30 Days of Book Talk discussion

What’s a book you feel like you should read, but haven’t gotten around to yet? Is there a book you’d like a little more encouragement to read, or the internet’s permission to admit you’re never going to?

A couple I feel like I should read, but am not as excited about as I’d like:

The Lord of the Rings. I’ve never actually read this in its entirety: I first tried it when too young and found it too depressing, and then when I tried again as an adult, it didn’t click. I did enjoy the movies and feel like I should read the book, but now it doesn’t help that I know everything that’s going to happen, and have read a lot of other books inspired by it that seem tailored to push my buttons better.

Vanity Fair. I’m not sure if I should read this one at all. I’m interested in the Napoleonic Wars era setting, but concerned that it sounds kind of misogynistic. Given its length, it’s quite a commitment for something I'm not excited about.

The books that I feel I should read are many! Bhagavad Gita, Avesta, Torah and Dante’s Divine Comedy spring to mind.

There are several works of philosophy that I haven’t ever read. But I feel they should be studied and understood. And I think my cursory knowledge of them is sufficient for me at this time.

So apart from the books I named in the first paragraph and many other sacred texts and mythology that I want to understand, what I really like to be talked into and be encouraged to read, study and fully understand are physics and advanced mathematics.

I have House of Leaves on the shelves but find it rather daunting and downright creepy when I leaved through it. An other book that comes to mind is Ulysses, tried it as a sixteen year old but didn't get through it. Much briefer in size but similar story for To the Lighthouse of Virginia Woolf.

I have a hardback of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self that I picked up several years ago second hand and still haven't read because it's so heavy! (Let's face it, with the new ultralight ebook readers, I'm spoiled.) Likewise a thick, heavy paperback (also second hand) biography of Charles II. I know they'll be interesting, but I just never seem to pick them up.

I have felt for a while like I should probably read the Chernow Alexander Hamilton - inspiration for the hit Broadway musical, etc. - but it's 818 pages and I don't think that I actually want to read that long of a biography and I'd really just like to feel that I'm absolved if I keep on skipping it.

Talked into? Probably War and Peace or Terry Pratchett.

Talked out of? Probably Terry Pratchett or War and Peace.

I shouldbe really talked into reading "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding or "The Forsyte Saga" by John Galsworthy.

I’d like to be talked into reading anything by Ernest Hemingway. Somehow I never encountered him in any of my classes and never voluntarily pick him up as an adult. I feel like this is a major lack in my reading background.

I’d like to be talked out of reading some of the sillier “To Marry a Handsome Duke” novels that are my guilty pleasure.

Lately I've been trudging through A Notable Woman: The Romantic Journals of Jean Lucey Pratt and wondering why I'm bothering. She was one of Simon Garfield's pet wartime diarists but she is no Nella Last. One thing she is not, is notable. I know a lot of it is down to Garfield's extremely selective editing, but she is so dull! She obsesses about sex with any man in reach, and that's about it so far. Even her cats get no more than a passing mention. Maybe some one should talk me out of wasting more time on it.

There are a number of 19th century classics I feel I should have read (largely French and Russian, but also Middlemarch), but at this point no one's assigning me to read them, and I'm not sure I am capable of making myself. Unless I get the mad desire to - I'm very much a "mood" reader.

My mother's tried to talk me into Middlemarch on several occasions, but I'm still afraid of George Eliot.

Most of Vanity Fair isn't set during the Napoleonic wars, btw, but largely in the years afterwards. It's also extremely funny.

I love Lord of the Rings but - if it didn't hook you when you were younger, and you've seen the movies, I really don't see any reason to make yourself read it.

Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "... My mother's tried to talk me into Middlemarch on several occasions, but I'm still afraid of George Eliot. ..."

Okay, I’ll try: Middlemarch and Mill on the Floss are wonderful, two of my favorite books ever, and I read them voluntarily as an adult. Don’t be afraid! (I’m wondering if maybe you first tried Silas Marner, Because I started that book assuming I love but I couldn’t get much past the first chapter. Tried a couple times.)

I also love Middlemarch, the characterisation is superb and versatile.

Hm, I guess if there's any book right now it's The City in the Middle of the Night by Charlie Jane Anders. It's a finalist for the Hugos and I told a friend that I would read it. It's just that I haven't connected with what I've read of the author's other work to date so I'm leery. I WILL read it in time to vote, just not right now.

Mark wrote: "I have felt for a while like I should probably read the Chernow Alexander Hamilton - inspiration for the hit Broadway musical, etc. - but it's 818 pages and I don't think that I actually want to read that long of a biography and I'd really just like to feel that I'm absolved if I keep on skipping it."

Heh. Might want to stay clear of David McCullough's Truman then. It's 1100 pages in paperback with another 100 pages of notes and bibliography. It's actually a fantastic read, but I had to read it in chunks, say a chapter a week or so.

I was force marched through Silas Marner at 15, and it was a very unpleasant experience indeed.

Two Envelopes and a Phone wrote: "Talked into? Probably War and Peace or Terry Pratchett.

Talked out of? Probably Terry Pratchett or War and Peace."

Terry Pratchett is funny, and the books are short! Lots of people love his writing to death. I haven't so far (only read a couple) but even I admit that they're a good time.

