Joshua Plumtree
Approaching perfection from a distance.
Approach Shakespeare like a hard turbo session in the garage. Hard work and occasionally tedious, but ultimately supremely satisfying and good for the soul!
'Life-changing' books that left you cold
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Approach Shakespeare like a hard turbo session in the garage. Hard work and occasionally tedious, but ultimately supremely satisfying and good for the soul!
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
Absolutely anything over 350 pages. Why bother?
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
I love that book!
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
I'd have to agree with Moby Dick. It is interminable. I might try again sometime, but the prospect is not enticing.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
I love that book. I read an e-book version of it while cycle touring in America last summer.
Haitch
Flim Flormally
- Location
- Netherlands
Moby Dick is the Great American Novel, until they actually go to sea.
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
Well, you're closer to the mainstream critical opinion than me. I fully acknowledge it might be my problem!
Saluki
World class procrastinator
- Location
- ...Norwich over the water.
Gave up with Zen and the art of zzzzzz snoozefest
Gave up with Moby Dick too. So tedius. I got half way through Captain Corelli and was losing the will to live
King Lear
Mrs Dalloway - Woolfe. Read it at Uni. Stream of conciousness stuff is just hard work.
Dune - Frank Herbert. Didn't get that at all. Gave up.
I think that Dune, Moby Dick and Zen are the only books I have ever given up on.
Wasn't wildly keen on 1984 either.
Gave up with Moby Dick too. So tedius. I got half way through Captain Corelli and was losing the will to live
King Lear
Mrs Dalloway - Woolfe. Read it at Uni. Stream of conciousness stuff is just hard work.
Dune - Frank Herbert. Didn't get that at all. Gave up.
I think that Dune, Moby Dick and Zen are the only books I have ever given up on.
Wasn't wildly keen on 1984 either.
winjim
Straddle the line, discord and rhyme
Catch-22 is my very favourite book. Couldn't get past the first couple of chapters of Closing Time.
hopless500
Trundling along
- Location
- not-as-flat-as-you-think Norfolk
And me.
hopless500
Trundling along
- Location
- not-as-flat-as-you-think Norfolk
Pride and Prejudice is one of my favouritesI tried to read Portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce. Some humerous lines but fark knows what it was supposed to be about and I just couldn't get into it at all.
Easyway to stop smoking by Allen Carr, I appreciate many found it really helpful, I actually agree 100% with everything he said but something about his sanctimonious style of writing really got my back up.
At the risk of upsetting many - Pride and Prejudice - excellent cure for insomnia.
vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
Well, you're closer to the mainstream critical opinion than me. I fully acknowledge it might be my problem!
Love/hate is so subjective. Opinions can change during the course of reading a book. Midnight's Children for instance, I loved the start and hated it by the tenth page.
Godel, Escher, Bach - a great book but I don't have the mental stamina to read it to completion - I lost the will to live on my first and second attempts.
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
I gave up trying to be a better person after The World According to Garp. I felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
Poacher
Gravitationally challenged member
- Location
- Nottingham
I enjoyed it, which is more than I can say for the follow-up, Metamagical Themas.
One of the very few books I haven't even tried to finish is Elias Canetti's Auto-da-Fé. So bloody repetitive that I gave up after about 60 pages. Normally I keep books - loads of them! - but that one went to a charity shop, and I pity the poor so-and-so who bought it.
