Okay, I admit it! I haven't read this book.

[Edd]

Some time ago, I decided to include some classics in my reading regimen for the sole purpose of eliminating that nagging little feeling that I get when I hear someone discussing a book that they just assume everyone has read but I haven't. A few years ago, I read Asimov's Foundation series and I feel better for having read them, but I don't think I would have picked them up if not for that little voice in the back of my mind.

So here's a support/confession thread for the literary-minded.

*deep breath*

Hello, my name is edd and I haven't read Moby Dick.

[Roy Hunter]

The bosun's name inspires a chain of coffee shops, the whale lives, the mad captain dies. Or does he..?

Hello, my name is Roy and I have never read a single Terry Pratchett book.

[pieces o'nine]

Hello, my name is [not really] pieces o'nine and I have never read James Joyce's Ulysses.



or The Dead

or Eveline

or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

or Exiles

or Finnegans Wake

or Giacomo Joyce

[daftbeaker]

Hello, my name is Roy and I have never read a single Terry Pratchett book.

Really? Not one? Philistine

I have books I've gotten three quarters through and stopped. Catch 22, Beyond Good and Evil, On The Origin Of Species are a few of them.

I've never read Catcher in the Rye or Frankenstein or a Shakespeare play properly (as in not looking for quotes in an English class).

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I've managed to get through High School (well, almost) without reading To Kill A Mockingbird. We read more books than any other class in 10th grade (and a full quarter of poetry to boot), and didn't read the one book everyone else had to read (and loathed).

[ET, the Extra Terrestrial]

Moby Dick is overrated. So is Leaves of Grass.

I never read To Kill A Mockingbird either, but I did read The Sound and the Fury. And actually liked it, sort of.

Haven't gotten up the guts to read Uncle Tom's cabin, though.

Dracula and The Last Mohican were awesome. Double awesome, even.

Never made it through Middlemarch. Tried twice and failed both times. Never got around to reading Watership Down.

[PKMKII]

Some time ago, I decided to include some classics in my reading regimen for the sole purpose of eliminating that nagging little feeling that I get when I hear someone discussing a book that they just assume everyone has read but I haven't.

a classic -- something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

Okay, classic I admit to not having read that I want to: The first two books of the LotR trilogy. I admit that part of that has to do with the movies, plus the laundry list of books I want to read as well.

Classic I have not read and do not want to read: Catcher in the Rye. Everyone I talk to who had to read it told me it was a piece of predictable, boring, obnoxious, irreverent without being relevant hunk of steaming bat piss.

[ET, the Extra Terrestrial]

hunk of steaming bat piss.

So what you're saying is that it shines out like a shaft of gold, when all around is dark?

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I didn't mind it, but I did hate the main character. It's written and constructed well, but Holden is just an angry idiot who is growing up. Not bad to read in 11th grade, but I don't see why anyone older would want to revisit it.

[PKMKII]

I didn't mind it, but I did hate the main character. It's written and constructed well, but Holden is just an angry idiot who is growing up. Not bad to read in 11th grade, but I don't see why anyone older would want to revisit it.

That's the thing though, I knew a guy in high school who thought of himself as being a rebel pissed off at the world, was absolutely sure he was going to love the book, and instead ended up hating the thing.

[Roland Deschain]

Hello, my name is Roland (on here) and i'm a readaholic. I read almost constantly, which is why my own shame is deep (I know a lot of you are the same). There is no greater sin in my eyes than destroying a book. What does come close is owning a book and not reading it. It's there, so why not read it when you are not currently reading something else?

I've had Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon since I was 17/18. After 5 years, I decided to finally read it. I think I must have read just over 100 (ish) pages before giving up. It's a bloody weird book, and the sort of seeming irreverence I like (I love Philip K. Dick, or Dick Books as me and a friend like to call them), but I just couldn't get into it properly. Maybe one day i'll re-read it from beginning to end, but for now it stays on the shelf.

Classic I have not read and do not want to read: Catcher in the Rye. Everyone I talk to who had to read it told me it was a piece of predictable, boring, obnoxious, irreverent without being relevant hunk of steaming bat piss.

I won't read it because i'm afraid of my CIA conditioning...

[black bart]

Moby Dick is overrated.

Bollocks...he's a f*****g ENORMOUS whale!

[Qwertyuiopasd]

I didn't mind it, but I did hate the main character. It's written and constructed well, but Holden is just an angry idiot who is growing up. Not bad to read in 11th grade, but I don't see why anyone older would want to revisit it.

That's the thing though, I knew a guy in high school who thought of himself as being a rebel pissed off at the world, was absolutely sure he was going to love the book, and instead ended up hating the thing.

Well exactly, it showed him how much of an idiot he was.

[TwistedSister]

Hello, my name is Twisty and I have never read any of the Lord of the Rings nor any Harry Potter.
I'm sure there are many other books I haven't read, but I've read so many books, I tend not to worry about the ones I've yet to read.

ET: I enjoyed Watership Down, you may get distracted by the bunnies though and start thinking about Elvalia.

[black bart]

Hello my name is Black Bart and usually not only do I read books but I go on and on about them until everyone hates me...but I haven't read any Harry Potter books either.