War and Peace is pretty great, despite its reputation as a giant tome. The characters are complicated and interesting, and the chapters are short, often as short as just a couple of pages, so it doesn't feel like a slog. It's not long due to long-windedness but because a lot happens in it; the pace is actually fairly quick. I recommend the Ann Dunnigan translation if you do decide to read it (and in English) - it's more modern than some, keeps the original names where other editions stupidly translate them into English, and also translates all the French dialogue, which believe it or not, not every edition does.

Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "Most of Vanity Fair isn't set during the Napoleonic wars, btw, but largely in the years afterwards. It's also extremely funny.

I love Lord of the Rings but - if it didn't hook you when you were yo..."

Thanks! Funny is good. When I was a kid it wasn't that I wasn't interested in Lord of the Rings, just that I read it when I was really too young, and I took all the dire foreshadowing at face value, assumed all the characters were going to die, and quit. It just seems like such a gap in my reading now!

As far as Middlemarch goes, like Ange I read it voluntarily as an adult, and I was pretty impressed by it. Eliot is definitely not a writer for kids, and I don't think Silas Marner is the kind of story that would appeal to kids, so I'm not surprised you hated it at 15. A lot of it is observation on human nature. Middlemarch is also a much more complicated and ambitious book than Silas Marner.

Oh ok, this is what we’re supposed to do. I would like to please be talked out of binge reading books like Kristen Ashley’s books or those MC books. Afterwards I don’t even remember the titles and or even the writers’ names. I do need escapist books once in a while when I want to just switch off and well, my favourite writers don’t write as much or as frequently as I want them to. But binge reading these kind of books is like eating too much junk food. I don’t finish most of them and the rest leave me feel sick.


As for Lord of the Rings books. I would always recommend them. They may seem very, very slow. Peter Jackson did a brilliant job, I think his works are among the very best film adaptations of all time but still, the books are something else. They’re pure magic. Of course I have your exact same feeling about War and Peace, I plodded through it in French, it was the first year I had graduated to non shortened books, so I didn’t really understand parts of it and I wasn’t drawn enough to reread it. Then I saw the film and felt I didn’t need to.

Ulysses is an experience. I read somewhere that Rothko had said that art is not about making people see an experience, it, in itself should be an experience. (I’m paraphrasing).

I first read it without even knowing what it was, and that is what I recommend for the first time to anyone. It feels presumptuous to talk about it when English literature isn’t even my field of study. But I think that first shock of discovery stays with one for ever, even if one doesn’t understand all the layers. I was so confused the first time that at one point I started skimming and came to that last famous passage and then I started from the beginning. I know there are entire course based on this one book, and I like to one day attend one of them, but I only reread it later on with the help of the articles and things I searched in the internet myself as I didn’t find a copy of a companion book. There are layers and layers which intrigued me at first and I just wanted to see what it all meant. It felt and still feels like this great puzzle that you have to put together. It sometimes feels to me as if Joyce is making us live through life experiences and perceptions and influences that build up through a lifetime in order to give us a piece of a life. Of course I would be the last person to ask about this book because there is so much of it I have to learn and understand yet. But it is the most intriguing piece of literature I have ever tried, and on some level I even like that I haven’t had much structured help, because the journey of discovery feels like my own. Needless to say there is so much yet to go through and discover.

Susanna - Censored by GoodReads wrote: "There are a number of 19th century classics I feel I should have read (largely French and Russian, but also Middlemarch), but at this point no one's assigning me to read them, and I'm ..."

I have read Middlemarch twice. The beginning was good, particularly the texture of the prose. However it needed editing...it does tend to drag a bit in the middle, but those were the days of the 3-volume novel. What reads like page-filler was exactly that.

Gogol wrote: "Oh ok, this is what we’re supposed to do. I would like to please be talked out of binge reading books like Kristen Ashley’s books or those MC books. Afterwards I don’t even remember the titles and ..."

Well, if you want to be talked out of reading fluff, here goes. There is a time and a place for fluff--when you're tired, unwell, depressed etc. But if the author never leaves anything on the table--if you read a book and then two days later nothing you have read made any impression--maybe your brain wasn't impressed. Binge reading is like binge eating--you end up feeling hung over and have nothing to show for it. I find if I read too many books by the same author in a row, it all gets a bit same old, and I no longer enjoy them, where if I space them out a bit with other stuff the enjoyment remains.

Two Envelopes and a Phone wrote: "Talked into? Probably War and Peace or Terry Pratchett."

I tried War and Peace in high school, it was on my parallel reading list and I was far too young for it at 15. They were showing that hugely popular TV series with Audrey Hepburn at the time, and it was my first real encounter with the difference between the base text and the director's vision. I ended up making lists of all those nicknames, after the librarian was kind enough to point out that Mikhail-Misha-Michel were all the same person, etc.

Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) wrote: "Gogol wrote: "Oh ok, this is what we’re supposed to do. I would like to please be talked out of binge reading books like Kristen Ashley’s books or those MC books. Afterwards I don’t even remember t..."

Thank you. You’re absolutely right. I yell similar things to myself when I feel overwhelmed by life and start binge reading and eating! If only it were so easy to be talked out of compulsions!