Books you are ashamed never to have read?

[Piggywaspushed]

I have an English degree and have taught English Lit A level for many years. I was a bookworm as a child and have a huge stockpile of books read and awaiting reading.

Partly , this thread arises form the fact that I have been dissatisfied with so many contemporary novels recently but partly, I am also a bit ashamed that there are books I feel I should have read!

I decided a few years ago to make my way through some of this shameful list but have only managed Pride and Prejudice (knew I wouldn't like it) and Great Expectations (read it for my son's GCSE which is more than he did...it's very long, isn't it?). I read The Handmaid's Tale out of obligation and shame last year. Underwhelmed.

Frankenstein and The Grapes of Wrath are on my bedside table (have been for about a year) and Middlemarch is on my Kindle. I will read Frankenstein before DS2's GCSE. I have never read Dracula either.

I went to school in Scotland so was reading a lot of Scottish classics in my defence and have read nearly every Hardy novel.

Anyone else like to admit what you haven't read bur should have??

Feel free to boast about what you have read too! (although not Ulysses or War and Peace because we all know that would be showing off and/or a lie!)

I enjoyed North and South. And Vanity Fair.

Lord of the Flies also good-did it in school.

Also read, or tried to read, Tropic of Cancer/Capricorn by Henry Miller. Supposed to be a clasduc-it's filthy0

I've never been able to get into Dickens, despite trying with several of his novels.

Love Jane Eyre but can't get into anyone of Charlotte Brontë's other novels. Ditto Anne and Tenant of Wildfell Hall (which I love).

Love P&P, I read it every year and get something new out of it. I like all Austen's other novels apart from Northanger Abbey.

Read Catcher in the Rye, but hated it and wondered if there was a deeper meaning I was missing as everyone raves about it.

Love Room with a View but none of Forster's other stuff. Enjoyed the recent adaptation of Howard's End but can't seem to get going with the book.

And LoTR and The Hobbit bore me to tears.

I've read Dubliners by James Joyce so I feel that cancels out not reading Ulysses!

I'm currently reading Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd which has been my nemesis for many years. This is its 8th and final chance!

I tried reading Pride and Prejudice, but all the talk of "let us take a turn about the drawing room, the menfolk can admire our pretty figures" sounded the death knell for me.

So.......no to Austen, Dickens, Hardy, the Brontës.

I have a book jar where all the titles of the books I haven't read sit, and I do a lucky dip now and then and pick one out 😊

Oh, you’re the only other House With Green Shutters lover I’ve ever found! I love a miserable book.

Me too!

Do you also love Sunset Song ??

The heart of darkness has been on my bookshelf since I was 17 and I just couldn't get into it. I always keep meaning to go back to it but never have

YES!

Hoorah!

There's a fine Scottish education for you !

I’ve never managed Wuthering Heights, and I’ve tried numerous times. Also can’t really get on with Hardy or Henry James. I do enjoy Austen, the other two Bronte sisters, Lawrence, Orwell, Murdoch, Steinbeck and Forster.

Just watch the films

Also an English teacher of many years, with an ma in English lit.

Never read Jane Eyre, any bronte and few dickens.

Tried wuthering heights and Emma. Gave up on both.
Love Frankenstein and Shakespeare though.

Actually there’s loads of the classics I’ve not read and have no intention of doing so.

You rebel you logs !

Am currently on chapter 6 of Middlemarch. Not even made a dent in the Kindle percentage...

Haven't managed Les miserables beyond the first few chapters
Didn't like The Hobbit
Never read any Dickens.
Only read the Shakespeare and Hardy required for English A Level.
But have read all of Austen, and most of the Brontes, Catcher in the Rye and Das Boot (all of which I enjoyed).

Some classics are a total bore and I can't attest to having read all (or even a percentage of) the greats but I honestly found The Grapes of Wrath s life changing read. I was young at the time but I was utterly blown away by it - so get it off your bedside table and get reading!

Will do! I love Of Mice and Men so I should be fine with it!

We should report in when we tick off one of our guilty reads...

I too have an Eng Lit degree.

Have never managed Middlemarch and find Dickens a bore.

I have it on good authority that you can't read all of ulysees but if you do, choose some random chapters and imagine it being the pulse of a heart beat to give you focus.

I haven't.

I read Anne bronte's classic The tenant of Wildfell Hall last year and found it tedious beyond compare. I felt I had to read it as I had just read a book based on it (The woman who ran) which I really enjoyed, but it made me realise I didn't know what it was supposed to be compared to.

I have modern classics on my list: Primo Levi and Italo Calvino.

I read Middlemarch on a gap year a million years ago and absolutely loved it, but the place I was living in had many similarities to England in the 19th century

Any get into Brontes or Austen. Liked Emma though.

I read Tenant of wildfell Hall and enjoyed it much more than JA or WH. It was also highly controversial at the time, so worth a look just for that. Anne is the most talented, and underrated, of the Brontës imho.

I don't feel I'm doing too badly on the 19th century classics as I've read most of Hardy, Austen, some Dickens and Elliot but I realize there are still so many authors I have never touched! I think the biggest gaps in my knowledge are from earlier - especially the Roman and Greeks! I also have a copy of Dante that I have been trying to get into for YEARS...and it's in translation so there really is no excuse. We didn't study any of these at school (even though I did English A-level) and I have never tackled them myself. In the twentieth century there is so much I should have read; Woolf, Orwell, Lawrence, Greene, Lessing, Atwood - I have probably read only one or two of each. The trouble is they all wrote so MUCH!

Impressive allegretto!

I have read Ovid's Metamorphoses which was good fun. I'd read it again actually.

Since watching your thread OP I have downloaded some classics on to my kindle for free that I fancy reading but never finished or got round to reading.
I've just started Jane Eyre, never finished it at uni.
I've also downloaded Wuthering Heights, Great Expectations and Hard Times.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Are you going to start any OP?

Good work mama!

I have started Middlemarch... Kindle tells me I am 22% through . It has patches I like but there are so many characters it's a bit overwhelming. And goodness some of the paragraphs are interminable!!

I read that even George Eliot was worried her book was too long!