Terminalcoffee discussion

I was surprised we didn't already have this thread.

I never read the Anne of Green Gables books. Also The Hobbit and LOTR. I started the Hobbit when I was a middle schooler and couldn't get into it.

So many.

I've never read LOTR either. I did read The Hobbit a couple years ago.

I've never read any Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë.

I've also never read Frankenstein or Dracula, 2 I really need to get around to.

I haven't read Frankenstein or Dracula. Were we supposed to? By the time I found out they were actual literary works and not just movies or cartoon characters, I think it was actually too late to read them.

I know a bunch of people who have read both of them, especially in school. I don't think it's ever "too late" to read a book. I have both of them on my kindle, along with 8 million other free public domain books.

Oh, I've also never read The Great Gatsby. I feel like everyone except me has read that one.

I didn't read GG until a couple years ago. I finally was like, "I'm the only person in America who hasn't read this." Now that person is you.

I still haven't read Robinson Crusoe, but I own a copy and it's on my TR.

Same with Uncle Tom's Cabin. UTC is one of those books that I always thought, "there is so much secondary source material on this book, I can just absorb enough material that I'll never actually have to read it." But then I got a really cheap copy at a sidewalk sale so I figured I might as well read it at some point.

Lobstergirl wrote: "I didn't read GG until a couple years ago. I finally was like, "I'm the only person in America who hasn't read this." Now that person is you."

Riona can hang out with me. We'll be the "never read Gatsby" club.

Riona wrote: "So many.

I've never read LOTR either. I did read The Hobbit a couple years ago.

I've never read any Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë.

I've also never read Frankenstein or Dracula, 2 I really need..."



I have never read The Hobbit either, and, frankly, I don't understand the fuss.
I have skimmed Austen and Bronte, but, again, I could never get into them either.

Phil wrote: "Riona can hang out with me. We'll be the "never read Gatsby" club."

I actually have it in a stack on my bedside table. I feel like I need to read it eventually.

If you like prose that is achingly beautiful you should definitely give Gatsby a try at some point.

My list would include Don Quixote, The Iliad, and Pride and Prejudice. I hope to get around to all three within the next year.

I was very Luddite about the whole ebook thing until I got my most recent phone and discovered the joys of public domain classics. Now instead of being bored when stuck in a line, I pull out my phone and read a poem.

Dracula and Robinson Crusoe were easy reads for me.

I have never read War & Peace, Ulysses or any Jane Austen novels. Nor have I ever been successful at getting into LOTR or Tho Hobbit. Any one have suggestions on how to tackle to W&P or Ulysses? I can usually get a few pages in and then I pick another book up instead.

I used to have issues with reading Hemingway and Fitzgerald - just couldn't get into them and then I took a course in University about them and their novels and now I love their styles!

I loved Dracula but never came close to any of the Twillight-books. Shelley, Dostoyevsky, Fielding and Hawthorne are on my to-read shelf for "maybe next year".
I had to go through Gatsby at school - a waste of time.

I haven't read any of the Twilight or Dragon Tattoo books, and probably won't change that. As far as classics go, I haven't read Turn of the Screw and probably a zillion others.

I haven't ever finished The Scarlet Letter. Not even in High School.

BunWat wrote: "I have finished The Scarlet Letter, but I have not finished East of Eden. Me and Steinbeck, we have not clicked yet."

Steonbeck is a very tough nut to crack, I'd try Mice and Men first and ease into his longer works. . .

I have Never been able to finish War and Peace. 10 pages is as far as I ever get.

Jo wrote: "I have Never been able to finish War and Peace. 10 pages is as far as I ever get."

I don't even remember how far exactly I got the first time I tried . . .I made it to the party where the bear falls out the window and that is all I remember. It's one of those books that I am determined to read at some point though.

I've never been able to finish a James Joyce.

BunWat wrote: "I have a long list of classics I have not (yet) read. I'm not sure how popular it is but Yiddish Policemen's Union has been sitting on a shelf staring at me for over three years now."

Popular in my family! I loved it.

I've never finished a Russian novel. I would like to.
Never read Of Mice and Men, Moby Dick. Never read Orwell, Joyce or Stevenson.

On the other hand, I am proud to say I have never read a good number of very popular books including 50 Shades of whatever, Twilight, the Da Vinci Code, etc. Popular does not factor into my choices.

The only Steinbeck I've read is The Pearl. He's one of those authors that just doesn't really beckon to me...."read me.....read me...."

I've read PoAaYM and I think I read Dubliners. Both in high school. Never read Moby Dick and honestly....I have no desire. I feel like I've read so much passing commentary about Moby Dick that I've read a third of it already. I've read random parts of The Scarlet Letter. Why parts, I couldn't say.

