It's the hotly anticipated, controversial, lurid and compelling "READ THAT ONE BOOK CHALLENGE!"

Name that book that you've always wanted to read, but somehow have never gotten around to.

We've all got one, or more. These aren't books that should or would be painful to read, or an obligation,
just that book that you know you want to get around to eventually. A classic, or one that it seems everyone
but you has read.

And you've been meaning to read it for years probably. This isn't a passing fancy or fad. This is a
nagging title that always comes around and wags its finger at you for not having read it yet.

Maybe we can make a group new year's resolution to READ THAT BOOK!

It's the "READ THAT ONE BOOK CHALLENGE!"

You know, that one! Let's polish off those lingering doorstops this year, who is up for it?

My book: The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Have at it, folks . . . :)

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

(Whoops, didn't mean to hit post so soon. )

It was quoted and referred to several times in one of my favorite SF books when I was younger, and I keep hearing references to it from time to time, but I've just never gotten around to reading it.

Eye of the World. I'm going to be one of those who has to live up to their promise to read the Wheel of Time when it gets finished. I don't think it will be a huge trial in the reading, but finding the time and hauling around the tomes might give me a headache and a crick in the neck.

well I've picked up The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu more than once with all good intentions, and I swear the next time I really will delve into it. It continues to draw me in and I just need a free month or two...

The Celestine Prophecy

Always meant to read it & have had many people tell me I'd enjoy it, but have just never got arround to it...

Also the Martin's Song of Ice & Fire series... Not starting til its finished tho...

Oh, I read your book #1, and yours, too, #2, and even yours #5.
I own #4's, but haven't gotten to it yet. #3's book I never even heard of.

*sigh*

Mine is War and Peace. And I have a nice hardcover copy of it, too. I've had it for about 20+ years. *blush* I know, I really have to make the effort while I can still lift it!

:o)

The Christian Bible

I'm reading it from the beginning in daily chunks at a "read the Bible in a year" website. It's sometimes horribly depressing to read actually.

Um... do you mean both the old and new testaments by 'Christian Bible' Morphy?

Yep.

I guess it was stupid to put it that way, like the "Muslim Koran." I was trying to imply that I wasn't reading it because I was Christian (which I am not.)

The Silmarilion! I've started it twice and skimmed it, but never cover to cover. My ADHD just can't handle it!

The Koran
How about that, touchstone doesn't work.
Is this a conspiracy? Let's test it: how about the touchstone for The Bible ? Yes, that works: "the cake bible" by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Ok, maybe it's not a christian conspiracy.

>#2: BNW and also 1984 went on my list many years ago for similar reasons. When i finally read them, I wasn't overly impressed by BNW but 1984 did become one of my favourites.

Jeez, what a way of making me feeeeeel my procrastination... I'm a chronic putter-offer (putter-off? put-offer? offer-put?!!!) of stuff, including books. Not only do I buy them and never get around to reading them, but I also start some and never finish them. :-S

So I'll go into safer territory: that is, books that I don't have but that I actually want to get my hands on (and read!) some day:

Off the top of my head: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. I've never read anything by Hunter S. Thompson, and in fact, I haven't even seen the film. And it seems everyone I know has... :/ I'd like to read the book first, of course...

Mine has been to read the unabridged version of Les Miserables. I really enjoyed the abridged version and want to know what was left out, but my friends' opinions and the book's size are both daunting. I read War and Peace, so I think it's mostly the many sidetracks that I know Les Mis has holding me back.

For me, it's Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It was released when I was contracting in Delaware, and I had already ordered a cioy for my youngest son. Everyone in my family has read it except for me, and I'm being goaded into reading it now. I intend to, but there's a lot going on, and other books take priority for now.

There are actually ~hundreds~ of books I want to read, mostly in the Books about Books genre, and books about children's books, to be more specific.

Mine is Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica. (Isaac Newton).

I'll read the English translation, but all calculus textbooks, and all physics textbooks, are just derivations and extensions of this. This is the source material, and if I claim to be a scientist, I should read it.

Consider that along side many other famous works, such as those by Euclid, Maxwell, etc... reading the words of the originator of these ideas... what a joy.

>#12 Delirium9: i'd recommend F&L, too. If you only read one Thompson book in your entire life... you're not missing much ;). But i do like that one.

># 10 mrgrooism: it would be ok to read The Silmarillion in chunks, like a history textbook, no need to treat it as a continuous story like a novel. Just make sure you read sequentially, so you don't miss references to past events.

Loving this thread...

13 - Actually, Les Mis is one of mine as well. I've tried three times, and I always end up moving on to something else when Cosette grows up, as well as skipping the lengthy description of the Battle of Waterloo. Some claim it's one of the best passages ever written, but it has only an inkling of relevance to one character in the plot and was completely unnecessary. I think I'll start half way through next time and see if that works. It's not like I don't know the storyline by now (book version and musical version).

Beowulf. It's not even that long, and it's referenced in just about everything else I read, but I've never actually read it.

