AskAManager discussion

Are there any Epic Books you've been meaning to read for years, but never get around to because they're so intimidating / long / irrelevant to your everyday life?

I have so many, so I'm tying to read one per year. Last year it was Anna Karenina, this year I'm about 1/8 of the way through Middlemarch. If I ever finish it, I'm going to read Rebecca Mead's My Life in Middlemarch and then tackle some of the more serious Russians.

I started the audiobook for War and Peace at the beginning of this year, with a goal to finish it by June. I'm over 90% done now, and it's not too bad in audiobook format. When I finish I'm planning to listen to Ivanhoe, which has the same narrator. I also did Roots and Moby Dick as audiobooks.

I read Anna Karenina way too young (like at 12) to appreciate it. It was the longest book my library had and I wanted to see if I could read it. I grasped almost none of it. So that's on my list.

The Scarlet Letter. It's been sitting on my bookshelf since high school probably. Also Dangerous Liaisons and Catch 22.

crime and punishment

I've started reading Catch 22 several times, and it just gets to the point of being redundant and I can't finish. I've never started War and Peace, although my husband has a thing for the Russian authors. I've never read any of the Brontës either. (I love Jane Austen, though.) I started reading Gulliver's Travels for a class and had to muddle my way through the class without finishing, just because I disliked it so much. It's the only book I've been required to read for a class that I didn't finish, but...ugh. (I don't mind Swift's shorter works.)

Anna Karenina and The Scarlet Letter are two of my faves! I first read TSL in 9th grade and adored it then, switching to absolute love in college when I read it again. I just read AK a couple of years ago for the first time and was blown away by portions of the story. It's long, but it's worth it. If you are reading the translation, my husband loves the work of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky for all of the Russian works he's read from them.)

It never occurred to me to read AK until recently I met a friend who is into Russian authors. We were discussing famous first lines and she recited the opening line from that. I've attempted re-reading one hundred years of solitude a few times; the first time I read it was 25 years ago in college. I'm amazed it hasn't captured me again. I must not be ready.

How about Roberto Bolano, 2666? Has anyone read that?

Let's see...the epic books I've read and loved (five stars each):
The Count of Monte Cristo
Gone with the Wind
1Q84
The Mists of Avalon
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln

I read Anna Karenina and enjoyed it but gave it four stars instead of five.

I know it's not the longest book, but I've started and stopped Jane Eyre so many times... it's always on my list, but I always seem to have something else I want to read more!

Nicole wrote: "I know it's not the longest book, but I've started and stopped Jane Eyre so many times... it's always on my list, but I always seem to have something else I want to read more!"

I've started that book so many times over the years and my interest would just peter out. I picked it up again last month and, for some reason, this time I couldn't put it down.

I've had books I've been that way about: lackluster interest level for the first few attempts and then complete absorption at some later date.

I have attempted The Magic Mountain at least twice now. It's wonderful, but I've never finished it.

Keep trying it every once in a while. One of these days it may just grab you in a way it never has before!

Kacie wrote: "The Scarlet Letter. It's been sitting on my bookshelf since high school probably. Also Dangerous Liaisons and Catch 22."

I had to read The Scarlet Letter in the 11th grade. I hated every minute of it and swore nothing happened until chapter 26 (or something like that). I found it totally boring. Then again, I was forced to read it and decipher it and deconstruct it and write about 3 essays on it, so that may have colored my perceptions.