I know, let's list the books we haven't read

[Pompey Bum]

You are on a desert island or in prison when you are captured by the Pseudos, a tribe (or gang if you're going with the prison scenario) who torture you until you confess the top ten books (in no particular order) that you have never actually read.

Here are mine:

Lolita: I won't buy the ebook because I don't want it on my megadata. My Ipad already has funny ideas about me. Ever since the "Why do Christians hate Prophet Mohammad?" thread it's been trying to sell me Muslim brides. Before that it thought I was gay. God knows what it would make of this new piece of the puzzle.

Jane Eyre: Okay, that's pretty bad.

The Great Gatsby: Ditto.

The Canterbury Tales: I don't know, I never got around to it.

The Pickwick Papers: Um, I do own a copy.

Sense And Sensibility: I saw the TV show.

The Mill on the Floss: It looked boring.

Our Mutual Friend: Yeah, yeah.

Ulysses: Not really interested.

Finnegan's Wake: Ditto

[Clopin]

King Lear, and a bunch of other Shakespeare plays, but that's the major one: I'm gonna...

Don Quixote: I sort of lost my desire to read long novels, but I'm sure I'll get to this one eventually.

Moby Dick: So I sadly can't participate in the only literature related thread on here.

Ulysses: I'm sort of scared. I do plan to read it though since I like Joyce. I even own it, which ensures it will be read...

Literally anything by William Faulkner, Joseph Conrad or Charles Dickens: oops... I'll get to them.

[Jackson Richardson]

I've been around long enough to have read many well regarded books. I've read things that don't get me in order to see if they click.

I'm old enough now to think I don't want to bore/myself with books I won't enjoy. There's oddles of books I wouldn't re-read. The question is what I wouldn't read.

So, though I've read through Sons and Lovers, I'm never going to get to The Rainbow or Women in Love or indeed Lady Chat or anything by DHL.

I read Gravity's Rainbow and found it the most unpleasant novel I can remember reading. No more Pynchon.

I wouldn't call any work on Pompey's list fun, but he is missing out on some worthwhile books. Glad to see he is keeping Clarissa and Tristan Shandy as treats in future.

[Pompey Bum]

I wouldn't call any work on Pompey's list fun, but he is missing out on some worthwhile books. Glad to see he is keeping Clarissa and Tristan Shandy as treats in future.

Oh, I'm not writing those books off by any means. They are just my most embarrassing omissions. Joyce I may never get to, but the others are definitely in line. Lolita is more of a technical problem since I have trouble reading hard copy print. I suppose I could look for the senior citizen's large print Lolita, but that's just too weird. And Clarissa, like hair shirts, is not something I have Grace to rejoice in just yet.

There's oddles of books I wouldn't re-read.

I'm going through the opposite in my middle age. I've been reading literature since I was in my twenties. Some rereads are more rewarding than new ones. I picked up Crime and Punishment last night, which I hadn't read since I was a starving Raskolnikov myself, and was overwhelmed with its modernity; not modernity as a literary concept, but in the sense that it could have been written today. It made me want to reread The Idiot and The Brothers K, which are among my favorite novels already. I would like to read Our Mutual Friend, of course (and The Canterbury Tales looks like fun), but as I get older, rereads are becoming as important as new conquests.

So Clopin and JR had the stones to respond to this thread, which doesn't surprise me. Where are the rest of you?

[Danik 2016]

Paulo Coelho novels: never read and never will
Spilt Milk: These Chico Buarque novel is still asking to be read. I take it with me on my travels...
Ulysses: Didn´t have the courage yet.
Finnegan´s Wake: Read the first pages. I love this dense and poetic prose. But how does one wind ones way though an extense novel, when you understand barely 2 % of the content.
As for the 21. C literature, I know very little about it. I prefer reading and re-reading earlier works.

[Ecurb]

I bought "Bleak House" and plan to read it. I'm not a Dickens fan (although I've read 5 or 6 of his novels).

I haven't read many modern novels including "Infinite Jest" and "Gravity's Rainbow". Maybe some day.