...but I just put a hold on the audiobook at the library. :)

Oh, but if I read it, then I'm going to have to pick a new One Book, and it's going to be something harder, like Origin of Species or something. Hmm.

Stephen King's Nightmares and Dreamscapes. It's long, and it's short stories. And it's entertaining.

Trouble is some of the stories in there are actually quite creepy, like "The End of the Whole Mess", about the end of the world brought about by two brothers, and "Dolan's Cadillac" which is about a crazed schoolteacher who wants to bury the man who killed his wife alive in his Cadillac. I will not spoil it for you.

You just did!!! Most murderers kill their victims DEAD. And the vehicle-of-choice is usually a Pontiac.

Geeze Louise! Thanks a whole bunch, JakeOfAllTrades!

#13 &17 I read Les Miserables unabridged over a summer, kept the book handy and read when I could. I needed breaks with this book, but it was a great feeling when I finally finished it just as school was starting.

So with these inspirational words floating around, I guess I should attempt to read Anna Karenina over spring break or maybe Easter holiday...

20> Actually, some Stephen King stories have "happy" endings in that the evil forces are stopped. It could go either way for you.

I don't see anything in this list so far that looks impossible! I'm thinking we should all go for it!

Keep 'em coming!

*except maybe the Principia. I have the one edited by Stephen Hawking. Nice introduction. Lots of teeny numbers.
That may be as far as I ever get with it, lol.

I am also going to re-read On the Origin of Species this year. It's been years since I read it, and I know and understand so much more now, that I suspect a re-read will be richly rewarding.

Don Quixote. I bought a copy my senior year of high school. I got about a hundred pages into it during my first semester of college, and adored it, and then got busy with classes and whatnot. But I graduate college in May, so as of then, I will have no more classes to read for, and no professors to impress, and I can read whatever I damn well please. So that will be probably my first summer read, because I know there's no way I'll be able to squeeze it in amongst my final semester of senior year.

Just another reason to look forward to graduating college.

The Interior Life has long been on my impossible list, and thats because, in approx 12 yrs of looking I have *never* found a copy to read

#10 I too stuttered on Simarillion - it cant be read as a book, more like an encylopedia - fill in random spaces as required

#4 I have the same book on my to read list. I've picked up Genji probably ten times in the last year and then set it down in favor of a another.

Moby Dick. Sometime last fall I gritted my teeth and put it in my lunchbox. I'm reading about 5 pages per lunch break, making 25 pages per week, which is about all I can stand. (I go to lunch, and my co-workers say to me, "Have a nice lunch," and I say, "Not likely.") I have great hopes of finishing it by mid-February. After that, and after a good long rest, maybe I'll join MrAndrew on the Koran. Or maybe I'll wait until 2009.

My husband has told me I really should read Crime and Punishment; he thinks it great. And it sits there on the shelf, looking at me. But so it has been doing for the last 13 years. Maybe, when I grow older.

There's probably more, but I'm at work right now and can't look at my shelves.

No, it's not a touchstone. They didn't work, so I put in a direct link.

#28: C&P would be one of mine, since it sat on my shelf also for years. I read a few pages and just couldn't get into it. So i gave it away last year. And now i'm free! Free, i tell you! Ahahaha! It feels so good!

#27 LydiaHD: refer above. Sink Moby into the deepest, darkest part of the ocean you can find. Then pick something fun, maybe something really trashy that you always wanted to read but thought, "nah, that's too light and trashy, i'd better stick with my huge behemoth of a book, it's more 'worthy'". Then post it here as your new "book i always wanted to read". I promise that no-one will mock you. And it's more in fitting with the challenge.

Besides, you can't read the Koran if you're female.
Boy, is that likely to get me in trouble. Hey, i don't know any better, i haven't read the Koran yet.

I'm determined to read Anna Karenina, Pillars of the Earth and Gone with the Wind this year. They've all been sitting in the pile for way too long.

I just finished Songs of Innocence and Experience The Voice of the Ancient Bard has been heard by me after being ignored at the top of my shelf for so long. Maybe he wasn't speaking loud enough...

Charles Dickens: Five Novels Complete and Unabridged: Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, A Tale ofTwo Cities, Great Expectations.

I bought it a year ago, but it's too big to carry to work. So I'm going to have to apply myself to read it at home instead of other books.

#32 - That pretty much sums it up for me - I keep meaning to get to Dickens put never quite make it.

DICKENS in 2008!

Definitely Beowulf. I have a copy here, it just hasn't come up to the top of the queue yet.

I've recently knocked 2 off the list that have been there for a long time 1984 and Fahrenheit 451.

A Brave New World, is another that fits in there I need to read, and I really need to try something by Heinlein

The Brothers Karamazov would be a really nice One Book. I've started it once before, but I was in the wrong state of mind, and put it down before it killed me. Maybe I'll try again soon, but there are a lot of books calling from my TBR...

I am afraid, very afraid,.... commitments? ah ya! lists long enough to eat Chicago. I recently purchased the 1001 tome and am a member of that group and they keep asking me "which are you reading?" Of course, if I commit to One Book here, it could be on that list too...

