Books you feel you should have read ....

For people with an interest in Dante, I said this on one of the other threads already but.... the Penguin Classics Dante in English (that's not an affiliate link, just the cheapest I could find it and annoyingly, about 30p cheaper than I paid for it a few weeks ago ) is a great introduction to Dante. Lots of "good bits", plus a whopping introduction (about 200 pages worth) and a slimmer note on the historical background. And then if you like what you read you can move on...

ninedragons, snap! on Ulysses (although mine was only a piffling little dissertation so only covered one episode).

Gosh, what a lot of Eng. Lit. grads there seem to be on here.

I've tried What Maisie Knew so often the first three paragraphs come back to me at night. I wonder just why that one is quite so sticky.

russian books are quite heavy and if you put down for long rest, you probably never get it
i also got degrees in both english and russian literature, i taught in college.
its that people like anna karenina but not war and peace,crime and punishment

Never read any Charles Dickens and feel I should particularly as I love the TV adaptations. There are lots of classics - Black Beauty, Wind in the Willows etc that I hope to discover with dd as she grows up. We even tried the latter on the bus the other day but ir is so wordy I found I was tired of "simplifying" it for her - a bit later perhaps....I want to read some more of the "beautiful young things" stuff as love Nancy Mitford so want to try some more Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh - have read Brave New World though. Worst book - definitely Crime and Punishment. Our french literature teacher highly recommended this as we were studying existentialism and reading Sartre. The title pretty much sums up the experience!

was thinking this yesterday as I haven't read any Salman Rushdie (is that how you spell him?) and was listening to front row talking about Midnight's Children winning the booker of bookers.

life is too short to bother with books you don't really want to read just because you think you ought !!

I once made a list of books I was never going to read and stop pretending that one day I might.

James Joyce came top, closely followed by Charles Dickens (although I have since read tale of two cities and it was corking)

Never finished Sophie's World, never finished Midnight's Children.

agree - 100 years of solitude was appropriately named for how long it took to get through.

Absolutely adored, 'Love in the Time of Cholera' though.

I have also read 100 years of solitude and considered it to have been time wasted....

Am generally bad at classics but feel I should read them. Particularly Dickens (haven't read one), W&P, Anna Karenina.

Have read Sophie's World but it was years ago when I was in a job answering phones and the phones weren't ringing much (it was actually quite a glamorous phone answering job as it goes but still....).

oh yep thats the one

it ids all such a long time ago..i wouldnt read her books through choice

Zippi, Northanger Abbey is a parody of Gothic fiction but none of JA's can be said to be gothic.

CB's Jane Eyre makes me want to throw up, though.

that is i have no regre3tsd about trollope or galsworthy

im no jane austen fan either tho i have read emma

i doint think i ever read pride and prejudice

i have read another one tho the gothic one or am i making that up? or was that emma?

anthony trollope most unappealing and the forsyte saga

i am an english graduate too lol

I echo the many cries of Crime and Punishment. Also, any Anthony Trollope. Any good? Am I missing a treat in The Barchester Chronicles?

Whoever it was who hasn't read Wodehouse is in for a cosy, comforting, life-enhancing treat. Start with the Jeeves ones.

I have a problem with the big Russian novels as I HATE reading anything in translation (though I have read a few translations, like Mme Bovary). Cos I like to read the EXACT WORDS that the author intended.

I too am an English Literature graduate and

never enjoyed Joyce

and really disliked The Remembrance of Things Past. Proust was a poncy nit who lived in a cork lined room. I rest my case.

Crime and punishment is actually quite readable - just there was a lot going on for me last year with a difficult preg that my mind couldn't concentrate on anything other than easy reading chick lit. Picked it up again last night though and determined to finish it.

crime asnd punishment is a brilliant book

i thought it was ver readable too

but that lsoing it part way through is my usual reason for never completing i have to read a book within a week of starting usually or it wont happen

Ulysses all the way through (only read the odd chapter)

and more Dickens

I too have degrees in Eng Lit (2 degrees, BA and MA)

so feel that I should have read these to qualify that, at least!

War and Peace. Haven't read it so far because of the sheer length. Too heavy to cart around with me, and I'd get bored of looking at the front cover. But I really will read it one day.

I've struggled through Ulysses too. Wouldn't want to repeat the experience.

magic mountain thomas mann

the tin drum gunte grass

ulysses james joyce

anna karenina which i have had for years and as i loved war and peace not sure why i never managed to get far

it was just one of those i got a certain way and then it got abandoned for some reason

wild swans which i have also had for years

That journalist must of had a giggle then.

in his defence I think a journalist put it to him, and he had to say something. But I suspect he hasn't read it...

xpost janehh

I laughed when I heard G Brown comparing himself to Heathcliffe. Comparing yourself to an abusive, sadistic man that sees ghosts is not good. I wonder who advised him to say that or is he going all George Bush on us and saying the most ridiculous thoughts that pop into his head?