Books I'm too embarrassed to say I've never read.....

[kweggie]

War and Peace
Anna Karenina
To Kill a Mockingbird...

There! It's out in the open! I did it!

MIDDLEMARCH IS THE BEST NOVEL EVER

I've just finished reading Anna Karenina. It's very good. Read it on my Kindle which made it more pleasant as I didn't have to hold a heavy book adn struggle with minuscule print (only had a cheap classic before and it put me off reading it).

I haven't read War and Peace or Crime and Punishment

I have read all of Austen and Hardy (Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess my favourites, Far from Madding good too) and about half of Dickens. Dickens is ok once in a while but then I need a break. I did like Bleak House

There is a scene in one of Kingsley Amis's novels where a group of English literature professors are playing a game in which they confess what they've never read after a good few drinks. Among them is a new, young lecturer who at first thinks the idea is to boast about what you have read and he's eager to show off his depth of reading. The others explain to him it's what you HAVEN'T read. He then confesses that he hasn't read Hamlet. And as a result is fired. Someone remind me which novel that is...

..

I'd read somewhere that Middlemarch was the best novel ever written in English,so I tried to read it..I just couldn't! Got a fair way in but really couldn't have cared less what happened to any of the characters as they all seemed awful,and at that point I gave up.

MamaMary - that sounds like a book I'd like to read!!

I must be the only person in the world who didn't do To Kill A Mockingbird at school (well, probably not the only one, there were others in my class :o).

So I read it years later as an adult. I thought it was .... OK. Just OK. I can see that it was probably a more interesting read than many other school set books, so maybe that's why some people rave about it. I suspect a lot of people who rave about it remember it with affection have never read a book since don't actually read many books.

We did A Kestrel for A Knave instead of To Kill A Mockingbird at school.

A Kestrel for A Knave remains one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

I would have happily read either of those - we read Cry The Beloved Country,which I did enjoy but I now have it filed in the School Book section of my mind,and can't take on board the fact that it is a normal book that someone might choose to read voluntarily...

Another one here who didn't do tkam at at school.

I read it when DD did recently- it was ok! Never read Dickens and have tried to in the last few years. Hate It!!! So clunky and patronising of the 'lower classes'.

Lovelovelove Zola and Austen, having never read Zola until my 30s (French Degree notwithstanding!) and hated Austen at school and probably reread a couple a year.

Have read War and Peace and Anna Karenina, wouldn't reread for pleasure.