OK, OK, I think my book is Moby Dick. I like the idea of reading just 5 pages a day. I think I might be able to do that.

It is a toss-up between Don Quixote and Moby Dick. I started Don Quixote many many years ago "in my yoot" as clam says and I remember enjoying it, but then I stopped reading it for some unknown reason. ??? And I've always meant to read about the great white whale. So now I have to decide between the two. Decisions, decisions. I haven't had my first cup of coffee yet, give me some time.

This is a good idea Atomic, thanks for suggesting it!

Urgh ... I know there IS such a book, waiting to wag its finger at me, maybe even shake a tail feather, but for the life of me I can't recall what it is. I'll have to get back here after I've passed it and received that vibe those books send out.

I do have a movie that I feel I should finish and never have: Schindler's List. I get to the part where there's a girl in a red dress or coat walking through the streets and it seems pretty obvious that "Something Bad" is going ot happen to her soon, and I just can't take it. I have to shut it off. I have a feeling I won't be reading that book either.

Strangely enough, one of the few unread books on my shelves is Schindler's List. It was a present several Christmasses ago and I've never got around to reading it, apart from a brief skim through the first few pages.

I have always wanted to read Dr. Zhivago but have never gotten around to it. Maybe this is the year to try!

#40 - Well, if you do read it and it specifically references a girl in red, DON'T tell me about it!

;-)

I'm with you, Alanna. I had to walk out of the theater as soon as she showed up. I later watched the video, though. I would definitely not want to read it.

Mine is The Prince. It's on this year's TBR list.

The Tale of Genji and Finnegans Wake.

I'm reading Vanity Fair right now and loving it. I've also ordered a couple of Wilkie Collins novels; they've been on my TBR for too many years.

I've never read the entire bible, but I've got better things to do, really.

I've always wanted to read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First men, (almost because of the very mixed reception it has in print and here on LT) but have never seen a copy.

Last and First Men... I started reading that one, but I never finished it... it's a very interesting concept though, and it's been reprinted as part of the SF Masterworks series

As for my One Book... hmmm... how about: Don Quixote... I own it, I'd like to read it, but... but... well... but... one day...

Don Q is so funny, tho, Tane, you should love it.

I noticed Dhalgren staring at me accusingly on the bookshelf this morning. I'll have to get to that some time. I don't have 'that one book'. I have 'that shelf of books'.

#16 Thanks, MrAndrew :) If only I'd remember to add the book to my next Amazon or Thriftbooks purchase :P I can never choose among the thousands of books already in my wish list.

#19
Nightmares and Dreamscapes has some very cool stories, actually :) I read it recently, because for some reason, I've read Stephen King's books in a really disorganized manner (meaning out of order), and didn't get to this one until a couple of months ago. Saw the TV series too. Bought the DVDs. And "The End of the Whole Mess" is rather well done, in my opinion. I didn't think it would translate as well to the screen, but it did. Anyway, it was Ron Livingston, and I'd watch anything with him in it :P

#24
Ohhh, Don Quijote! Agh. Being as I was born & raised in Latin America, this was a required reading in school. And it was a drag. On one hand, I wanted to like it. On the other, I automatically rebelled to anything that was required (don't get me started on El Cantar del Mío Cid, agh!). It's one of those classics that I suppose I'll have to read some day...

Hmmm... some others of mine:
1) 1984: bought it, started it, didn't finish it.
2) Animal Farm: Ditto.
3) The Catcher in the Rye
4) Brave New World

#39 Alanna, I think that film may very well be the film that has impressed me the most in my entire life (wanky grammar, sorry). I cried for the entire duration of the movie. Copiously. I don't think I could ever go through that again.

Spanks the silly touchstones.

I've tried reading Gone With the Wind several times. It just not happening. I have hated the book since forever. I was forced to read it and watch the movie for Georgia history. It was Horrible.

I tried to sit down with it again over the last summer but didn't get past the second chapter. In the end I gave up.

Godel, Escher, Bach:
I've possessed it for years and have yet to crack it. Pulled it off the shelf just now to check the spelling and put it right back.

Gone with the Wind is gone with the times. Not worth the effort, IMHO.

Been on my shelf for ages...

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
and if I ever finish that one,
The decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

I gotta say I've read a lot of the ones above, and almost all of them were because I forced myself to get to it...just like this list is doing for a lot of us.

I ended up loving quite a few of them including Crime and Punsihment Pride and Prejudice and quite a bit of Dickens

My One Book is The Divine Comedy -- I have a lovely hardcover version that my brother bought me a few years ago, and there it sits on my shelf, waiting for me to pick it up and read it. Crime and Punishment is the same way; maybe I should try for Two Books this year (along with the 200+ shorter, fluffier works I expect to consume).

Almost finished Beowulf, you can understand where Metal originated just by reading this book, only in Beowulf it's not cheesy. I want to read the book before I see the Beowulf movie, because I don't want my mental pictures from my imagination destroyed by Neil Gaiman's oddly ill-recieved script and Robert Zemerkis or whoever's animation.