The only Hemingway I've read is A Moveable Feast - which was good - I recommend it - and Across the River and into the Trees which was totes boring. Oh yeah and The Old Man and the Sea I read in 9th grade and loooooaaaaathed it.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Ibid, Tom Sawyer.

Don Quixote.

Vanity Fair.

Bridge to Terabithia.

The Giver.

Flannery O'Connor.

William Faulkner.

Things Fall Apart.

On the Students Reading table at Barnes and Noble, I saw
Flowers for Algernon~Daniel Keyes. I haven't read it and hope to remedy the situation this year.

That's another one I haven't read. My sister had to read it for school and still shudders about it, though.

Flowers for Algernon is a lovely, sad story.

I'd like to give a list of never-will-read books/authors now...but there are so many.

Mark wrote: "I'd like to give a list of never-will-read books/authors now...but there are so many."

We have a thread for that topic, actually.

Sarah Pi wrote: "Flowers for Algernon is a lovely, sad story."

I agree. I just read it a year or two ago and loved it.

BunWat wrote: "War and Peace, on the other hand, I read when I was 11."

That's how old I was when I read The Grapes of Wrath!

Oh, and I have read Last of the Mohicans, but didn't manage to finish The Illiad.

I gave up on the Brönte sisters after starting and abandoning Wuthering Heights - I was so disappointed, so depressing and bleak and not really a great love story at all (in my humble opinion). Give me Austen every time!

I also tried and gave up on LOTR and William Faulkner.
Apart from Gogol and Chekov, I haven't really read any of the Russian Greats.

Wuthering Heights was dreck. Don't let that prevent you from reading Jane Eyre, which is a rollicking good story.

Lobstergirl wrote: "Wuthering Heights was dreck. Don't let that prevent you from reading Jane Eyre, which is a rollicking good story."

I totally agree! I hated Wuthering Heights but love Jane Eyre!

BunWat wrote: "Barb wrote: "Hey, Bun.
I'm curious; have you gotten around to reading The Grapes of Wrath yet?"

In the last 22 hours? Ummmm... I'm not quite... um"

I think Barb asked because your post about Grapes of Wrath appeared three times above. It's very enthusiastic.

I got sucked into Fifty Shades out of curiousity and trust me - it wasn't the pain of reading of them - avoiding is definitely the smart thing to do. I wish I hadn't - the writing is horrendous and I will never get thouse hours back!!!!

It hurts me that War and Peace and East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath and Gatsby can be mentioned in the same topic that Fifty Shades of Grey. I think that is because popular and classic can be better defined as two categories. They may overlap, venn-style, but do they often?

Sally wrote: "It hurts me that War and Peace and East of Eden and Grapes of Wrath and Gatsby can be mentioned in the same topic that Fifty Shades of Grey. I think that is because popular and classic can be bett..."

I don't think that they are in the same category. Not even close!

Yes, they are on the far sides of the Venn diagram.

There aren't any books that are both classic and popular?

Sally wrote: "There aren't any books that are both classic and popular?"

Jane Austen?

In the title of the thread it's not enough just to be classic. It has to be very classic.

I wasn't really thinking of books like 50 Shades when I created the topic.

I suppose I was thinking more of books like Anne of Green Gables, or The Bridge to Terabithia (which I hadn't heard of until a few years ago but apparently a lot of school kids read?). Books that have become sort of classics via the passage of time and popularity (sheer number of readers), but don't have the literary merit of Crime and Punishment or Madame Bovary.

BunWat wrote: "Sarah Pi wrote: "In the title of the thread it's not enough just to be classic. It has to be very classic."

Snort. Okay does it have to be written by a guy in wig?"

Is that the bar for very classic? Perhaps printed by Gutenberg himself?

a definition
http://classiclit.about.com/od/forbeg...

Isn't the thread title 'very popular' or 'very classic book NOT read.

Yes. Not read.

Jennifer wrote: "I got sucked into Fifty Shades out of curiousity and trust me - it wasn't the pain of reading of them - avoiding is definitely the smart thing to do. I wish I hadn't - the writing is horrendous an..."

I read a review from a blogger who almost never slams a book and she hated it, so I've successfully avoided it. Most of the people I hear raving about it are not people who typically read for enjoyment.

I also tend to stay away from Faulkner because I read him in high school and didn't find it engrossing. Now maybe if someone wrote "50 Shades of Faulkner" I'd read that. But maybe not.

Ew. Faulkner was like my Grandpa.

He was also around 5'3". I think that it probably ruins the whole effect when the dominator has to go fetch a step stool.

BunWat wrote: "The only area of overlap is that people talk about them and ask if you have read them. One category is not like the other except in that respect."

And how long they talk about them. My guess is 5+ years from now, no one will be talking about 50 shades, but 50 years from now, people will still talk about War and Peace.
There are plenty of books and authors that were hugely popular in their time, but pratically no one knows them now.