Is there a book(s) from the list that you have no intention of reading? Which one and why?

[Tina]

Right now "Savage Detectives" is at the top of my not to read ever list. I tried to read "2666" and found it so boring that I would spork out my own eyes before I read another Roberto Bolano book.

[Dean]

I would not read Palahniuk, either. I've tried to read him in the past because so many people that I know are part of his cult and I just don't get the appeal. I don't care for the writing style or the subject matter.

[Becky]

Tina wrote: "Right now "Savage Detectives" is at the top of my not to read ever list. I tried to read "2666" and found it so boring that I would spork out my own eyes before I read another Roberto Bolano book."

Tina, I think the phrase "spork out my own eyes" is one of the funniest things I've read on this site! I feel the same about the guy who wrote Cloudsplitter...

[Drew]

Tina wrote: "Right now "Savage Detectives" is at the top of my not to read ever list. I tried to read "2666" and found it so boring that I would spork out my own eyes before I read another Roberto Bolano book."

This was funny. I read Savage Detectives, and would have to say that 2666 is pretty far down my list, too. Although it is ahead of Finnegan's Wake.

[[deleted user]]

:( I love 2666, I thought it was wonderful.

[[deleted user]]

Kristi wrote: "I've read some of Dubliners, which I don't think is so bad, but everyone seems to dislike Ulysses so much. "

Ulysses is nowhere near as bad as everyone says. I enjoyed it so much when I read it, I couldn't put it down. Though it did take me a whole month of non-stop reading and research to finish in a way that I felt like I could put it aside. That was about 6 weeks ago. Needless to say I've stuck to the 200 pagers since....

[[deleted user]]

Christine wrote: "Dan wrote: "Thomas Pynchon is my favourite author, though I can definitely see that he isn't for everyone! It took me around 5 months to read Gravity's Rainbow and by the end of it was mentally exh..."

Well, I suppose it depends on what you want from a book. We all want different things when we read. Thing is, I can never quite pin down what it is I want in words. But I know that when I read Pynchon, I get that feeling, much more than when I read other authors. I guess things just hit a nerve or get inside our heads and sometimes we can't explain why...

[Drew]

Dan wrote: ":( I love 2666, I thought it was wonderful."

Hah. I didn't say it was OFF my list, so I appreciate you speaking up in its defense. I also agree with you about Ulysses. It is by no means an easy read--but I found it immensely rewarding.

[[deleted user]]

Drew wrote: "Dan wrote: ":( I love 2666, I thought it was wonderful."

Hah. I didn't say it was OFF my list, so I appreciate you speaking up in its defense. I also agree with you about Ulysses. It is by no me..."

2666 is definitely of Ulysses stature. Long, difficult, meandering, unconventionally structured, often terminally frustrating but, in the end, exceptionally rewarding. It really is a kind of living, breathing novel, in the least cliche idea of that concept. :D

[[deleted user]]

Dan wrote: "Drew wrote: "Dan wrote: ":( I love 2666, I thought it was wonderful."

Hah. I didn't say it was OFF my list, so I appreciate you speaking up in its defense. I also agree with you about Ulysses. It ..."

And I didn't know it was on the list...I must have an older version...Does that mean I've read one more than I think I have!?

[Tanya (aka ListObsessedReader)]

Judith wrote: "I will not read "The Breast" by Roth. Seems too ridiculous a concept to waste any time on!"

I'm guessing you wouldn't want to read The Nose by Nikolai Gogol then either... Which incidentally was one of the most ridiculously hilarious things I have ever read. :) Haven't read The Breast though...

[Sarah]

Christina Stind wrote: "As I stated earlier, I had plans on making 'American Psycho' book 1001 - but I'm currently reading 'The Rules of Attraction' by Bret Easton Ellis and might have to change my opinion of him. I actua..."
read it - its amazing!!!!

[Sarah]

Becky wrote: "I'm surprised that Thomas Pynchon hasn't made this "list" yet. I remember being completely baffled by The Crying of Lot 49 in college. Perhaps I would understand and appreciate it better now."
are there no pynchon books on the list?

[Yassemin]

Taebak mountains for obvious reasons lol

[Charity]

Sarah wrote: "are there no pynchon books on the list?"

