Books you feel you should have read ....

LOL hatwoman, that was my thought entirely! Heathcliffe has a kind of rugged uurrrghhh about him even if he wouldn't win Britain's Next Top Model. Gordon rugged and uurrgghhh? Er no. WHICH spindoctor (mal)advised him on this plonker of a soundbite?!

agree that Remains of the Day is incredible. up there is my top 5 probably.

also agree that the Gordon Brown and Heathcliffe thing is ridiculous. One crucial error: whatever else you might say about him Heathcliffe is good-looking.

Crime and Punishment. A friend lent me it about a year ago and I've struggled half way through but now have to start all over again as it's been that long since I lifted it.
Dante
War and Peace

Brave New World is a great book - one of my favourites.

Anna Karenina and Mme Bovary are both GREAT!

I'm having trouble thinking up new stuff, MadBad, that's not been on the other thread! Funny how "which books you never got through properly or were disappointed by" and "which books do you think you ought to have read" are often one and the same thing! Were we all turned into reading masochists at university...?

I did my thesis on Ulysses but have never managed Finnegans Wake, to my shame. It's just impenetrable.

Oh yes, I cannot read the Hobbit

Remains of the Day is a great book.

I just tried Dickens again and couldn't do it.

Have been thinking about Dante's Inferno but got no further than picking it up in the bookshop and putting it back down again.

War and Peace
100 years of solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera
Something by Salman Rushdie
Anna Karenina

My very nice and very unopened copy of Ulysses is laughing gently to itself on one of my shelves. Did just read Machiavelli's The Prince at last, which was really good. Like a politicians guidebook even after 400 years.

Brave New World is a must read. As is Ishiguro's Remains Of The Day. By far the most frustratingly good read.

Have Dante on my want to read list. And have a copy of the Iliad that also benefits from never-been-touched pages.

Lord of the Rings gets my 'most disappointing' award after many years of putting it off

Haven't read that one, so can't say. it should probably be on my "ought to read" list as well

I quite fancy dante, is it pointless if you haven't had a classical education?

No erm I owe money lol. Amazon or charity shops ahoy.

weeeelll, as i said, either on this post or the other one, DOn Quixote is a bit of a bugger to get into and les Miserables just LOOKS too big!
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins is a good one to start with, also THe Woman in White is ok.
Have you got a library you could join rather than having to buy them?

Thanks thumbwitch, I am limited to charity shops so I will see what I can find (avoiding Moby Dick). Any others to avoid on pain of death???

A la recherche du temps perdu

Three attempts, never got through 1st vol.

Found myself nodding knowingly today, during discussion of how Gordon Brown's comparison of himself with Heathcliff makes it sound like he's never read Wuthering Heights... like me

I have read Ulysses though. Twice.

oh you do, you do - but not all at once. A bit like chocolates, savour them

Ooh, Saki... now that's something else I was told the other night I had to read.

AbstractMouse - if you can still get the cheapo Penguin Classics that is the way to go but for the love of god don't get Moby Dick - total waste of your money!

Ah yes, I did also get Les Miserables (I & II) in said cheapo Penguin Classics and have never opened them...

But I can recomend the Complete Works of Saki by Hector Hugh Munro - mad as a box of frogs, excellent short stories, another book for the loo but only because stories are short.

(and not just because of the excellent timing of your post either )

Some bits of Ulysses are much much better than others. imnvho.

I hate Dickens, but I do still feel I should have read Great Expectations.

Oh god I had forgotten Brave New World. Or to be more accurate, never got through it. Thought I'd try Antic Hay. Failed there too.

Without reading a page I must add!!!

War and Peace.
Pick it up and then put it back down again!!!!

Most classics really, have a vague feeling I should be reading them but don't really know where to start. I suppose I feel intimidated by them really, although don't want to cut off my nose to spite my face by forgetting them altogether as I know I'm missing out on amazing books.

Think I may make a resolution to read a classic a month, if I'm left feeling after 100 pages, I shall move on.

ooh, me too for Brave New World.

I have read both Sophie's World - suggest keeping it in the loo, it was the only way I managed to finish it - and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, which I liked.
Tried Robert M.Pirsig's next book, I think called Lilith or somesuch and didn't cope with that.

the only Dickens I have read are Oliver Twist and Great Expectations - and I must admit that I got lost after the MIss Haversham bit in GE, but then I was only about 12 when I read it and haven't bothered to go back and try again. Should I?