#MicroblogMondays 136: The Books I Haven’t Read

by Mel

24 comments

1 Different Shores { 04.03.17 at 5:45 am }

Books I sometimes feel like I should have read but have no intention now of reading: To Kill A Mocking Bird, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher In The Rye. I read Farewell to Arms and some Margaret Atwood as a teenager, along with a lot of Brontes, Thomas Hardy and the one who did Room With A View. I loved that stuff back then but time races too quickly now – I feel like there are so many new books coming out all the time that I can’t waste time re-reading the classics, or ploughing through dated, boring stuff. I’m by no means into chick-lit or whatever, but these days I can’t face epic, serious, doorstopper stuff like The Shadow of the Wind or The Book Thief – shoot me now.

2 Leicester lass { 04.03.17 at 6:15 am }

You really should read Middlemarch, it is a wonderful and v readable book. I don’t like Henry James or Ernest Hemingway and I won’t read them.

3 Beth { 04.03.17 at 7:55 am }

I also haven’t read a bunch of the classics – ironic as I taught English for 10 years. The ones that came to mind immediately though were The Hunger Games series. I have zero interest. For a long time Harry Potter was on that list but I’m so glad to say I started those 5 years ago and read them straight through.

4 Middle Girl { 04.03.17 at 8:01 am }

Given my reading habits of the last few years, the list of what hasn’t been read has grown. I have yet to take up the challenge of reading the most popular books of the year of my birth. Of the 200 (per the Goodreads list) I’ve read 5. There are at least 20 that I am pretty sure I won’t attempt. Many of the others are still in play.

5 Traci York { 04.03.17 at 8:03 am }

I haven’t read any of those either, even though I own the first Outlander book (bought it right before the series came out, but haven’t gotten around to it yet). I also own the box set of the Game of Thrones paperbacks, but even though I want to read them, they just haven’t struck my fancy. However, I’m planning to reread Gaiman’s American Gods in the very near future. So many books, so little free time… *sigh*

6 Turia { 04.03.17 at 8:05 am }

There are a ton of classics I probably should have read by now but haven’t, even though I have a major in English Lit and taught English in high school for a few years. But what came to mind first were the books other people have given me at birthdays that I still haven’t read. I think I have five or six piled up. I have this weird reluctance to want to read a book if someone else bought it for me, unless it was a book I had specifically requested.

7 Nicoleandmaggie { 04.03.17 at 8:08 am }

@different shores. My husband is reading/listening on audible to kill a mockingbird for the first time right now and he really likes it. (I read it for class in 7th grade and also remember it as being very good. Although I probably enjoyed the first half more, the second half is what has stuck over the years.)

8 a { 04.03.17 at 8:16 am }

All I know is… It’s a good thing I created that Gave Up shelf on my Goodreads account. Giving myself the option to not read books has been an excellent decision. (I’ve read none of your list either, except maybe the first Outlander?)

9 Cristy { 04.03.17 at 8:42 am }

So many. Margaret Atwood is on my list, but I also need to tackle Hemingway and Faulkner. August is going to be filled with reading.

NicoleandMaggie’s suggestion if audio books may eliminate any and all excuses for procrastinating.

10 Lori Shandle-Fox { 04.03.17 at 10:12 am }

There are standards that apparently everyone I know read in high school, but somehow they never made it to my English class like Julius Caesar and Beowulf (which everyone hated back then). I always found Thoreau tedious in high school but when I see quotes I really like they seem to frequently be from him so I think I should read more of him now that nobody will be rushing me to finish it or testing me on it.

11 Vaibhav { 04.03.17 at 11:20 am }

One of my year goals is to read 12 books (so a book a month, an easy enough target to get back into the habit of reading), but I find it difficult to keep doing it.

Currently cycling between Louise Hay’s “Heal Your Mind”, Chris Anderson’s “A Guide to Public Speaking”, and Neil Gaiman’s “Norse Mythology”.

12 Journeywoman { 04.03.17 at 12:46 pm }

I was in a bookstore about 20 years ago, in the romance section. Someone came over and put the first Outlander book in my hand. She said that someday I would stop people in bookstores and hand it to them. She wasn’t wrong. I highly recommend it.

That being said, I have never read Catcher in the Rye. When I worked for my first, wonderful boss at the big publishing house, she started a book club of classics. It was there I read Hemingway, Hawthorne and Dumas.

13 Jill A. { 04.03.17 at 1:48 pm }

Most books I haven’t read and don’t intend to read. Of the ones I own, Winston Churchill’s history of the second world war is too detailed for me to get through. I don’t know enough about the people and who is who in Britain from that period to follow it. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair is on my do-not-read list. I’m afraid it will turn my stomach and put images in my head I’d rather live without.

Currently, I’m reading “The Pout-Pout Fish” by Deborah Deisen and Dan Hanna. Out loud. Over and over and over and over again. And lovin’ every minute of it! (Also the Safehold series by David Weber.)

