This article talks about a librarian in my hometown who decided to create a family book club with her parents and siblings. She bought each person a $30 copy of the book and created a reading schedule.
In her own words, this is how it turned out: I mean, my family is pretty low-key, but the whole thing, it was a huge disaster. ...And finally when we got to page 800, my husband admitted to me that he thought he’d commit an act of extreme violence if he ever had to hear Tolstoy aloud ever again.
Ha! I lol-ed at that. I mean, I totally get this!
Don't we all have a book that haunts us? For me, it was another Tolstoy: Anna Karenina. I started it but just couldn't finish it. And now I can't even bring myself to pick it up again.
What's the book sitting on the book shelf of your mind? Do you think you'll ever pick it up?
I can relate. I've felt that way about a lot of books, especially classics. I'm not sure if it's the writing style of the time, or maybe the fact that I find a lot of them so very, very, DRY, but I'm not a huge fan. Then again I don't care for a lot of contemporary books either, so I guess I'm just a picky reader.
ReplyDeleteHahaha I've totally been there. I remember The Illiad from my college days. Torture! :) xoxo
ReplyDeletehaha! totally been there. for me it was all quiet on the western front...i remember having to read it through high school...sparknoted the entire thing...hah...
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Mine is A Tale of Two Cities. I really want to rad and love it, but just can't seem to make it past the first 10 pages. Fail!
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree: Anna Karenina was a tough read. Some of my friends absolutely loved it, but I just couldn't get into it. All the talk of agriculture, blah blah blah. And I really despised all the characters. I forced myself to read it b/c it's one of those "must read" books, but I didn't enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteAs a grad student in an English program, I have a TON of books that haunt me.
ReplyDelete"The Scarlet Letter" is one of them. Hawthorne likes imagery and description way the hell too much.
"Little Women" is another. Hello, boredom and anti-feminist ideals. I just can't read it.
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haha! book that haunted me.. ohh Jane Eyre, I remember having to read that in highschool... I gave up on it and bought cliff's notes for it to finish my report HAHA
ReplyDeleteI made my hubby purchased the book "Water for Elepants" soon as it made wave in the press. But when I had it, I found it terribly difficult to continue reading. The delivery is kind'a boring for me. But there are those novel books that are even worst, I can't even force myself to read past two pages.
ReplyDeletethe biggest mistake an author can make, is to not able to maintain grasp of the reader's attention and interest, because the moment the book is put down, it most probably wouldn't picked up again. Proves right to me. If I really like the book, I don't leave it until I'm done with it.
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haha this really made me laugh! I also hated Anna Karenina. I MADE myself finish it but it took me like 6 months, and I'm a fast reader! Right now I'm struggling to even pick up the other classics on my shelf...Les Mes, Portrait of a Lady, Vanity Fair, etc. I think it must be the summer or something that makes me want easy reads!
ReplyDeleteI've just come over from Dawn's blog and I'm in love with yours already! I got through Vikram Seth's book A Suitable Boy but I can't even look at it now! It was such a struggle! I've been told that the world is divided in two about that book - those who absolutely love it and those who absolutely hate it!
ReplyDeleteHaha for me it's 12 Angry Men & Death of a Salesman - been through both soo many times in high school & have seen the plays.
ReplyDeleteI have to admit, I'm a Classics Lover. I like them all. ALL. (and then of course my sister mocks me for not reading things written after the turn of the 20th century, ha!)
ReplyDeleteThat said? My foe is Don Quixote. Flipping ginormous book. I just couldn't get into it when I tried to read it in high school (which may have been my first mistake). But I SHALL conquer it, it's become a battle of will :)
I usually make myself stick it out and finish the book but right now Gulliver's Travels is definitely on my unread shelf.
ReplyDeleteI recently tried to read The last of The Mohicans and failed. I also tried to read The Great Gatsby years ago and failed. I'll try both again eventually.
ReplyDeleteI love to read but there are A LOT of books that i never got through. I am a huge Steinbeck fan and have read everything by him... but I just can't get through the Grapes of Wrath!!!
ReplyDeleteThere are plenty of those classics on my list that I can never seem to get through...I guess somethings are just not meant to be :) The last one I can think of was Love in the Time of Cholera.
ReplyDeleteThe Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I wanted to finish it, but it was too hard to keep the characters straight.
ReplyDeleteMine is Gone With The Wind. I still have the bookmark in it from starting it five years ago and reading only about 1/4 of it. Which is like the size of an average novel. I just cant bring myself to take the bookmark out because it was such a huge task in the first place.
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