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’m ashamed about my lack of 20th century classics like ‘On the Road’ etc. Although as my English education stopped at GCSE I don’t feel too bad.

Lord of the Rings I have never got through (‘they met some orcs, they fought some orcs, they sang a song about beating the orcs’). But I think that trying the book is probably more important than finishing it, no? I’m never going to be able to read everything so picking and choosing based on good information is the way to go!

Ugh! I probably hate On The Road more than any book ever written*. I can't even articulate why. It's like a visceral response of hatred.

• possibly not more than DH Lawrence or Moby Dick

None! I read what I fancy reading and don't feel under any obligation to read anything. Especially not since I read Brave New World, detested it, read it again to try and get from it what everyone else raved about, continued to detest it and was told by someone else that I must not have understood it. No, you fool, I just thought it was rubbish, that's allowed.

Ha!

Just polished off Tale of Two Cities, so I am doing well in my penitence. Enjoyed it much more than I expected to.

I’ve ever read any Dickens but am going to join the goodreads readalong of Bleak House starting in March... and finishing in Sept 2019. Reading it in the same time frame as it was published originally. I reckon that’s pretty doable.

Interesting idea, that scribbly. Not sure I can read that slowly, though!

Have to pretend you a Victorian lady spending a shilling on each monthly instalment. I may buy a bonnet and wear it while reading my few chapters a month.

Good idea!

I read lots of classics as a teenager; all of Jane Austin's books, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre etc and most of Thomas Hardy's (v. Painful!). Jude the Obscure has forever retained its #1 slot on my list of worst/depressing books ever.

I tried to read Middlemarch but it was so dull. I forced myself to read a page a day but gave up before long. Never fancied Dickens. Also tried and failed to get into Vanity Fair.

I asked my English teacher which book did she consider to be the greatest novel ever written. I was thirteen at the time. She considered and selected War and a Peace. Asked for it as a Christmas present. It came in three volumes which is definitely the way to read it as there are only about 250 odd pages in each volume. (Everyman edition). I started it on Christmas Day evening and had finished it by the end of the holidays. I fell in love with Peter Basoukov. I Loved it. A couple of years ago I reread it as as a 74 year old and I still loved it. Cannot understand what all this talk of it being difficult or too long is about. There are a lot of books just as long and not nearly as informative or interesting. And I am definitely not lying.

happydays, I may give War and Peace a go at some point in my life since many people seem to love it. I didn't know you could buy it in volumes; that's appealing to me.

scribbly and I are both going to dot he readalong Bleak House so that'll tick off another classic.

I have now also just done Northanger Abbey . WW2 broke out on the 50 books thread because I was just a bit ambivalent about it! Whoops.

The ferocity of Austen fans is quite something!

I am laying off the classics for the meantime , at least until Frankenstein comes up in my random book selector and also Grapes of Wrath which I definitely count as a classic. I studied American Lit at uni , inspired by my American mother's love of encouraging my reading. But I hated most nineteenth century stuff, sadly : Sister Carrie aside, which I loved and may well reread one day. (That may well squeal into the 20th come to think of it).

Piggywaspushed. It was an Everyman edition. I still have it. I remember the introduction which said that the reader would find it like climbing a hill at first but once upon the top he would view a wonderful panarama. This allowed me to expect a slow start but even at that young age I was absorbed straight away. Tolstoy has a habit of stopping from time to time to inform the reader about his views on war and how it comes about. The battle scenes are really interesting as Tolstoy is depicting real and correct happenings. The love and romance is lovely. Natasha Rostov is a delight. The thing to remember when reading Tolstoy is that his main characters are depicting himself. Hence his guilt about his rakish behaviour in his early years and his struggle with this. Golly, hope I haven’t put you off!