I’m disappointed so many tried it.
This is his first that I’ve felt no inclination to even begin.
I’m definitely getting better at that!
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Recently I started reading Gravity’s Rainbow, but I don’t think I’m going to make it. It’s one of those books that I’d like to have read but where the actual reading is too much of a slog.
I’ve tried slogging through Ulysses three times, same problem.
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There were a lot on the list that surprised me; like flinch surprised me. The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo? The Name of the Wind? The Magicians?
But it occurred to me that most of the books on the list either have 1. a book or TV show corollary, or 2. have scenes in the books where a certain high percentage of the general public get too squicked out.
The one (not on the list) that I’ve challenged myself with, but still haven’t conquered, is the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo. Sweet jesus, but it’s really clear that Dumas was paid by the word, and that it would have been more digestible in it’s original, serialized form.
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Or if you like ham-fisted discussions of Platonic idealism and Aristotlian realism presented as moral dilemma.
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I just finished Fall. I got the ebook and the audiobook, and mostly listened to it while I walked. (That’s my tactic for difficult books.) It had some interesting ideas. It wasn’t his worst, but it wasn’t his best.
Happy to see I wasn’t the only one who gave up on 1984.
I appreciate what it presented, but I couldn’t stand the style. So. Boring.
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Having read Catch 22 shortly before being drafted helped me understand what a world of insanity I was in and how to best to survive it. The one book not on the list that I never have bothered to finish is the Bible. I suppose there are reasons why is wasnt included bet it would be interesting to how many times it got shelved. Too many credibility issuses on something not listed as fiction or fantasy.
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Page 7 and I just could not go on to 8, with Atlas. I had a similar experience with two Tom Clancy books. After that, I have a policy: If a book doesn’t hook me by page 7, we’re done. Too many good book options and too short life to keep ploughing through.
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100 Years of Solitude (on the list), it was given to me as a gift in HS by my AP English teacher. Got through about half way, then I started the Flashman Series, then Wild Cards, then Sharpe, then Anno Dracula, then everything else. Never came back to it.
Pretty much any Tom Clancy novel after Clear and Present Danger is pretty crap
I re-read Catch 22 after 48 years, because I remembered that I didn’t finish it the first time, but couldn’t remember why. This time, I loved it, loved it, loved it, . . . but I still ran out of steam before finishing it. “Oh, so that’s what happened the first time.”
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Dune took me a false start and two read throughs to get what Herbert was talking about. It’s a fucking dense read.
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Aw, I had no trouble at all finishing The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I hearby declare it a Good Book!
I’ll admit that I was one of those teenagers who felt duty bound to something or other to finish Atlas Shrugged. AND The Fountainhead! Oh to have that time back…
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Do yourself a favor and go with Snowcrash. It’s really a much easier, spiffier read that’s still wild and fun. Stephenson feels much more on fire, like he’s got the real cyberpunk spirit. Believe me, you can probably finish it before his newest one becomes available from the library.
That’s one that I feel bad because I DID finish it, a few years ago. It seemed clever at the time, but now I hardly remember anything at all from it. 
Ha, right? When I read it, I couldn’t believe I’d never heard of the scene where a whale-cleaning guy dons a body suit made of whale-penis skin. Melville must have been grinning when he wrote that!
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Sheri S. Tepper’s Plague of Angels trilogy: I waded through ~1/4 of the first book, but it did nothing for me, so that stopped me dead in my tracks for the entire series. I was so hyped-up to read them based on the first (and only) book I’ve read of hers; The Fresco, which is a very satisfying and fun read, whether or not you’re into sci-fi.
Greg Bear’s The City At The Edge of Tomorrow: GB is my favorite hard sci-fi author, and I’ve read everything else by him… but ‘City’ was so strangely oblique and never built up steam.
My attempt to finish Moby Dick has been… asymptotic. I’ve actually enjoyed its quaint oddness and temptation for analysis, but things come up… I stop… time passes… and I refuse to simply pick it up from where I left off. Otherwise, I don’t believe I’ll “get” Melville.
I have read Infinte Jest twice, and both times it was like climbing a freaking mountain but I was glad I did it. It took ten years after the first read until I was ready to do it again, but worth it. Hilarious and so weird and sad.
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I have been reading Rick Atkinson’s Liberation Trilogy of the US in WWII for about 2 years now. Finished Army at Dawn, 3/4 of the way through Day of Battle and I feel its a longer slog than Mark Clark’s army in Italy. I keep finding more interesting books to pick up.
Yep, thanks for the correction and for the recommendation. I’ll check it out.
Gravity’s Rainbow Omg you stole mine
