gito: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

Good call. I think it took me a year to read 200 pages before I gave up.

Another one is Dianetics. That book is a nightmare.

Also, the author mentioned Don Delillo. My brother in law lent me one of his books, and after 20 pages, I wanted to punch him in the dick.

Ringshadow: I found the rest of [Dostoyevsky's] writing so impenetrable and dense it could be used to shield a reactor. I always figured there was a translation issue working against me or something.

According to a Russian guy I knew in high school, it's like that in the original too. Most of the pre-modern Russian writers didn't get the concept of "pacing". At least the guy who wrote The Master and Margarita kept stuff moving along at a good clip, though folks might have trouble with the talking Satanic cat with hands and the Master apparently not having a name.

not learning: it's not just for math anymore

I don't see the point in lying about reading something. If it's for school, as long as you have enough knowledge to pass the class, that's all you need.

Last year of high school I had to do a presentation on 2 books I'd read. I was paired with 2 other people who had read the same books. I was the only one who'd actually read the books, so I basically told them what to say during the presentation. We got an A, which is probably the only way I would have gotten such a good grade (being paired with those people), the teacher hated me.
/CSS?

In the years since highschool, I've read a lot of "classic" books that I never had to read. Some were good, and others were not enjoyable. I think one's enjoyment of the book sometimes depends on one's place in life, whether you read it by choice or whether or not you "get" the ideas expressed in the book.
I didn't find anything particularly special about The Great Gatsby, but I probably couldn't relate to it as a 16 year old female. I found it really difficult to get through Breakfast of Champions, which would make me really unpopular to say so, but it's my least favourite of Vonnegut's books. I appreciated parts of it, but wouldn't reread it unless you paid me. Confederacy of Dunces was about the most obnoxious person ever conceived and was also hard to read.

I've read several of Rand's works, including Atlas Shrugged. Unmitigated drivel, from beginning to end.
I rather liked Moby-Dick, and Canticle for Liebowitz.

Totally defeated by Hesse's Glass Bead game. I've started several times, but always run out of steam.

There was a copy if "Steal this book" in my friend's wash room.

When I came back next week, apparently there was some debate between the three room mates as to if I was the culprit or not.

/you bet your ass I did

Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is a surprisingly good read

EvilEyeBall: Everyone really should read Infinite Jest though. Definitely one of my favourite books. The first 200 pages are the hardest, and then the next 800 whip past you.

Me, I loved that book and I look forward to rereading it, but no. It's not for everyone.

I don't think there's any shame in abandoning a book you're reading for pleasure if it's not paying off. One Hundred Years of Solitude? Loved the first sentence, next 50 pp. put me to sleep. Atlas Shrugged? I gave it an hour and got tired of the constant WTF-am-I-reading feeling.

Finished war and peace after 60 hours across 10 or so weeks. I still have the napkin in the book where I predicted which characters would end up together. It was worth the effort minus the chapters on bees.

I'm reading George R.R. Martins Game of Thrones series. Worthy every penny.

lixivium: Bram Stoker's "Dracula" is a surprisingly good read

Yes. Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", on the other hand, is pretty insufferable.

mitchcumstein1: I have no desire to read Moby Dick and I have no problem telling anybody.

It is an awesome book.

Bedstead Polisher: Confederacy of Dunces was about the most obnoxious person ever conceived and was also hard to read.

What is the matter with you? Confederacy of Dunces was hilarious, and easy to read. Funniest damn book I've ever read.

I once asked a professor with many shelves completely packed full of books if he'd read them all. His response is one I still offer up when I get the same question, "What's the point of having shelves full of books I've already read?"

A quick google search points towards him paraphrasing Harlan Ellison, but I still enjoy attributing it to him.

Ashtrey: Didn't finish Atlas Shrugged. Hardest thing to finish was The Myth of Sysiphus and other essays by Albert Camus. Never trying to read him again.

Yeah, Camus's straight-up philosophy is hard to get into, even in French. Try his novels The Plague and The Stranger; they get across his ideas on existentialism and alienation without the tedium.

Or you could just listen to the Cure sing "Killing an Arab" since it's derived from The Stranger.

I HATED the Great Gatsby. When it was assigned to my daughter this year I told her I felt sorry for her.
She loved it. Even had me rent the movie for her. Considering that I am the reader in the house, and her tastes usually run to Nicholas Sparks-type drivel, I was pretty surprised (and pleased too of course).
That said, I haven't read most of the books on the list and I probably won't. I read 3-5 books a week but I enjoy popular fiction and not "literature."

I've been putting off Brave New World for about a year now. Not sure why.

As someone with a BA in English, I approve of this. My primary tactic in class was to speak up quite a bit the first few minutes and than tack on to other people's statements after that. Usually by that time I had a good handle on what was going on and had no problem faking my way through.

Does that mean it was a bs major, yea, pretty much.

zato_ichi: Ayn Rand.

Every first semester poly sci freshman has read Atlas Shrugged, according to them.

I was never a poly sci major but I tried to read Atlas Shrugged sometime in the mid 90's, and couldn't even get 100 pages in.


BorgiaGinz: Ashtrey: Didn't finish Atlas Shrugged. Hardest thing to finish was The Myth of Sysiphus and other essays by Albert Camus. Never trying to read him again.

