Tyler Public Library discussion

Do you enjoy reading classics? Which ones have you read and enjoyed the most? Which ones do you not like?

Personally I have a fondness for Jane Austen. I also really love The Great Gatsby, Of Mice and Men, and Jane Eyre. I try to challenge myself to reading more classics but some are tough. I tried reading Anna Karenina but couldn't finish it. I also really hated The Catcher in the Rye.

Let's discuss!

ha! I also did not like Catcher in the Rye! I thought I was the only one.

I love to read classics but I have a particularly hard time with authors like Salinger, Sylvia Plath or Jack Kerouac who, to me, seem to write in a rambling and pointless style. I get no satisfaction from reading their books.

Aleya, is it difficult for you to put down books you don't like (Anna Karenina)? I have heard that if you want to read more, never waste your time struggling to finish a book you don't like. That is tough for me. Especially if I've passed some arbitrary point where I feel too invested.

Kristen wrote: "ha! I also did not like Catcher in the Rye! I thought I was the only one."

I'm going to reply to all of your messages in this one post XD

I hated that book so much! I had maybe 20 pages left when I finally said, I'm done. I can't take any more. It wasn't worth my time. I didn't mind his book Nine Stories. I had to read that in one of my english classes during my BA. I actually kinda liked that one. I've had a tough time with Kerouac as well. His writing style doesn't appeal to me. Plath I haven't actually tried reading yet.

Sadly, yes. I hate DNFing books. I have a shelf on my Goodreads for "do-not-finish" books but I hate to put things on there unless I have to. With classics especially. I try to give them my attention because I know a lot of them don't really solidify their greatness until the ending. Jane Austen's books are like that. They're slow but the ending makes it all worth it. I've gotten better with it, but it's been hard breaking myself of the completionist habit.

I loved Catcher! But, despite valiant effort, I could not get past the first few chapters of Moby Dick.

I enjoy reading classics, and, for the most part, usually end up liking them. Some of my favorites are The Great Gatsby, Sense and Sensibility, Anna Karenina, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Gone with the Wind. A few classics that were tough for me to get through were Crime and Punishment, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and The Sound and the Fury.

I agree about some authors being harder to read. I have yet to fall in love with anything by Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, or Charles Dickens.

My two cents on The Catcher in the Rye... I really liked it!