The book which has been accusing me for years, and I've determined to read this year is Moby Dick. I tried about 18 years ago when my babies were young and my brain could not handle it, so I decided last Nov. that I would read it this year. My daughter loved it, and she is a pretty good gauge of what I will like.

Foucault's Pendulum has been sitting thickly on my shelf staring at me for years. I've started it once or twice, but always put it down in favor of something easier to carry around. Likewise Life of Pi, which my husband bought for me, creating a "book obligation," if you will, that so far I haven't fulfilled (if it's not my idea, I have a hard time starting something!)

Walden is my forever project. Maybe this year...Don Quijote was one of these too until last year, when I managed to surprise myself and read it all the way through.

(I'd like LT to have star or a mark that you could put next to books like this, when you've finally read them, to celebrate the accomplishment!)

>58 aviddiva: Scarily enough I 'got around' to reading Foucault's Pendulum by lugging it up Kilimanjaro with me and reading it by head torch every evening.

Reading through this thread makes me feel guilty - I am utterly daunted by all the Big Russians, occasionally I feel I ought to but I don't really want to. I should have done it when I was younger with more concentration/less care about skipping quickly through the dull bits but now it'll have to wait til I'm bored..

I will start Wheel of Time again when I forgive him for dying and A Song of Ice and Fire is waiting til they are finished.

This year I might finish Paradise Lost and One Hundred Years of Solitude and more long term -
A Brief History of Time and Hawking's revision of those theories. sigh.

Folks, would you just LOOK at that LIST on the right hand side! We're making a list of some of the most highly regarded books in the history of literature! What does that say?

Of course, I really didn't expect people to complain about that one Harold Robbins book they've never gotten to, lol. Or that 237th Star Wars/Star Trek novel, lol.

This is a good list!

#61 What does that say?

That we devote our free time to reading crap, and never get around to the worthwhile stuff.

:D

#61 More seriously....

It makes me think we have all been conditioned and educated in similar ways. What we are creating is beginning to resemble the list of "Great Books" (discussed on Wikipedia here.)

The idea - rooted in the 1920s-1930s - was to create a liberal arts curriculum that revolved around reading the 'classic tomes' of Western Civilization. Premise: If we all were immersed in reading the great thinkers, it would help us be great.

The idea floundered, for many reasons. But I do find it interesting that our list contains so many of theirs.

#61

If it's any consolation, i've read 'em all, except for Schindler's List and the Harry Potter book. Oh, and the cake bible one, but that one sounds blasphemous anyway.

#48
I'll do my best to get round to it, LG, I promise.

#61
I think perhaps there's some kind of cultural thingy going on here, in that we know they're classics, everyone says they're classics and we know about them almost as well as if we'd read them, without actually having read them... if you see what I mean.

Of course, the other side of that is that if everyone thinks they're classic literature, but no one actually reads them, then... perhaps the idea of classical literature is more culturally important than the actual literature itself. As though we need to reaffirm our collective intellect by simply knowing that such classical literature exists.

Then, of course (and most likely) I could be talking out of my a------

AND, if no one reads this post... will it become a classic of our time? Or just some long-winded nonsense... :-)

#62
Aahahahaha!!! You're damn right! :P

#65
Of course, the other side of that is that if everyone thinks they're classic literature, but no one actually reads them, then... perhaps the idea of classical literature is more culturally important than the actual literature itself.

Wise words, those ones... ;)

BTW, I've never actually given much thought to the idea of reading "great literature" as a sort of obligation. I mean, if the book (or author) really intrigues me, I might read it. If not, I'm on to greener (meatier, funnier, more entertaining?) pastures.

The idea of "high lit" or whatever sounds just so hoity-toity and patronizing to me. As if we were supposed to feel guilty for reading other things considered "trash". Who are these people who categorize books, anyway? Critics? Phsst.

This coming from a huge Stephen King (the self-proclaimed "literary equivalent of a Big Mac and fries") fan, so maybe I'm biased, but I don't care. :P The point is, I might get around to reading some of the books on this list (the ones considered classics) one day, but only if I feel like it, and not because "I need to read them before I die" or something ;)

A friend of mine once told me - regarding my SK fan-ness (is this even a word?) and my dislike of Gabriel García Márquez (a favorite of his) - that "life is too short to read anything but the greatest authors, recommended by critics (or those who have won a Nobel prize or something to that effect)". I replied, "life is actually too short to let anyone tell me what to read." ;)

This is a great topic, BTW, AtomicMutant. Everything I just said has nothing to do with that, of course! :D I KNOW that wasn't your idea. I just wanted to get these things off my chest.

Phew!

It's all in good fun!

#66, the idea wasn't to get swamped with everyone's list and make a giant pile of things that you'll never get to!

All ya need to do is state that ONE book, and polish that one off! Looks like you'd better dig out your 1984!

Where we go from there is up to us.......

:)

I do like it that we have compiled our own list at the right side of the page...

We could all just star this topic to have as reference.

Great idea! :D

#65
Of course, the other side of that is that if everyone thinks they're classic literature, but no one actually reads them, then... perhaps the idea of classical literature is more culturally important than the actual literature itself.

