Books you don't want to read, but do want to have read

[Blow_Pop]

And part of your problem is actually looking at categories on goodreads. i use goodreads mostly just to keep track of books I've read or want to read because my brain sucks.

yeah its hard not to fall into the downward spiral of obsessing over genre tags, I use it as an organiser too and also for reviews but I don't always trust them because often they will be skewed to what people like

Yeah I just try to avoid looking at them period. All I look at is how many pages the book has and the description. It's hard sometimes to stick to just that though.....

 

[ecoho]

Reading takes time. Books can be long, and many of the really long ones are part of a series of equally brick-like novels. And that's not all. Reading takes effort. You can follow a TV series by simply sitting down in front of the TV and looking at it for an hour, but you need to actively read a book. You need to keep track of where things are taking place, you need to imagine the characters and the events, and you need to keep doing it for hours.

With all that said, it's no suprise that we sometimes encounter books that seem interesting, but not worth the time and effort. I've been curious about the Wheel of Time series for years, but I can't bring myself to read a series that's so long when even a substantial amount of the fans say that book 10 was a downright bad book. There are lots of science-fiction novels that handle very interesting ideas, but the actual writing seems too boring to make reading them worth it. I'd really like to have read these books, though. I'd like to know what's in them and be familiar with the stories they tell; I just don't feel that the process of actually sitting down and reading them would be fun enough. I'll gladly read long books -- in April last year I finished In Search of Lost Time, which the Guiness book of world records classifies as the longest novel ever published -- but I want to feel certain that I'll enjoy myself all the way through.

So how about you? What books do you want to have read but don't feel like reading?

I think you have book 10 crossroads of twilight mixed up with book 8 path of daggers as the former was great while the latter is easily skipped. that said the only ones you have to read in order are the first three and the last three(first three because they set up the story and the last three because they were intended to be one book)

 

[Fox12]

I'm proud of finishing the Divine Comedy (the last book was painful) and several Charles Dickens books, but some of the old classics are just too long. This is usually a pacing issue too, since nothing will happen to advance the plot for dozens of pages on end. That's not good writing. That's why I can't force myself to sit through War and Peace and Les Mis, even though their well written in terms of prose. That's why I'll never read Moby Dick. It took Melville 800+ pages to tell his story. The whale is god/fate. Ahab is the human condition fighting an unwinnable battle. There, I just saved you two months of reading.

Basically, if the book is large enough to kill a cat if it falls off the shelf, then I'll probably leave it alone. I have too many books in my library to let those clog up the works.

 

[Queen Michael]

Reading takes time. Books can be long, and many of the really long ones are part of a series of equally brick-like novels. And that's not all. Reading takes effort. You can follow a TV series by simply sitting down in front of the TV and looking at it for an hour, but you need to actively read a book. You need to keep track of where things are taking place, you need to imagine the characters and the events, and you need to keep doing it for hours.

With all that said, it's no suprise that we sometimes encounter books that seem interesting, but not worth the time and effort. I've been curious about the Wheel of Time series for years, but I can't bring myself to read a series that's so long when even a substantial amount of the fans say that book 10 was a downright bad book. There are lots of science-fiction novels that handle very interesting ideas, but the actual writing seems too boring to make reading them worth it. I'd really like to have read these books, though. I'd like to know what's in them and be familiar with the stories they tell; I just don't feel that the process of actually sitting down and reading them would be fun enough. I'll gladly read long books -- in April last year I finished In Search of Lost Time, which the Guiness book of world records classifies as the longest novel ever published -- but I want to feel certain that I'll enjoy myself all the way through.

So how about you? What books do you want to have read but don't feel like reading?

I think you have book 10 crossroads of twilight mixed up with book 8 path of daggers as the former was great while the latter is easily skipped. that said the only ones you have to read in order are the first three and the last three(first three because they set up the story and the last three because they were intended to be one book)

No, I meant Crossroads of Twilight. The average grade on Amazon is 2,5 stars, and that's from people who liked the series enough to read the previous nine books.

 

[Dragonlayer]

I want to read Mein kampft. Dont go assuming im some sort of neo-nazi but I think it would be incredibly interesting to get an insight into his thoughts and really see what motivated him to do what he done

One the other hand I dont think I could bring myself to read it. For starters I cant really see it having any narrative and I can imagine it would be obviously a bit dry and political. Then theres the obvious reason for not wanting to read it and finally can you imagine sitting on the bus or on your lunch break reading mein kampft when anyone (especially is they arent a straight white protestant) asks what you are reading.

