Posted on 02/03/2014 2:13:32 PM PST by jocon307
Have you ever lied about reading a book? Maybe you didn’t want to seem stupid in front of someone you respected. Maybe you rationalized it by reasoning that you had a familiarity with the book, or knew who the author was, or what the story was about, or had glanced at its Wikipedia page. Or maybe you had tried to read the book, even bought it and set it by your bed for months unopened, hoping that it would impart what was in it merely via proximity (if that worked, please email me).
(Excerpt) Read more at thefederalist.com ...
“Dr. Zhivago”
I loved that book. I really felt I understood the Russians a little better after reading it too. They went through 3 huge wars right in a row. love the movie too, so romantic!
Colm Wilkinson played ValJean. I have the DVD of the stage production of the 1996 concert . . . I want to say 10th anniversary? Philip Quast was Javert.
I haven’t actually read the book, I get all sorts of annoyed with it. :-)
My copy of Democracy in America is pretty worn out now. The pages are falling out. I need to replace the paperback with a hardbound volume.
I know I really should. And at times my intentions have been really good.
But then I look at all 839 pages and 3 1/2 pounds of it sitting on the coffee table....and I just can’t.
I've taken on a few books of daunting heft in the past few years, simply by purchasing the e-book or kindle versions. Just leave the giant paper copy on the bookshelf or coffee table, it looks best there anyway. The digital page count isn't nearly as off-putting.
I need to read it about 99 more times at least and maybe some of it will sink in. :)
I read From Here to Eternity... I'm not sure why in hindsight... seems like I saw it on some list of recommended American authors.
Waste of time; the movie was much better with Donna Reed and Deborah Kerr cast as a couple of promiscuous trollops.
Both the book and the movie ended up with the guy killing Ernest Borgnine's character and then getting shot by the MP's.
The Bible is much better. Better than anything else ever written by anybody.
“Liked [1984], and have read it a few times since.”
I read it and thought it was great, but completely horrifying. I remember thinking when I got to the end: I will never read that book again, not even at gunpoint!
I tried mightily to read Ulysses and Finnegans Wake when in High School. They are entirely too random. I never got farther than few pages.
I have a confession to make. I never did, and as far as I know still don't, understand one word Shakespeare wrote.
“why????”
I do not know why I can’t get through Emma! My friend even told me, just get through Chapter 3 and you’ll be OK, and I did but I still but it down!
I’ll have to try it again.
I just read “Middlemarch” by George Elliot and I liked that a good deal.
The Histories are the only ones I could keep an interest in.
AMEN to that! I make a point of reading it through every three months, or four times a year.
Never knew they existed. Was he really involved in three mutinies?
"A Fatal Shore" details some of his problems dealing with the corrupt officers in Oz when he was the Governor General or the like.
When I was in the 6th Grade, The Movie “Dr. Zhivago” came out. I wanted SO MUCH to see it, but Mom said NO because the K of C Magazine said it portrayed extra-marital sex. I sneaked into the theater an sat through TWO showings, and then crept home and confessed to my Mom.
Mom said, “That Movie was too adult for you! It showed two people in bed together who weren’t MARRIED!”
“They were too married,” was my cheeky reply, “Just not to EACH OTHER!”
I wrote a book report on Moby Dick in the 5th grade. Don't ask me what I made ... that was a loooooooooooong time ago.
That makes sense. It probably seems more coherent that way.
“Les Miserables is not about the French Revolution but rather a later time in France”.
Yes, one of the commenters over there busted the author pretty well on that detail! I had to look it up after I saw the movie, since they show you the year at the beginning (maybe throughout, don’t remember!), so I realized it wasn’t THE French Revolution, just A french revolution.
The first 2 minutes of this video covers all one needs to know about Moby Dick:
Moby Dick - Book Summary & Analysis by Thug Notes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIoAYq9iD4A
If you think about it, books you never read because somebody else thought they were good, but you had no particular interest in, really don’t matter.
What you need is a list of books you might not have ever heard of, but are great reading, and when you are done, you really wish there was more like them to read.
My list of books like these:
1) The Long Ships, by Frans G. Bengtsson. It is all about the life and times of Vikings in the 10th Century, and has been a best seller in northern Europe since it was written in the 1940s. Translated into 23 languages.
2) Flashman, by George McDonald Fraser. The first in the series of historical novels, in a format of a biography of the main character discovered by the author. So historically accurate of 19th Century events that some historians assumed it was a genuine work. Flashman is an anti-hero, a coward, a scoundrel, a braggart, who always seems to come up smelling like a rose.
3) The Horatio Hornblower series, by C. S. Forester. Just rollicking good fun for when you just want entertainment.
4) The books of Carlos Castaneda, which pretty much have to be read in the order they were written. Whether fact, or fiction, you will either love them or hate them. Large volumes have been written trying to debunk them, but neither he, nor his companions, ever disavowed them until their rather bizarre exit from public life. Determined people of faith should skip this one.
5) The Prejudices series, by H.L. Mencken. One of the sharpest tongues ever produced in American journalism, Mencken experiences a revival about every 20 years. The six volumes of the Prejudices series cover a large slice of Americana, his life as a newspaper reporter in Baltimore, and his criticisms of those he considered scoundrels. His command of the English language was superb.
That is the same two I have read. A Tale Of Two Cities fairly recently and I have no idea why I read it as I don’t read a lot.
1984 a very long time ago. We might have had to read it in school but can’t remember. Also can’t remember much of the book.
I did read “Crime and Punishment” three times and consider it a great book. I always thought “Columbo” was based on Porfiry Petrovich.
I have read every one of Matt Bracken”s books.
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