Books Everyone Has Read, or not.
Reading things for the first time
On one of my days off last weekend, I walked up to Bent Books in the West End to have a browse around (it’s great - second hand bookshops are great - more of them should have 90% of their books for $10). Outside, a guy was looking very intently at David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, and we had a chat about it, because he’d never heard of it. (He was, of course, actually there to sell me the knowledge on how to become financially independent in my 20s and 30s so that I can just travel and read books all the time. He gave up pretty quickly.)
Afterwards, I was thinking about what books I’d like to read for the first time again, and about things I haven’t read and I feel like I should’ve.
So, some owning up. Here’s some things I’ve never read and maybe I ought to…
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt. I feel like there’s no way it could possibly live up to the hype, and I do *have* it, at least…
Ulysses, by James Joyce. I like the premise, I like difficult-to-read Modernist stuff, I have never read a word of it.
My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante. I’ve never read any Ferrante, and this was number one on the NYT best books of the 21st century. Oops.
So many classics. I’ve got two literature degrees and I’ve read no Jane Austen, one Brontë (Wuthering Heights, which I love and refuse to engage in any Emerald Fennel discourse on), not enough Virginia Woolf, definitely not enough miserable Russian doorstoppers. In my defence, I *have* read a LOT of dead white dudes talking about literary theory, American Exceptionalism, and the myth of the frontier, so, swings and roundabouts.
Also, all the books on my bookshelf that I ignore in favour of new shiny ones I see bringing home. (Sorry, books!)
What’s on your lists?
xx
I read the first Ferrante and really liked it but somehow not enough to bother trying the rest.
There’s a lot of philosophy I’ve read a lot about but never tried actually reading because it seems quite daunting - though usually it’s not (like the Greeks) or it’s just sort of staccato and annoying (like Nietzsche or Kierkegaard).
NO JANE AUSTEN!!! This is an actual crime. They are honestly so good.
I've not read Ferrante either, nor Emily Bronte, nor Middlemarch (it's like my white whale that I start every now and then and never finish but Mill on the Floss slaps as the kids say)