I have read a lot of these books, and I have to say, they are truly some of the best books I've ever read, even if I didn't like them. I'm not sure how to explain that last part. My reasons for not liking a couple of them have nothing to do with the writing, but more with my agreement with some of the presuppositions in the book. I don't regret reading any of them.

I think there is more to a book being called a classic than critics or academia, I think it's because the book was fundamentally moving and aptly written for its time. This from an uneducated fount of knowledge. ;)

Anyway, I look forward to reading many of the books on this list not because "I should", but because they are great books about the human condition. I just plan to break up the heaviness with dollops of mysteries, humor and Pratchett. :)

#69 What she said. I've read most of them and mostly loved them. Still, I don't think anyone should be snobby or put someone down for reading whatever they like. I read all kinds of stuff for all kinds of reasons.

I need to read the History of Middle Earth series, all 12 of them. I started the first one but just couldn't get into it. I have them all sitting prettily on a shelf, just waiting for me.

I'm with Morphy: I'll finish the Bible one of these days. I've begun it many a time, but I always seem to move along to other things.

I also want to read The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and just about everything else Alexandre Dumas has ever written. I've been meaning to do so for eight or nine years now, but somehow I just haven't gotten around to it.

I've been BAAAAAAD, i keep borrowing from the library/buying great books at great prices for the purpose of my schoolwork (Even Douglas Adams can be justified as a school research purchase for looking into humorous Speculative Fiction), and my Stephen King book lies, neglected, crying out to be finished... it pains me to look upon the eyes of the stone devil on the cover which now looks mournful that I am not reading that book...

I've also been meaning to get around to reading that literary masterpiece, Getting Some by Kayla Perrin

#74
Groo... you mean you haven't read it yet? But surely you must be desperate to hear about what happens to the girls once they get back from Vegas???? ;-)

Ohhh, maggie1944! I *loved* Gone with the Wind! But I do know that different people love different things. I think I'm just sad that other people can't have the same experience as me reading it, if that makes sense?

xicanti: I loved The Three Musketeers when I read it recently. I just thought it was fantastic. I bought The Count of Monte Cristo recently to add to the fun (and because Joyce goes on about it in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. And Sijie in Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress. The latter being less of a significant classic...)

I have maany maany books waiting to be read. I think one that's actually been staring me in the face for the longest is a children's book called Wrangledale Chase. A friend bought it for me for a birthday, my eighth or ninth or something, and I've never got round to it. I seem to have gone through a phase of buying Thomas Hardy novels when I was about thirteen as well, so I've got a few of those to get through. Les Miserables as well. (Wordsworth Classics started coming out around when I was 13 - they were only a pound and I bought quite a lot of them and never managed to read a fair proportion of them...)

Hmmm, that isn't ONE BOOK, is it? Oops :-)

ETA: To add to the Kili tale - I took Don Quixote trekking with me in Nepal :-) Though I actually got most of the reading done on the flights if I'm honest!

Isn't that funny -- I read both Les Miserables and Don Quixote when I was about 13. I'm not sure I'd have the persistence to get through either one now, although they are both wonderful books.

After reading Einstein and Faust in Copenhagen, I've been in a mood to go back and fully read my Calculus, Chemistry and Physics textbooks. Maybe aging will bring enough wisdom to pay more attention to the details. ;)

Oops! I misread the challenge. Martin Heidegger's Being and Time has been mocking me from the shelf for years. Stephen Jay Gould's The Structure of Evolutionary Theory is staring at me right now.

War and Peace - or almost any Russian "big book". I am starting it tonight.

Thanks to the inspiration of this thread, I picked up Dhalgren last night. It's a 900 page tome of rhapsodic prose in a s-f context. I'm 30 pages in and terribly confused, but it's good to read.

I know I already named something, but I thought of another book: Ulysses. Remember some years ago when some group somewhere voted it the best book ever? I've tried to read it several times, and I just can't get into it. In fact, I got rid of my copy the last time we moved (but regret it now - see the thread on why we keep books).

#79 fannyprice - some of the 50 Book Challenge people are going to start a group read of War and Peace in maybe mid-February, if you're interested. Personally I'm waiting till then before I start it.

See http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=26856.

The 1001 Nights - the complete one - you know, 17 volumes in the Library when I first decided I should read it (about 20 years ago now) - I downloaded it from Project Gutenberg a few years ago - keep starting it, read regularly for a few weeks/months - don't do it for a while - forget where I'm up to - start again.

I swear, if I ever win the lottery I'm going to buy this just so I can stop losing my @#$!^$##@#$ place (and for the pleasure of ownership as well of course)

I have contemplated that although I would have liked to have read a complete Stephen King book of stories, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy would be a more feasible, (and much anticipated) goal, since not only have I always wanted to read Hitchhiker's (The First One for now) but it seems light enough to enjoy and devour the silliness, like drinking a Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster in book form.