Yeah, Camus's straight-up philosophy is hard to get into, even in French. Try his novels The Plague and The Stranger; they get across his ideas on existentialism and alienation without the tedium.

Or you could just listen to the Cure sing "Killing an Arab" since it's derived from The Stranger.

The Stranger and The Plague are both great, I read them winter 2010/summer 2011, and should have read them a decade or more earlier. Camus' brand of existentialism (if it can be called that) is far more palatable than Walden.


The Myth of Sisyphus is still on the shelf...

Apropos of nothing, but re: Ayn Rand:


If you have to make an "idea book" take 100s of pages, you should at least make it farking interesting. Otherwise, just write a short essay and be done with it.

Only book I've read on that list is "The Great Gatsby."

Hsaiotei: I read 3-5 books a week but I enjoy popular fiction and not "literature."

Some of the stuff that's classed as great literature today was thought of as popular entertainment when it was written. Dickens, Melville, Shakespeare, and probably a bunch of other writers fall into that category. Centuries from now, people might be taking college courses on The Dresden Files, Harry Potter, or the complete works of Stephen King.

If high school kids in 2212 are reading The Order of the Phoenix for a class, though, they'll probably complain about how the story's boring and stupid and totally irrelevant. Some things don't change.

GoSurfing: Always found it funny how you dolts are so proud of yourselves for not reading something you were supposed to.

You read the Cliff Notes and gather reviews, but can't read the farking book. It's because you have 7 second attention spans, not because you have better things to do. You're full of cop-outs and rationalize your reasons for not doing what is required of you in your studies. This doesn't make you a savvy student, it makes you an asswipe.

You don't get to determine what makes literature worthwhile to read for me. Some of us are assigned worthless garbage in order to get a college degree, and are offered nothing for our time investment into something we feel is unpleasant and worthless. For someone with such airs about their intelligence, this seems like a very simple point, asswipe.

I'd prefer not to read them.

I read three. I'm not interested in alluding to any of the others.
People seem to be impressed that I've read 'Godel, Escher, Bach' even though I freely admit it was over my head. I don't talk about it much, but if one bookie finds out that you've read it, it comes up in conversations.

red5ish: I really don't understand people who boast about not having read anything in school.

There's a farking huge amount of anti-intellectualism in modern America. And reading is seen as intellectual, and reading's more difficult than watching TV. So you get people who read as little as possible.

I don't get it either. Text with minimal formatting (bold, italics, paragraphs, headers, footers, page#s) can do things that'd be farking impossible even with a $10 million effects budget. But reading demands a long attention span, and---oh hey! Something shiny!

Couldn't for the life of me get interested in The Dubliners and ended up having to sit down and talk with my high school English teacher about alternatives. I was and am a dedicated reader but I just couldn't bring up any desire to know about how life was for poor people in Dublin.

Jump ahead 7 years and I was living in Dublin making minimum wage while I tried to find a decent job. Lived in a total hole of a flat down an alley between a pub and a Chinese takeout. Damn you prophetic English teacher!

// ended up finding a good job and a nice place.

Bartleby the Scrivener: I'd prefer not to read them.



(At some point, someone's going to create an original work that contains actual literary merit using nothing but LOLcats. I'm not sure whether this will be a good thing or a bad thing.)

I got wiring loose inside my head
I got books that I never ever read

redflag: Ulysses by Joyce. I've had that shiat on my shelf for 6 years now, and I just never get around to picking it up. And Dubliners was really good too...

Read 'A portrait ..'. The sermon on the pains of hell, is worth remembering verbatim.

I started to read the Book of Nine Rings and... It's a good, read, really. And it's not intimidating, either.

danceswithcrows: There's a farking huge amount of anti-intellectualism in modern America. And reading is seen as intellectual, and reading's more difficult than watching TV. So you get people who read as little as possible.

What Are You Reading For? NSFW

GoSurfing: Nrokreffefp: GoSurfing: Always found it funny how you dolts are so proud of yourselves for not reading something you were supposed to.

You read the Cliff Notes and gather reviews, but can't read the farking book. It's because you have 7 second attention spans, not because you have better things to do. You're full of cop-outs and rationalize your reasons for not doing what is required of you in your studies. This doesn't make you a savvy student, it makes you an asswipe.

You don't get to determine what makes literature worthwhile to read for me. Some of us are assigned worthless garbage in order to get a college degree, and are offered nothing for our time investment into something we feel is unpleasant and worthless. For someone with such airs about their intelligence, this seems like a very simple point, asswipe.

You don't get to determine what the course requires of you. Maybe you shouldn't bother with college at all if you are just now realizing you are offered nothing for your time investment into something you feel unpleasant and worthless. No shiat, there's no gold star for reading it, all you get is a pretty piece of paper for doing it. That's pretty much ALL that college is. Hell, that's pretty much all that life is: "being offered nothing for your time investment into something you feel unpleasant and worthless".

I met the requirements without reading the books I didn't want to. What is your point again? Sorry you couldn't afford college.

I've read Pilgrims Progress, Moby Dick, and at least one Jane Austen novel. The only thing I got out of it is that Moby Dick is fantastic once they get out of the port and the moment a woman brings up Jane Austen, she's not worth farking.