I have never read a Faulkner novel (although I've read several stories). I'm not sure why. Something about him didn't appeal to me.

I have read the first 700 pages of Brother Karamozov twice, and abandoned it both times, partly because of distractions and partly because I didn't like it that much. I read and enjoyed Crime and Punishment.

I have read only the abridged "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

I have never read the Bible all through -- although I've read the famous parts: the New Testament and the first parts of Old Testament, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes.

Of the books on Pompey's list, I've read Sense and Sensibility (it's perhaps Austen's worst novel, but all six are fabulously great), Jane Eyre (good book, despite how unattractive Mr. Rochester is), The Great Gatsby (very good), Ulysses (it's a slog, but worth it), and Lolita (very good, although I prefer Pale Fire). You can add the remaining books on his list to mine.

[Clopin]

I have read only the abridged "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

I have never read the Bible all through -- although I've read the famous parts: the New Testament and the first parts of Old Testament, Psalms, Job, Ecclesiastes.

These are true for me as well. Except I only read the first twenty or thirty pages of the abridgment.

[Danik 2016]

"I have never read a Faulkner novel (although I've read several stories). I'm not sure why. Something about him didn't appeal to me."
Faulkner is a great author but also a relentless one. His stories are real nightmares. That doesn´t always appeal to the readers.

[Pompey Bum]

Never mind abridgments. Just take the time to actually read Gibbon. Or read something else if you don't have the time. Why would anyone want to shorten language as magnificent as that?

[Ecurb]

Never mind abridgments. Just take the time to actually read Gibbon. Or read something else if you don't have the time. Why would anyone want to shorten language as magnificent as that?

Because the original is so long? Actually, I own an abridgement. I have no idea where I got it. That's why I've read it.

[mona amon]

Oliver Twist, The Old Curiosity Shop, Barnaby Rudge, A Christmas Carol, Martin Chuzzlewit, Dombey and Son, Our Mutual Friend. I like to call myself a big fan of Dickens, so that's bad.

Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow - practically every modern novel from America, though I've read some Faulkner and Blood Meridian.

Oh yeah, quite a few Shakespeare.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Danik, I've read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Worst book ever!

Pompey, I've read almost everything on your list, except for Finnigan's Wake (is there anybody on Litnet who has?) and The Mill on the Floss. Actually I have not read any George Eliot other than Middlemarch. The woman bores me to tears.

[Pompey Bum]

Pompey, I've read almost everything on your list, except for Finnigan's Wake (is there anybody on Litnet who has?) and The Mill on the Floss. Actually I have not read any George Eliot other than Middlemarch. The woman bores me to tears.

Yeah, The Mill on the Floss looked slow (and I usually don't mind slow). I think JR likes it, though.

I wouldn't worry about Uncle Tom's Cabin, by the way. It had a huge historical impact, but as literature it wasn't much better than Daniel Koonz.

[Lokasenna]

Oh god, where to begin...

I'm slowly coming to terms with the idea that a single human lifetime is not enough to read all the books I want to...

P.S I was unimpressed with The Mill on the Floss - it started well enough, albeit moving at a glacial pace, but the final third is a complete mess where Eliot had clearly lost interest in her own story and had no real clue how to bring it all to a satisfying ending.

[Bill 42]

Pompey, I've read almost everything on your list, except for Finnigan's Wake (is there anybody on Litnet who has?)

I have read it. I understood none of it - not a single word! (Maybe I've used the word "read" incorrectly.) I looked at each individual word, but since I only read English I didn't understand any of it. But now I can brag that I've read it which makes my life complete. (Now I've used the word "life" incorrectly.)

[Pompey Bum]

I have read it. I understood none of it - not a single word! (Maybe I've used the word "read" incorrectly.) I looked at each individual word, but since I only read English I didn't understand any of it. But now I can brag that I've read it which makes my life complete. (Now I've used the word "life" incorrectly.)

Now, now, you are only allowed to brag about books you haven't read on this thread.