The reason I put it off for so long is that I could never get the omnibus edition I wanted, but now that I have the omnibus it seems silly to just let it sit on my shelf. I can justify that it's been helpful to my studies (not just because it tells you "Don't Panic", but since the style of writing is quite influential on Pratchett and Gaiman, thus it has educational value towards my creative writing task for school).

Darwin's The Origin of Species, probably the most important book ever written. I started it once and got about half way through but I got distracted by some other book and didn't go back to it. I regret that.

Probably the most important book ever written was Newton's Principia Mathematica. I have no intention of reading that, firstly because it's in Latin and secondly because I wouldn't be able to make head or tale of it. I gave up about three pages into A Brief History of Time which is (supposedly) dumbed-down for non-scientists like me.

I think perhaps there's some kind of cultural thingy going on here, in that we know they're classics, everyone says they're classics and we know about them almost as well as if we'd read them, without actually having read them... if you see what I mean

Well, almost as well as having read them stood me in good stead through countless standardized tests. They may well be classics for a reason, and contain truisms about the human condition, but for many people they are just works to know just enough about to get a good grade on their SATs and the like.

However, having passed that stage of life many moons ago and feeling none of that pressure, there are times when I'll pick one up at the library or bookstore and contemplate reading it. Maybe someday. :-)

I have started and stopped Les Miserables more times than I can count... it is time to grit my teeth and READ the thing.
Also Thomas Mann's Magic Mountain is one I have intended to read for quite some time now.

baby steps - The Brothers K made it to the stack of books on my bedroom dresser.

1>

I started a thread called "Finish a Book Month" ages ago. You SLIGHTLY STOLE MY IDEA! Ever so cunningly!

I've always meant to read Flowers for Algenon but have never gotten around to it. I have this feeling it will upset me though (not for the boy, for the mouse) and I think that's why I keep putting it off.

#51 - I really enjoyed Gone with the Wind, partly because (and don't tell anybody this) every summer I called in sick at work for two days when the weather was good to sit at home in my garden and read a really long book. I think it made up for all the unpaid overtime and working though lunch I used to do. Anyway because I was reading illicitly and under false pretenses I found it easy to get through the books I had chosen.

I used to choose a book that I would not normally read since it was a special occasion. I did that for four summers before I left the job and the other books I read were Shirley Conran's Lace 1 and 2 (in the same book - hated it), The Thorne Birds which I liked and Dr Zhivago which I liked but it didn't suit being read in the summer.

Awww, crap. I got the Beowulf CDs (the Seamus Heaney translation) from the library, and lo and behold, it's abridged. Or rather, "Unabridged Selections" - which, near as I can tell, means "we didn't put everything in here but of the stuff we did put in, we didn't leave out random words in the middle of the sentence."

Everything I've heard, though, says Heaney's translation is the best, and it's only 15-30 minutes shorter than the unabridged recordings that Audible has available. I normally avoid abridgments like the plague, but what do you guys think? Does this still "count" as reading Beowulf?

I just started reading War and Peace. It's been on my bookshelf for a long time. I felt that winter might be a good time to tackle a Russian novel!

# 92 I can't really answer that one for you fyrefly. I'm highly biased because my intro to Beowulf was through an amazing English prof who could speak, read, and write Old English (and Middle English, incidentally) and while we were on a bus trip through England, she had her 3 year old reciting Beowulf to us - in Old English.

So.... yeah. I always feel vaguely like I'm cheating when I see it in a language I understand.

I won't tell on you tho!

As for my "one great book" I'm counting series as one.... *ominous music*

To my shame, I've only read three Terry Pratchett books - The Color of Magic, Guards, Guards, and one of the ones with Death in it (probably The Light Fantastic, but I don't remember.)

I reallly need to get those read. I enjoyed the ones I did, but that was a loooong time ago, and I keep finding such nifty NEW stuff to read (current example: Heroes: Saving Charlie.)

*is ashamed of her lacking in Pratchettiousity.*

Don't be ashamed, Rowan, I haven't read ANY Pratchett.

>91 QueenOfDenmark: Flowers for Algernon is one of those books I read in high school that: a) leaves me with a vague sense of dread when I see the title; and b) I want to read again because I can't remember what I hated so much about it. Demian is another one, though I suspect I'd find more to appreciate about it now.

#94
*is ashamed of her lacking in Pratchettiousity.*

Don't be. I haven't read him either. But tomorrow I will FINALLY be picking up some of his books that I bought online about three weeks ago!!! :D :D :D

*jumps up & down with anticipation*

I'd scold you for lack of Pratchettness if not for my n00bness when it comes to other fantasy books/genres. For example, I haven't been a big Sci-Fi reader until now, nor have I ever explored Crime Fiction to a large degree. But reading all these genres helps you get Pratchett's jokes more.

#61 and #62 - You seem to be forgetting that for many of these books listed by a member as 'unreadable' someone else has chimed in with an "I loved that." So, many of us are reading them and enjoying them. We're just not reading and enjoying all the same ones. Which is as it should be.