I can understand that. Apparently it's mind numbingly dull as well. Anyone can write a book in prison, but people are much more likely to read it if you can invade Poland once or twice.

I can attest to this: you'd think a book detailing the tenants of National Socialism, hyper-militaristic Social Darwinism, Hitler's secret stew recipes and the Fuhrer's life-story would be a fascinating read, but actually it's just really, really, really poorly written and boring.

OT

Can't really think of anything that would fit your criteria, if I don't read a book it's because I'm not interested in it or couldn't find a copy. I also don't have many reading epic aspirations either; I tried Lord of the Rings (admittedly after seeing the films) and thought "Well that was boring, back to 40K."

 

[TitanAura]

The Hunchback of Notredame

I love Disney's film based upon the story and I love the themes but trying to read it is a test in patience. It simply wasn't written for an audience of the modern age so having an entire section of the book dedicated to TALKING ABOUT THE CITY is just pace-slowingly frustrating.

I've read Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones so let's be clear, I have a good amount of patience for long-winded writers.

 

[Unia]

To me the effort required to read a book has less to do with the number of pages and more to do with the actual WRITING. Case in point, last book I finished was Koji Suzuki's Ring. It's one of the few cases where I think the movies are better. Amazing how anyone can make that subject matter so dry and uninteresting. The author spends most of the book describing mundane details of investigation and transitions. He tries to create tension by writing "he felt really tense". Maybe something got lost in translation. After all, my layman's understanding is as a language, Japanese is rather frank and lacking in nuance.

I tend to favor genre literature (sci-fi and fantasy), because why emulate reality when you could create entire alternate worlds? A science fiction novel can invoke interesting questions even if the characters are bland, but a relationship drama where I can't manage to care where anyone ends up? I'll pass.

That said, most books I'd like to have read deal with heavy subject matter like genocide and social injustice in history. These days I feel too weary to watch the news, let alone spend hours reading about such misery.

 

[ecoho]

Reading takes time. Books can be long, and many of the really long ones are part of a series of equally brick-like novels. And that's not all. Reading takes effort. You can follow a TV series by simply sitting down in front of the TV and looking at it for an hour, but you need to actively read a book. You need to keep track of where things are taking place, you need to imagine the characters and the events, and you need to keep doing it for hours.

With all that said, it's no suprise that we sometimes encounter books that seem interesting, but not worth the time and effort. I've been curious about the Wheel of Time series for years, but I can't bring myself to read a series that's so long when even a substantial amount of the fans say that book 10 was a downright bad book. There are lots of science-fiction novels that handle very interesting ideas, but the actual writing seems too boring to make reading them worth it. I'd really like to have read these books, though. I'd like to know what's in them and be familiar with the stories they tell; I just don't feel that the process of actually sitting down and reading them would be fun enough. I'll gladly read long books -- in April last year I finished In Search of Lost Time, which the Guiness book of world records classifies as the longest novel ever published -- but I want to feel certain that I'll enjoy myself all the way through.

So how about you? What books do you want to have read but don't feel like reading?

I think you have book 10 crossroads of twilight mixed up with book 8 path of daggers as the former was great while the latter is easily skipped. that said the only ones you have to read in order are the first three and the last three(first three because they set up the story and the last three because they were intended to be one book)

No, I meant Crossroads of Twilight. The average grade on Amazon is 2,5 stars, and that's from people who liked the series enough to read the previous nine books.

after reading the reviews its clear that the majority of those people need to pull their heads out of their asses.(my opinion.)I thought it was a great read, this may be because I liked the character who was the main focus in this book and others didn't or it may be that I read all the books to 11 in one go so I didn't have to wait for the next release.

 

[ghalleon0915]

First about Wheel of Time...I think you should give it a go, but know that it will be a huge time sink. At least you don't have to wait 2-3 years in between each book like some of us did. The first 4-5 books are quite good, the middle ones not so much ( although Crown of Swords was pretty good, and I agree with the poster about Path of Daggers...) and of course the last three books since they were supposed to be one book. Be warned though, that since another author completed the series ( Sanderson) you may not like the slight change of tone ( or you may like it, since the middle books did tend to plod) . I say that because I've had animated discussion over at Dragonmount regarding Sanderson....