I think Becky is surprised that Pynchon has made this "list" yet...the list of books you have no intention of reading. From what I've seen, Pynchon can be quite polarizing.

[Sarah]

Charity wrote: "Sarah wrote: "are there no pynchon books on the list?"

I think Becky is surprised that Pynchon has made this "list" yet...the list of books you have no intention of reading. From what I've seen, P..."
Ah right! Thanks:)

[K.D.]

I want to read all of them including giving Ulysses another try. I have tried twice but lost interest after page 10. However, completing all the 1001 is a lifelong quest for me so I would like to do just that.

Wait, to read all of them as long as I can get a copy of their English version. I heard from somebody that there are books written in foreign language, example is what Paula wrote above, and have not been translated to English yet. Is this true?

[Yassemin]

K.D. wrote: "I want to read all of them including giving Ulysses another try. I have tried twice but lost interest after page 10. However, completing all the 1001 is a lifelong quest for me so I would like to d..."

Taebek mountains is an example K.D, only avaliable in French and Korean.

[Silver]

A few books from the list that I am pretty confidant I am not going to read.

Atonement: Yes I know not to judge a book by the movie, but I truly hated the movie, and romance really is not my thing, so even though I acknowledge the book is probably better than the movie, the movie did not inspire me to want to read the book.

Memoirs of a Geisha: My sister read this book, and according to her the movie was acutally better than the book was. She really did not care for the book at all, and we are usually on the same page with books (no pun intented) so I have truted her judgement and stayed away from this one.


In Cold Blood:I hear a lot of good things about this book that sometimes tempt me to want to read it, but I just don't do true crime. That is one genre I cannot get into, so whenever I get tempted to read this book, when I read the summary about it, it just does not generate my interest.

Gone With the Wind: As a kid I was traumatized by the movie (ok that is semi-joke, but semi-true) and well I don't want to give away in spoilers but needless to say I now have a biased against this book and the characters so I am repelled from the thought of reading it.

[Charity]

Memoirs of a Geisha is actually fiction, not true crime.

[Silver]

Charity wrote: "Memoirs of a Geisha is actually fiction, not true crime."

oops, it was suippose to say "In Cold Blood" But somehow the link to the book did not make it.

[Charity]

Ha! I see. Thanks for clearing that up. :)

[Silver]

LOL thnaks for noticing before I looked like a complete idiot.

[Joselito Honestly]

There are 1001 books written in English which you won't understand even if you read them many times. I read William Gaddis' "The Recognitions" for more than a month and didn't understand it. So if i get hold of Taebak Mountains in French or in Korean (both languages I don't understand) I will still read it because it will just be the same as reading The Recognitions for me.

[Linda]

I just came across another book that I will never pick up - Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, which is mentioned in Cold Comfort Farm (which I just finished). I looked it up and it is considered to be "the "first original English prose pornography" and after reading about it, I have absolutely no interest in reading it. Someone above mentioned The Story of O, which I will also be avoiding for the same reason. I had a hard enough time reading Lady Chatterley's Lover.

[Joselito Honestly]

then you have to exclude, too. linda, the two books by marquis de sade.

[Carsten]

I'm reading A Farewell to Arms and it's a struggle to get through.

This is my first Hemingway - I thought I would give him a chance but he's so dry, stoic and detached in his style of writing that you don't care for any of the persons in the book.

So I would say: No more Hemingway - and that will mean a good handful of books

[Flora]

Joselito wrote: "then you have to exclude, too. linda, the two books by marquis de sade."

I'm sure the ones she mentioned pale in comparison to his books.

[Linda]

Joselito wrote: "then you have to exclude, too. linda, the two books by marquis de sade."

Yep, your're right - I'm not really planning to read his books.

[Linda]

Carsten wrote: "I'm reading A Farewell to Arms and it's a struggle to get through.

This is my first Hemingway - I thought I would give him a chance but he's so dry, stoic and detached in his style of writing...No more Hemingway... "

Well, I would suggest you give The Old Man and the Sea a shot - at least it's short!

[Bikki]

I think the J.R.R. Tolkien and Salman Rushdie are at the bottom of my list right now.

I started reading "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" and lasted about forty pages. I can count on one hand the number of books I never finished so I think I'll attempt to read everything else first.

