I’m a pleasure reader, not first and foremost, but simply so; I read for pleasure. My bookshelves are filled with ‘trash’ literature and you’d be hard pressed to find anything that a literary critic would consider worthy of a hard back, let alone a leather bound covering. I have Stephen King, Dean Koontz, P.C and Kristen Cast and Cassandra Clare, Richard Laymon and Douglas Adams; you’ll find George Martin’s unfinished Song of Ice and Fire on one shelf and an entire section given over to vampire romance on another. If I love it, I love it and I read it without a thought as to what impression it gives to those perusing my shelves.
I have read classics, I’ve read the occasional cerebral piece of literature, but more often than not they leave me cold and unfulfilled, Wuthering Heights and anything by Dickens doesn’t interest me in the slightest. However I do have a bucket list of unread books, proper books that I want to and will eventually read. Here are five of them
The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov
My friend read this a while back and it so profoundly resonated with her that she got Behemoth (the cat) tattooed on her arm. I’ve bought it now, it’s on my bookshelf and it’s waiting for me to open that front cover and dive in, but I’m a little scared of it if I am being honest. It’s Russian firstly and even scarier it is Russian satire. What if I don’t get it?
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Ulysses – James Joyce
Why is this on so many of your favourites lists? When I’ve looked at it, glaring back at me from it’s dusty spot at the back of my shelves it seems almost as though it is daring me to try and understand its story. I remember reading that Joyce had “put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant”. I think it will be worth the effort though, and one day I will pick it up and reign victorious over its eighteen episodes.
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Why have I never read this? How did I get through school without so much as glimpsing a page of this classic? Full of mythic grandeur, poetic majesty, and symbolic power this epic tale of Captain Ahab and his nemesis is the sort of thing I devoured as a teenager and yet I missed it. I don’t yet have a copy but when I find one (I have this strange desire to read an old copy, I want a tatty and well loved book and not a Kindle version) I will make up for my youthful omission.
Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
This is just me being contrary. Whenever we run any polls or discuss anything about literature that has negative connotations, or leaves people discomfited, this title is right at the top of the pile. Yet some of those whose literary opinion I hold most dear adore this novel. They have been accosted in public for reading it and yet they still consider it to be a book that should be read by everybody. Is it a paedophile’s how to book as the haters claim, or is it much deeper than just sex and is the paedophilic aspect not all that important? One day I will find out.
The Lord of the Rings – J.R.R. Tolkien
Yes, I admit it, I have never read Tolkien’s epic; I have tried but the constant flicking back and forth to translate all that language drove me potty. In my defense I was about 20 when I last tried and I had about a thousand other books I wanted to read so perhaps I was just too impatient. I’ve seen the films and enjoyed them, the genre is a favourite of mine and dammit I live in Tolkien country, I’ve been to Sarehole Mill, I’ve seen the Two Towers, I’ve stood outside Tolkien’s home and yet I’ve never read his most famous works. I have the first two books sitting on my shelves and I will give them one last try before admitting failure.
So there you go, those are the five books I feel I should have read, books I want to read and yet have never quite got round to it. Master and Margarita, once I have finished reading Joe Hill’s Fireman, I’m going to open you up and reduce this list to four.
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I did not like Lolita at all, even putting aside the subject matter. I didn’t like the writing style or the characters. I never felt invested in them, which I find always makes a book more difficult for me to like. The Lord of the Rings, however…POWER THROUGH! You will love it, just get past the first 50-100 pages. I had a hard time the first time through, now it is one of my favorite books of all time. I recently re-read it, and it’s still wondrous to me!
Lord of the Rings is amazing, you’re allowed to skip Tom Bombadil and the barrow wights in book one. It’s a book I envy people who haven’t read it yet. Lolita is good too. The other three, life is too short, and I speak as someone who has read them. Read a couple of reviews on Goodreads so you can pretend and crack some vampire lit and eat chocolate and you won’t miss a thing. There is no point in reading bad books or dusting skirting boards when there are so many good books to be read!