OT - One series I've always wanted to read was Forgotten Realms, ever since my buddy Drizzt wouldn't shut up about RA Salvatore. It looks like something I would like, but I just can't seem to start reading it. I went through the same thing with The Incarnation series from Piers Anthony but managed to read that, hopefully I can start reading RA Salvatore.

One thing I have to say, I much prefer reading actual books than using my tablet. I guess it's just from years of reading, I can get into a book much more readily if reading from a solid copy than just from an e-reader.

 

[Blow_Pop]

The Hunchback of Notredame

I love Disney's film based upon the story and I love the themes but trying to read it is a test in patience. It simply wasn't written for an audience of the modern age so having an entire section of the book dedicated to TALKING ABOUT THE CITY is just pace-slowingly frustrating.

To be fair, Hugo is kind of known for doing long descriptions of the city and if you're not big on architecture and city descriptions you're not going to like it. Les Miserables is apparently the same way but I haven't started reading it yet. You might also want to try listening to it on audio book and see if it makes it more bearable cause I know I have authors that I have to do that with since their writing is so unbearable to me. And personally I like the musical of it better than the Disney version as the musical is more accurate to the book (and a hell of a lot more interesting with better music imo than disneys). Notre Dame de Paris is up on youtube in [a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-E7WDcya8Y]French with English subtitles[/a] and in [a href=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=frYYITtQyzk]French without subtitles[/a] if you're interested.

OT - One series I've always wanted to read was Forgotten Realms, ever since my buddy Drizzt wouldn't shut up about RA Salvatore. It looks like something I would like, but I just can't seem to start reading it. I went through the same thing with The Incarnation series from Piers Anthony but managed to read that, hopefully I can start reading RA Salvatore.

One thing I have to say, I much prefer reading actual books than using my tablet. I guess it's just from years of reading, I can get into a book much more readily if reading from a solid copy than just from an e-reader.

On the second part, I am in full agreement with you on that.
On the first part, I am a particular fan of The Legend of Drizz't series and the Icewindale trilogy. I find going to the library and checking out books is usually enough for me to get off my arse and actually start reading the book. But that's just me and everyone is different and yadda yadda.

 

[Albino Boo]

Classics in verse, for example Beowulf, Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy. I've got all three of those on my kindle, managed at most 20% through any before I got bored of the writing style. Same with the Bible, I got through a whole third of that before succumbing to the dryness of the text and the repetitiveness of the Old Testament in particular. Might try the new one some time, if I ever feel up to it.

Try the Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf. Its still verse but much more accessible than the average verse translation. Heaney goes for the spirit rather than an accurate translation. It got the purists up in arms but the whole point is to make something readable for a general audience.

 

[K-lusive]

ALL the classics. Save Harry Potter, I've read those.
Any other readworthy book though, I prefer to just magically know their stories.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Hunger Games

I want to read it but since its such a big thing in of itself now I feel I'll inevitably find them disappointing

Just read them (as in, managed to stick them back in the cardboard set box after several tries a few minutes ago), and I'd recommend them.

There's a few things that really bugs me, the demographics and logistics couldn't keep the society going, they can build lots of flying hovercraft that are invisible and have force fields around them, but they have to fly really low to the ground because the tech for high flying planes has been lost to time.

But the dystopia, the class issues, and not being able to magically fix things were spot on, IMHO.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Oh yeah, plenty. I read terribly little to begin with, and I've thought that maybe what little I read might as well be worthwhile. I've tried to read Decamerone, The Rose's Name, In Search of Lost Times by Marcel Proust and most recently Lés Miserables among others. The last one I actually got a couple hundred pages into, enjoying it as a good drama. And then I hit a 60-page section that derails from the main plot completely to talk about the battle of Waterloo, and it was like hitting a brick wall. I haven't really quit it yet, but haven't read it in months.

 

[CitizenLame]

Moby Dick. I can't make it past the first couple of chapters. I could stomach Conseille's incessant classification of fish in 20000 leagues under the sea when I was a kid, but even as an adult Moby Dick is just too droning for me to push through.