Just off the top of my head, here I the ones folks have listed that I have read any thoroughly enjoyed:

Anna Karenina
The Bothers Karamazov
Beowulf
Gone with the Wind
One Hundred Years of Solitude
The 237th Star Trek/Star Wars Novel
;o)

See, all is not lost.

#11 - Let's try the Quran which I believe is the more common spelling among Muslims.
Well, that didn't seem to work either!

I've read a lot of these books and enjoyed many of them, even though I managed to get through school without being required to read most of them. Some of them I'm glad I read but don't need to revisit, others come back to me, and still others I'll probably never read.

I think it's a little like going out to eat. Most of the time you go to someplace fast, or convenient, or inexpensive that fills the bill for the moment. In-n-out, cheap Chinese food, the local family restaurant. Maybe you upgrade a bit sometimes, splurge on seafood or steak.

And once in a while, maybe for a special occasion, you go to someplace really good. The meal is fabulous, probably expensive, and you realize that THAT'S what a good restaurant really is, and you wonder why you spend your money on the others. Or you're disappointed, and you can't understand what the fuss is about. And either way, the next week, you go back to eating burgers.

If you live near a major urban area, there are probably a number of those really good restaurants that you think about going to, but seldom do. I think a lot of these books are like that. We know they are there, we sometimes read them and often enjoy them, but they aren't the daily diet for most of us.

Anything Jane Austen--yes hard to believe I've never read any of her books. Any suggestions on which one I should start first?

I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice more than Emma, but both were surprisingly good reading. Evern for me as a guy. Once you settle into her prose you'll zip through them.

>#100: let's get this touchstoned if it kills us.

The Koran nup

Koran nuh-uh... ok drop the westernised spelling:

Quran still nuttin'...

Qur'an oh come on now!

Qur'aan ha! gottit! Unfortunatly, that is in Arabic, which could mean i don't get to it in 2008 after all. I think i'll go with Jane Austen instead.

#104 MrAndrew, I believe that you're only supposed to read the Q-or-K book in the original Arabic, anyway. I think there's an Arabic For Dummies out there, but I also recommend Colloquial Arabic by De Lacy O'Leary, first published in 1926. (Alas, I couldn't get a touchstone for it.) In it you will find such useful sentences as: "Your ass is very sturdy and my ass is sturdy also."

As for #29, I'm too close to finishing Moby Dick to abandon it (more than three quarters of the way through! Hurrah!) but I have taken your suggestion to heart, and am scouring my library for a trashy book that I haven't already read.

When I slogged my way through Moby Dick at university many years ago, I complained to my tutor that it was incredibly boring. My tutor responded that it was supposed to be boring, which only made me dislike the book even more.

>#105 lydia: ah, but how long did it take you to get three-quarters through the great white novel? You only have 11 months and 10 days to read the rest of it... sure you'll make it? If you're only reading it in lunch hours, you have probably less than 200 hours... time that could be better spent learning the arabic for ass. Or reading savage moon, for example.

If anyone's concerned about being seen reading the latest Judith Krantz, i have a fix for you:



http://www.victoriantradingco.com/store/catalogimages/4d/i2877.html

It looks impressive, and yet it's honest.

That's just beautiful, MrAndrew. I'm seriously thinking of buying it. And the Victorian Trading Company is located in Kansas? Who knew that Kansas was so interesting!

Okay, I have a few. The Canterbury Tales which I have started and read a few, but never finished. A Brief History of Time, sitting around here somewhere. And maybe Moby Dick, but I'm not sure I'll really ever bother with that one. I've tried twice and just couldn't get into it at all.

I did finally read a few that had been on my "someday" list in the last couple of years, so I'm feeling better about that. I read Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility. And I read Wuthering Heights. Hmm, girly books all.

Then I read some that people just kept telling me I "ought' to read. (BTW, I hate that!) Read The Alchemist, The Last Unicorn and A Wizard of Earthsea. Maybe this year I can just read what I want!

HURRAH!!!!! I have FINISHED Moby Dick!!!!! I never have to look at it again!!!!! Maybe I should BURN it!!!!!

Now playing in my lunchbox, for a limited time only: Taliesin by Stephen R. Lawhead. I just hope that Atlantis didn't have any whales hanging around.

>91 QueenOfDenmark: I love Flowers for Algernon - the novella, not the novel, if you can find it (he padded the story and changed bits, and to my mind made it much worse). Of course I start crying about halfway through and don't stop until well after I've finished...but that doesn't make it a bad book! I've read it twice since school - I think I had to read it once in high school and once in college (and the second time was the novel - ick.)

My one book is, oddly enough, Dracula. I mean, I know the entire story...I've just never actually _read_ it. I have a gorgeous version, illustrated by the Brothers Hildebrandt and bound in red canvas with gold leaf highlights...

I have several others that people have mentioned - Godel, Escher, Bach and A Brief History of Time and Origin of Species, among others (have unread, I mean) - but it's Dracula that sprang to mind when I read the challenge.

>111 jjmcgaffey: Oh, man, I read Dracula last Halloween (well, into November) at the urging of whoever picked it for me on Go Review That Book.