[Linda]

I like this discussion. I'm constantly finding myself adding books to my "to-be-read" list, so it's sort of a relief to put some on a "don't even bother" list!

[Genia]

Books I plan on not-reading?

Not a great many of those, but they do exist. I have a fervent dislike of anything Joyce, so I am planning to carefully circumvent Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses, though I plan to give Portrait of an Artist a try. I have a distinct feeling, also, that I may not be much enthused by certain modernists like Virginia Woolf and I can't say I appreciate Kafka, so Amerika is also at the bottom of my list.

[Sophie]

Whilst there are none I have plans to avoid or skip altogether there are a few I am not looking forward to tackling.

Ulysses, War and Peace (rather more for the length than anything else), Don Quixote, and Atonement (I loathed the film and whilst I don't make a habit of watching the film before I have read the book, I hadn't much interest in both until I noticed it was on the list!) - to name a few.

Then again there have been a couple of books I really did not think I would enjoy and yet they turned out to be absolute gems; The Reader for example really took me by surprise and I thoroughly enjoyed it. So there we go, I might fear the books I end up loving the most!

[Emily]

I'm looking forward to Ulysses, actually. I read Portrait of and Artist as a Young Man in college and liked it. Plus, my dad gave me a series of lectures on the novel on CD, so I'm hoping that will help me when I finally do tackle it.

I absolutely refuse to read Lolita. The subject matter grosses me out. I'm working from the 2006 list and Sexing the Cherry is on it. I tried reading it in college. After throwing it across the room in disgust several times, finally, I decided to let it lie there. Never finished it. Never will.

@Linda - My college prof let us skip the chapters that are about whaling. I decided to read those chapters. They don't further the plot at all, but got through them.

[Sophie]

Emily wrote: "I absolutely refuse to read Lolita. The subject matter grosses me out. "

I think you should lay aside your preconceptions and try it; I actually did not like the book - but not for the reason you probably might think.

Also the relationship(s) within the books isn't quite as straight forward as you might think.

Don't - as they say - judge a book by it's cover.

[Belynda]

Emily wrote: "I absolutely refuse to read Lolita. The subject matter grosses me out.

I'll agree with the rest... definitely read Lolita. The subject matter is unsettling yes, but you have to understand the psychology of Humbert; he is truly chasing after a phantom in his quest to replace his lost child love. Something broke in him early in life, and made him what he was: a gentle predator.

If you can put aside the subject matter (which is not hard to do, it's not at all graphic or hard to read. I'm 250 pages into "Dragon Tattoo" and it's brutal by comparison) you can really enjoy this book. It's one of my favorites. I've read it several times. Nobokov writes beautifully ("If a violin string could ache - I would be that string.") and the novel is carried off in a way that, in the end, you pity Humbert somehow. His tone is not that of the triumphant lecher, but instead the tired and broken penitent. Definitely give it a try.

[El]

Not to mention Humbert is the quintessence of an unreliable narrator. He's not meant to be a role model.

[Belynda]

Excellent point. He spends a lot of time rationalizing his crimes, but underlying it is this sense that he recognizes his pariah status in society, and the defect in himself. It's not remorse exactly (because, like all predators, he rationalizes his acts as driven by love), but it's enough to give the reader a sense that he regrets he "broke her life."

[KOMET]

I have no interest whatsover in reading "ULYSSES." I much rather read "The Dubliners" instead.

[Yassemin]

I think people attacking someone for not wanting to read Lolita are wrong. Its their personal choice for their personal reasons, if they don't want to read it they shouldn't have to. Give them a break.

I'll join you Komet with Ulysses I think,...

[El]

Whoa, Yas, I don't think anyone was attacking anyone for not wanting to read Lolita. Seems to me we all gave our opinions on the book in an effort to help someone understand. A lot of people do have preconceived notions about what a story is, and walk away afterward reading it feeling completely different. I've talked to many friends about Lolita who had the same opinion of it and refused to read it, but after discussing it with them they agreed to read it and walked away with a better appreciation. That's what book discussions are about - no one was attacking anyone. Sorry if it came across that way.

