year. :)
I also haven't read Harry Potter, and I probably never will. I once started reading the first book ehen I was younger, but I didn't enjoy it and I also don't like the movies too much to be honest.

Jason wrote: "Classic English Lit kind of drives me up the wall. I can understand the importance of Shakespeare and Pride and Prejudice and all that jazz, but they just bore me. I'll read 'difficult' books but ..."
I feel sorry for you, classics are a blessing :) I love Pride and Prejudice and my edition is really worned out now.

Rikke wrote: "I feel sorry for you, classics are a blessing :)"

I feel sorry for myself haha. Just can't bring myself to enjoy much of them. I love The Great Gatsby, Catcher In The Rye, Dracula, and stuff like that, but some of it just turns me off. Each to his/her own I guess. :)

I haven't read anything by J.R.R. Tolkien or Stephen King... I know I should but I just haven't.

Rikke wrote: "Jason wrote: "Classic English Lit kind of drives me up the wall. I can understand the importance of Shakespeare and Pride and Prejudice and all that jazz, but they just bore me. I'll read 'difficu..."

i also love them but only read when im bore of modern books and are just looking for a good romance

Gabriella wrote: "I haven't read the host by Stephenie Meyers but I want to"

me too i try to start but it was very slow ,they told me it picks up but i have found so many wonderful books that i havent gone back

i havent read the percy jackson books ,heard good things but i never even started one

AniSsina wrote: "I haven't read anything by J.R.R. Tolkien or Stephen King... I know I should but I just haven't."

I don't even understand this statement.

Hi All,

Don't remember if it was on this thread or somewhere else, but the discussion was of a book and writer I'd not heard about. Those who've read Jojo Moyes' Me Before You were so upbeat about it, I had to read it. Just finished it, and oh man! I couldn't put it down. Apart from being an intriguing story, the writing is so very good. What a wonderful reading experience :).
Now about names, I've never come across anybody, alive or in fiction, with a name Rayne. My mother named me after an aunt in Lithuania who was deported to Germany never to be heard of again.
Rayne
www.raynegolay.com

I haven't read the Lord of the Rings and so many other books. But they're all on my "to read list"

I hear you, Jassy. When I was a lot younger, I had the ambition to read every book published. I'll never make it, but I read a lot. Each book is an adventure.

Rayne
www.raynegolay.com

WEll pride and prejudice
really rocks