Here is my embarrassing list.
=Noteworthy
1984 by George Orwell Catch-22 Joseph Heller Dune by Frank Herbert East of Eden by John Steinbeck Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
=Less Noteworthy
Black Sea Gods by Brian Braden Mythos by Stephen Fry Smallworld by Dominic Green The One by John Marrs The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
Grrr… I guess I need to work on formatting. Let’s try this again
1984 by George Orwell
Catch-22 Joseph Heller
Dune by Frank Herbert
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
LESS NOTABLE:
Black Sea Gods by Brian Braden
Mythos by Stephen Fry
Smallworld by Dominic Green
The One by John Marrs
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
I couldn’t finish Dune either. I’m sure the story is great, but the writing IMO is terrible.
Grrr… I guess I need to work on formatting. Let’s try this again
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Catch-22 Joseph Heller
- Dune by Frank Herbert
- East of Eden by John Steinbeck
- Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
- Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
- The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
- The Lesson by Cadwell Turnbull
- The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
- The Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler
LESS NOTABLE:
- Black Sea Gods by Brian Braden
- Mythos by Stephen Fry
- Smallworld by Dominic Green
- The One by John Marrs
- The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
You can use the markdown list feature.
- unordered listOr
1. Ordered listDanke schoen.
The colour of magic isn’t highly rated by anyone. Most discworld fans will tell you to skip the first two books and don’t really count them. I hope you didn’t skip discworld based on that. If your willing to give it another go, most fans suggest starting with Guards Guards! as the feel of discworld is well established by this point and the Watch sub series is a fan favourite. There are 5 main sub series; the Witches, Death, the Watch, Industrial Revolution and Rincewind. Rincewind is the least rated.
You can read them in pretty much any order but each sub series is recommended to read in the reading order:
I found the humor in the first several chapters of the first book to be juvenile. The kind of humor you can see coming from a kilometer away so it’s just too obvious and not really funny.
Every discworld fan will agree. The first two are terrible. They are straight parodies of the fantasy genre in the 70–80s. The rest of the series are more adult satire of real world issues and institutions and the stories have actual characterisation and pathos.
Huh, maybe I should give the others a go then. I read the first two last year and thought they were awful
I was also bested by Dune. I never finished “To Kill a Mockingbird” in high school, and have never had any desire to pick it back up. The most embarrassing/shameful is… “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” I love the movies, and I love learning about the lore on YouTube, but I just cannot make it through that book. “The Hobbit” was such a fun and silly little story, and I loved it! Fellowship just reads like those chapters in Genesis that you tend to skip over.
I reread To Kill a Mocknigbird a dozen or so years ago when I was in my 40s. It was just a beautiful, beautiful read. I wasn’t supper impressed when I had to read it in HS. I’m with you in shame and feelings regarding LoTR.
I’m glad that To Kill a Mockingbird is better than I remember. I’m about a decade removed from HS at this point, and it may be time to give it another shot per your recommendation.
That’s humorous.
Well, I don’t feel so bad now that I’ve never finished Dune. My mom raved about that book, and I tried… I really did.
I’ve read half, I’ll read the rest in time for part 2.
Infinite Jest
Dune
I’ve started infinite jest several times, the last time I thought I’d try on my kindle to make the constant footnotes a bit easier to get back and forth from. Still only got 100 or so pages in. One day I’ll get there.
@Confuzzeled @nandeEbisu highly recommended. So funny
Infinite Jest as well. I just don’t get it 🤷♂️ I don’t get the hype, or the humor, or the plot—I feel I’m missing something in order to ‘get’ this book.
Need more byzantine erotica
The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
I heard so many good things about it but I could not make myself read it.
Awe. Sorry it wasn’t for you. I enjoyed it. Very touching for me. I just checked out the follow on book from my local library. I heard it’s pretty emotional too.
What’s the most emotional book you’ve read?
I’m pretty stubborn when it comes to finishing books generally, unless they’re just generic trashy NYT bestseller stuff.
One on my list bugging me though: Three Body Problem. I got it on audiobook, but its too dense for that format. I need a physical copy.