[Belynda]

It certainly wasn't intended as an attack. I just wanted to address the fact that Lolita gets reduced to "book about a child molester" when it really is far more complex than that. This, of course, could go for any classic. Anna Karenina could be reduced to "Woman cheats on her husband and then goes crazy"; however, anyone who has read it, knows it's far more layered than that. I just wanted to provide a defense against avoiding a book based on oversimplification.

I don't know that one could "force" another to read a book, but I can definitely promote a book I count among my favorites, in a forum dedicated to that subject. It's up to the person to consider the opinion or discard it.

[Sophie]

Belynda wrote: "I just wanted to address the fact that Lolita gets reduced to "book about a child molester" when it really is far more complex than that."

I read Lolita and didn't particularly like it; there were passages where I really enjoyed Nabokov's writing style ("Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta."), however, I quickly realised this book was - while about a paedophile - was actually also about a girl discovering her sexuality and using it to her "advantage."

I found the book more controversial, not because of what is essentially child molestation, but more-so because of how a child is portrayed as a sexually aware, manipulative girl - utterly aware of her power over Humbert.

[Joselito Honestly]

The eternally youthful Lolita.

While the Nabokovs were already in the US they tried very hard to have it published there. But no one wanted to do so, many ATTACKING it as plain pornography, immoral, etc.

It was first published abroad. Initially got tepid reviews. Then Graham Greene praised it. This, together with the negative publicity it got, helped it get published in the US where it became a monster bestseller, battling toe-to-toe for many weeks with Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago in the bestsellers list.

Read VERA first (Mrs. Nabokov's biography), one of my most recent reads. It made me want to read all of Nabokov's books.

[Yassemin]

El wrote: "Whoa, Yas, I don't think anyone was attacking anyone for not wanting to read Lolita. Seems to me we all gave our opinions on the book in an effort to help someone understand. A lot of people do h..."


Maybe not an attack but its just disrespectful I find personally when others are pressured upon to read something they have already expressed an opinion about being disinterested about and their reasons why. I will read Lolita personally speaking however I can see, subject matter wise why it wouldn't be for everyone and if someone expressed an opinion to not read it, would understand it rather than try to convince them to read outside their comfort zone. And you couldn't get further outside someones potential comfort zone with borderline if not outright paedophilia. No offence meant to yourself either.

[El]

Personally I find it more disrespectful to tell others they're not allowed to share their differing opinions. To each their own, but this is a book forum where it's encouraged to discuss books.

Moving on.

[El]

Joselito wrote: "Read VERA first (Mrs. Nabokov's biography), one of my most recent reads. It made me want to read all of Nabokov's books."

That does sound interesting, thanks for mentioning it. I recently picked up a book of Nabokov's letters (Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya: The Nabokov-Wilson Letters 1940-1971) which looks pretty interesting.



But back to the list - I'm not sure that there are any books I flat out refuse to read. I try to be pretty open to most things, though some will be harder for me to pick up primarily due to writing style (looking at you, Pynchon). Ultimately I know I will read them, but I'm not in as large a rush to hit up those as I am to read others. I did finally read Infinite Jest which I never thought I would do, so that's encouraging that eventually I'll muddle through some of the other ones of the same ilk (or what I perceive to be similar).

[Wendy]

I suppose I shall defend Atonement: it's the first of McEwan's books I had read (this was before the movie came out) and I just sunk into his lyrical writing style, especially the sections told from young Briony's point of view (I loved her directorial/writerly attempts--I did the same thing when I was her age). And the suspense about Robbie's accidental "letter" had me at the edge of my seat. My biggest complaint was with the ending, which struck me as contrived. I agree, though, the movie is awful! And bland. The war bits reminded me of Pearl Harbor, I hated all the characters, and I didn't feel that way reading the book at all. I turned it off half-way through, but I'd still recommend reconsidering the book, even if it is lower on your list.

As for my "not to read" books...well, I made it through War & Peace, but I'm done with doorstops for a while. My husband absolutely LABORED through Gravity's Rainbow, and he's usually a crazy fast reader. His lack of enthusiasm has dulled my interest in that one.

[Cynthia]

The thing I enjoy about the 1001 list is that it gets me out of my comfort zone and I end up reading things I would never have picked up otherwise. I prefer to give something a try, rather than say, oh dear, I can't read anything with icky man-girl sex in it.