Is there a book you want to read but are avoiding?

[LinesmanMinnelli]

Because you know it will give you the feels and you can't handle it right now? Mine is Rob Delaney's book 'A Heart That Works'.

Mine is Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell. It’s going to be so sad and I just don’t want to read sad things at the moment .

I stupidly bought 'Infinite Jest' but don't dare start it. It's just staring at me from the shelf, goading me

Oh I managed Hamnet, probably because it's fiction. Still a tear jerker though!

I'm also struggling to start A Heart That Works. Putting off a reread of The Diary of a Young Girl. Also Room and Into the Wild (have seen the films). For a different reason: Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI's Elite Serial Crime Unit by John E. Douglas and Mark Olshaker which was recommended but I assume I would have to scrub out my brain afterwards.

Oh god yes. I have a shelf full of classics I’ve sort of put-off reading, mainly because of length:

D. H. Lawrence: Women in Love
Anthony Powell: A Dance to the Music of Time
Dickens: Bleak House
George Eliot: Middlemarch
Hermann Hesse: The Glass Bead Game
Henry James: The Portrait of a Lady

All Thomas Hardy books

The Mirror and the Light. Just don’t want ‘He’ to end.

I was the same when I was reading that! I tried to read as slowly as possible the nearer to the end I got.

edited to say this was about The Mirror and the Light.

The Mirror and the Light, because I know I really should reread the other two before I start (as it's been aaages) and I haven't got the energy 😳 I did love them though!

Michelle Obama's autobiography - I don't really know why I'm putting that off.

Barbara Tuchmann's A Distant Mirror, which I know will be really interesting but just SO full of information and detail...sometimes you just don't have the brain capacity.

Shuggie Bain. I have a young child and know it'll hit me in the gut. My capacity for sad and/or cruel content has really shifted. I used to love all sorts of true crime podcasts etc but now have to be pretty judicious. Hoping I'll get a stronger constitution in time!

Oh god yes. I have a shelf full of classics I’ve sort of put-off reading, mainly because of length

Im a classics dodger. I really want to read them, I have the right there…yet I don’t do anything about it. I’m a chronic re-reader atm - haven’t read anything brand new for ages.

Incidentally the bbc Bleak House series is back in iPlayer and is fab. (Can’t say what it’s like compared to the book as the book is both unread on my shelf and unlistened to on my audible).

The Shepherds Crown has been on my shelf for years. I don’t want to read it because then there will never again be a new Terry Pratchett book for me to read. Also, his illness changed the style of the books, still wonderful, but different.

I’d be happy to leave it but I feel I should read it, the man went through hell to produce a book that he wanted reading. But it feels like a very final goodbye to someone who influenced the me in my formative years.

My two are in their 20s now @EmmaBQ12 but I still avoid anything about child cruelty/murder (reading or watching). Actually don't think I am missing out.

Currently struggling to read our book club choice about child murderers/child victims.

I bought a charity-shop copy of A House for Mr Biswas. It's just one of those 'ought-to-have-read-it' books for me. But it looks so intimidating.

Hamnet is top of my pile but I was put off as there are very differing opinions on it. Similar to Wolf Hall in the way that people either love it or hate it. I absolutely hated Wolf Hall, but struggled through it.

Shuggie Bain I loved. I am not an emotional person, but had it on audible and was in tears walking down the street listening to it.

I thought Hamnet was WAY overhyped, but objectively a very good and interesting novel. Go in not expecting it to be the best thing you've ever read and I think you'll really enjoy it.

Same. I know it's going to be one of the best books I've ever read, but I just can't face it yet.

This brought tears to my eyes, which is very unusual for me.

Hilary Mantel's The Mirror and The Light. I gave my mum Wolf Hall and then read it myself and became hooked on the trilogy. The Mirror and The Light is the final book. My mum died almost 12 years ago and I don't want to start (and finish it) because then that 'open 'link' to my mum will gone/closed. Silly really as, despite loving the Tudor period, she wasn't a big fan of Wolf Hall and I don't think The Mirror and The Light was even published before she died. I find it comforting to have the book in the sitting room and I think of her when I see it. I'll be ready when I'm ready.

I'm halfway through Stephen King's 'Fairy Tale', but can't go any further until I get over having our elderly dog PTS last November. If anyone's read it, am sure you understand why.