A classic, Mark Twain once said, “is a book that people praise and don’t read.” It’s as true today as it was then—we’ve all encountered books that we wanted to read, or thought we should, and never got around to reading, or even said we did.
Susan here. Years ago, one of my sons in high school was supposed to read The Scarlet Letter over the summer, and never got around to it. Then he heard there would be a test on it the first day of school. He stayed up late the night before and skimmed that book furiously, went to class, took the test—and somehow aced it. Not the way to crash an assignment, but he managed to wiggle through, and still isn’t sure what the book was about. Sometimes we have to wiggle through, whether it's a book club or dinner discussion of a book everyone seems to rave about. It might be a book that we wanted to read, but just couldn’t get through it, a must-read that turned out to be a no-thanks. Some books we begin and wander away from, some we really wish we had read and never found time. And some are collecting dust on our bookshelves and we will get to it someday, maybe. It can be hard to admit that there are books we never actually read…
While I read Jane Eyre more than once, I couldn't drag myself through Wuthering Heights. I wanted to throttle Heathcliff early on, and that was that. As a kid, I never read The Secret Garden or The Velveteen Rabbit, don't know how I missed those - just never was interested. I tried Anne of Green Gables and could never get through it. I've avoided Steinbeck, Sinclair, and a few other giants for just be so depressing, despite their social worth. And I have had to confess before on this blog that I haven’t read Georgette Heyer, or at least very little of her work ... I did try, honest I did, but it just didn't click with me. I was steeping myself in Robin Hood and King Arthur and medieval history while my friends were tracking from Austen to Heyer to Regency.
I’ve never read Game of Thrones, though I have tried; the writing and storytelling are just phenomenal, but it’s just too gritty and too big an undertaking for me (I did get through the HBO series with the encouragement of my sons and husband, who are huge fans). I’ve read Pride and Prejudice more than once, and Northanger Abbey too, but not the rest. I keep meaning to do that…
As a medievalist, I have to confess that I never got all the way through Barbara Tuchman’s A Distant Mirror, valuable and detailed as it is; I suffered terrible guilt over that in my grad years, until an esteemed professor of medieval studies admitted that he couldn’t get through it either, worthy as it was.
My bookshelves are crammed with books, many of which I’ve read. And there are still many I have tried to read, and will try again—and just as many that I haven’t found time to read just yet, and I keep promising myself that I will get to those. There are also books that I grabbed up in case I ever needed them, research-wise, that haven’t been needed yet. One of these days I’ll cull the shelves again, haven’t done that for a while. In the meantime, it sure looks to the casual observer that I’ve read a lot more books than I have...
What books have you never read, that you wish you had – or never want to try? Are there titles that you have stacked up, or on a shelf, that you’re not sure you’ll ever read?