I just finished the three body problem on audiobook a few days ago, it definitely would’ve been better to read a hard copy of it but I still found it to be absolutely amazing. As a huge space nerd, certain parts of that book created amazing visuals in my head that fascinate me, I’ve gone back and reread certain scenes multiple times just because they amaze me to think about.
Almost done the 2nd book and it’s a lot more boring than the first but the end picks up quite a bit at least and I hear the 3rd book is great.
Books creating visuals and ideas that are fascinating and demand further exploration and thinking are my favorite thing about books.
I enjoyed 3BP, but you are right.
War and peace is my white whale, I’ve tried a few times. I’ll put it down for a while as I often do with books but when I pick it back up I’m completely lost in who is who and where I am.
Eek. I’ve absolutely no desire. Good luck,
I’ve been known to document characters and connections between people while reading a new book. It really helps.
Between Two Fires by Chris Buelhman
I had heard good things about the book, and while it is fantastic, its very dense and plodding and very depressing. There are chapters that leave me in awe but then there are 4 chapters of slow depression that bring the story to a grinding halt.
I only have a third of the book left so I might finish it later but man it’s rough to read sometimes
I read that book after reading The Blacktongue Thief, really enjoyed them both, but Between Two Fires was a dark tale of misery.
Yeah I got up to act/part 3, but decided to take a break and now it’s been a couple months. I started reading some other stuff so I just haven’t had the time to go back. Really well written, just also really slow to pick up steam lol
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, I hated how Death keeps spoiling everything. And when it was clear it was going to stay that way I dnfed halfway through. Otherwise, the novel would have been fine.
Any book by Neil Gaiman. Just can’t vibe with his style and in turn couldn’t get past ch 1 of Good Omens even though I like Terry Pratchett.
The Calculating Stars by Mary Robinette Kowal
I usually try push through to the end with most books, but I couldn’t do it for this one.
Even after it won the Hugo I was never tempted to go back to it. Found it to be so formulaic. I read just past halfway and it felt like a novelisation of a daytime movie.
Same here, the first chapter is really good, then it becomes this slow story where nothing interesting seems to happen.
Agreed. Sometimes I can’t understand why some books win hugo and other awards, besides politics of some sort. I mean some have been good, but not that much.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who has never finished Good Omens. I’ve picked it up several times. What I’ve read of it, I enjoyed. But I never felt compelled to finish it. Put differently, I guess it’s just not engaging…?
The Once and Future King by T.H. White.
Look, I’m a big fan of Arthurian legend. I’ve read modern retellings by Andrew Lang and James Knowles, and reimaginings like The Mists of Avalon. I’ve also read Thomas Malory, and even some original Welsh and Middle English legends (in translation of course). But I can’t stomach White.
Yes, I know it’s the basis for the Disney movie (which is great). Yes, I know White came up with the neat idea of Merlin experiencing time backwards. I know several modern fantasy writers were influenced by it. But it’s just so incredibly boring. Every time I’ve tried to read it (yes, it’s been multiple tries) I can’t ever get to the part where he pulls the sword from the stone. Why? Because I looked ahead, and it takes twenty-two chapters for the sword to even appear, and another chapter before Arthur finally pulls it out. The only writer I know of that took longer than that to get to that point was Geoffrey of Monmouth, but only because he was supposedly writing the entire history of England.
And it’s not just that it takes that long to get to the good part. It’s that nothing interesting happens on the way there. None of it is fun to read. It’s just a slog. Maybe it gets better later, but I’ll never know, because I’ve just given up.
I got to a really early point in Dune where a character was thinking about the various ways to be manipulative (not necessarily evil, just politicking) with their expressions and words and body language and I just got tired of it.
Also gave up on Wuthering Heights. Was it revolutionary in its day to draw back the gilded curtain and display naked domestic abuse for what it was? Sure. But…I don’t need that curtain drawn away, as I’ve seen far better depictions of DV, and, well, I go out in public, too. So it was just tedious bitching and being cruel to each other until I stopped reading.
Hehe, sounds horrible. I’ll put it on my keep away book list.
Edge of Darkness by Brent Weeks.
I just couldn’t finish it. Got to the point where Kylar got his hand back and was like okay I guess the story is over now? Felt really weird that there was still around 3/4 of a book left. I just couldn’t bring myself to keep reading after that.
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