14 Chris { 04.03.17 at 1:53 pm }

I have read Atlas Shrugged, but I haven’t read (Well actually I gave up on LOTR, one of the few books I started and just got so bored I gave up. I was a kid but my tastes clearly haven’t changed. I sat through the movies with DH and said NEVER AGAIN! He had to watch The Hobbit Movies alone.) I have actually read most of what people are saying they haven’t read. But, I haven’t read The Hunger Games (no interest, ditto on the movies) However, I haven’t read MacBeth- that’s one I missed in school.

15 loribeth { 04.03.17 at 2:10 pm }

I am embarrassed to admit the number of books I haven’t read on my bookshelves far outnumber the books that I have read. And some of them have been on my shelves for years now. (Granted, I did get rid of a vast number of books before we moved last year.)

In terms of books that everyone else has read (or that I think I should have read by now), there are lots of classics that I’ve never read, even though I have an honours degree in English. Somehow, I got my degree without ever having to study Milton. Midway through my degree, they changed the program… I got grandfathered in under the old requirements, but thereafter you HAD to take courses in all three of Shakespeare, Milton and Chaucer in order to graduate. Instead of Milton, I wound up taking Restoration & Early 18th Century Literature, which sounded preferable to Milton but still pretty daunting. It actually turned out to be one of my favourite courses that I took at university, thanks to a really great prof.

I read Middlemarch twice for two different courses at university — it was one of my prof’s favourite novels of all time. It was pretty slow & dense to get through, but ultimately pretty good, and I keep thinking I should re-read it… someday. 😉 I haven’t read Outlander, although everyone tells me I should, and I’d definitely want to read the book before watching the TV show. It’s certainly got a lot of elements that I love in a novel — time travel, Scotland, history and a handsome hero, lol. 😉

16 Amber { 04.03.17 at 5:24 pm }

I’ve had Divergent sitting on my bookshelf for the past two years, collecting dust and waiting for me to read. I just can’t seem to make the time. I used to read all the time, but since having my babies, I think I’ve read one book (other than children’s books).

17 Raven { 04.03.17 at 6:38 pm }

I have a whole shelf of books yet to read. The Girl with the dragon Tattoo, Divergent, Lord of the Rings…all of those series are there, unread, waiting for the right time along with a handful of other books I bought before I was ready to read them. I keep a list of books I’ve read on my blog…because I don’t know how else I’d ever remember! I usually link it to a review I wrote, so I know if I liked it or not. There have been books that I’ve picked up, read the back, bought and then was halfway through before I realized I had already read it when I could suddenly remember the ending…I bow down to those of you who can remember them just from memory!

18 Jess { 04.03.17 at 7:23 pm }

I use Google Keep to keep lists now of what I’ve read, and what I want to read, which helps tremendously…but I don’t keep a list of books I’ll never read. Which is a GREAT idea. I haven’t read the Outlander books, either, but don’t cross those off quite yet. I haven’t read Tuesdays with Morrie, or Marley and Me, and I won’t. There’s some book everyone wanted me to read and I was like, No, no thank you. I think it was Light Between Oceans or maybe that new Jodi Picoult book, or maybe something else. I read Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but I have the other two in the series on my shelf and I don’t think I’ll read them (unless someone has a real compelling reason for me to, I didn’t enjoy Dragon Tattoo as much as I thought I should have, which is a shame because technically I am a girl with a dragon tattoo, although unrelated). I like this list! And Google Keep, all the way, for book reading listmaking. I used to keep a paper copy but I lost it all the time, and now it’s so easy to find and refer back to.

19 Lori Lavender Luz { 04.03.17 at 9:20 pm }

Harry Potter!

20 Cyn K { 04.03.17 at 9:45 pm }

Before the internet, I kept journals with the books that I had read. Since I’m a sucker for mystery series, I needed these to keep track of which books I had already read. Now I use Goodreads to keep track because it has cool progress bars for each book and quantifies my reading in a very satisfactory way.
That being said, I’ve never read Moby Dick or Oliver Twist (or anything by Charles Dickens, I must confess). I’ve never read Jane Eyre or The Hobbit. The older I get, the less I worry about books that I should read. I like to stretch myself once every few months. Mostly, I’m still addicted to mysteries.

21 Stephanie (Travelcraft Journal) { 04.04.17 at 12:50 am }

Atlas Shrugged reminded me that a bunch of books that get referenced regularly had been required for freshmen at my high school, but I went to a different school that year (with a different reading list.) There was also Clockwork Orange and Animal House – I don’t remember the full list. I never got around to reading them on my own.

22 Chandra Lynn { 04.04.17 at 5:12 pm }

I was too exhausted to post last night and after attempting 4 different microblog topics, two of which were on books/writers, I decided to do a short one on a work that I’ve added to my summer reading list–an author I probably should have read ages ago. There are a LOAD of books I “should have read,” but I won’t be hard on myself because I read a LOT (English prof perk).

23 Chandra Lynn { 04.04.17 at 5:13 pm }

Correction: I posted microblog last night–but too exhausted to share the link and read your post and comment.

24 Chandra Lynn { 04.04.17 at 5:14 pm }

Correction: I posted microblog last night–but too exhausted to share the link and read your post and comment.