It's... I know it's a classic and the start of modern vampire mythology, etc. etc. Doesn't mean it's actually readable. Blech.

Also, one might think a book entitled "Dracula" would actually be about, well, Dracula, instead of two hundred pages of how Mina Harker is the paragon of everything that is womanhood. Unfortunately, one would be wrong.

>112 fyrefly98:

I liked Dracula myself, but that description of the plot totally just made me crack up. Thanks!

111, 112, 113 - I love Dracula and I laughed too! You can't think of it as a horror novel because the same things don't scare us now. I would just enjoy it as a Victorian novel instead, with all that entails, not something that is going to be thrilling and terrifying.

Maybe Dracula just couldn't compete in an emerging 20th Century that had people who were REALLY evil in it. Compared to some dictators, the idea of a bloodsucking man who sleeps in the dirt of his homeland seems almost quaint...

This year, I am determined to sit down and read Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch.

I've read War and Peace (loved it), The Stranger, Lolita, Crime and Punishment, Dante's Inferno, Paradise Lost, Heart of Darkness, Mein Kampf, Atlas Shrugged, etc. etc. essentially going through the classics/banned list multiple times over -- always skipping the Sacher-Masoch text.

But this year, come hell or high water, I'm going to read it. (If I can read Ulysses multiple times, why couldn't I make time for this one? It's MUCH shorter!)

Hey, congrats to LydiaHD!

I haven't even taken War and Peace off the shelf yet.
:o/

Ah, War and Peace... I did finally finish it, but it took being stranded for 7 1/2 hours on an airplane on the taxiway at Chicago O'Hare, with nothing else (that I hadn't already finished) to read. Actually, it wasn't half bad once I got into the swing of it.

For me, like bibliophool, it's Charles Dickens. My husband loves him. After suffering through Hard Times and A Christmas Carol on multiple occasions in the course of completing my degree work, I just can't bring myself to pick up another of his books. So, I've never read A Tale of Two Cities, even though it's sitting there waiting -- maybe I need to take it with me next time I fly?

Oh, and Frankenstein.

#117 Thanks, clam!

Back in high school, we read Billy Budd and I just couldn't stand it. This completely turned me off of Melville. But then my favorite author, Clive Barker, said that Moby Dick was his favorite novel to read aloud because of the way the prose is presented. So I'm going to give it a go.

I started Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace 3 years ago or so. I tossed it aside soon after and ever since it has lain on the top of my bookcase, mocking me; I hate not finishing a book.

The trouble with starting and actually finishing the book that you have been staring at all these years is that there is always another one staring at you!!! Mine is The Silmarilion now . I finally finished The Catcher in the Rye What a waste of time!!

#118 Frankenstein is actually a pretty easy and entertaining read--definitely a bit wordy by today's standards, but genuinely scary.

#115 I love the idea of Dracula going up against some really scary 20th or 21st century dudes--Stalin, Idi Amin, George Bush.... In fact, poor Drac would probably be terrorized by your average 21st Cent teen. Would make a great movie.

I just ordered Bleak House and the House of Seven Gables, so those are next on my read that book list. One of the big ones is Vanity Fair--I've read part of it and loved it, but never finished it. But I've completely given up on Middlemarch. A professor told me it was the greatest book ever written, the one everyone must read, blah blah blah. Hated it. Quit after barely denting it at 300+ pages of droning dreariness. I've got a pretty high tolerance for Victorian wordiness, but blech. Oh, and The Scarlet Letter is on my list, too---I listened to it on audiobook, but that doesn't really count, especially since I spaced out a bit. And of course War and Peace, the big book on everyone's list. I know two people who read it in Russian (they're not)--don't you just want to kill them?

This summer I finished The Iliad. Loved it. Great new translation, but I can't remember the translator's name.

#123 - Different strokes for different folks! I just read Middlemarch for the first time last Summer (along with a few other LT members in another group) and I adored it. On the other hand, I found Frankenstein to be not only NOT scary, but downright unintentionally humorous in places.

Well, I went to the library, I looked at Dr. Zhivago, then I looked at it again, then I left with The Tattoo History Source Book . Maybe this isn't the year for Zhivago after all.

#123. God help you with The House of the Seven Gables I couldn't finish it and I'm a sinker!!

Clamairy, maybe I'll give Middlemarch another try at some point, despite saying "blech." Blech books are often worth rereading. Lolita infuriated and revulsed me the first time I read (I was 18, what can I say) and now I love it. As to Frankenstein, I think the scene where the newly created Monster comes into Dr. Frankenstein's bedchamber is brilliant and scary and sad---that one scene makes the whole book for me, despite the various boring, sentimental or scary bits.

I'm going to give Seven Gables the old college try, so wish me luck. ;)

#127 - I enjoyed Seven Gables! Give Middlemarch another try. It certainly is dense, but worth the effort, margaretplays.

I don't think Frankenstein bothered me so much the first time I read it when I was 21 or so. But the stupidity of leaving his young bride alone in the other wing of the house on his honeymoon when he new he was being stalked by 'the creature' just made me roll my eyes when I reread it a year or two ago.