Books You Didn’t Read
We all know about lists of best selling books, books you should read before you die but what about books people bought but never finished ?
The classic in this genre in recent history was A Brief History in Time by Stephen Hawking. This is understandable in as much as it was a huge seller and greatly hyped though despite being written for non-experts it was too heavy for most it seems.
The following books hardly fall into this category, some quite the reverse in fact.
The Top Ten Unread Fiction Books
- Vernon God Little - DBC Pierre (Booker Prize Winner)
- JK Rowling - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Ulysses - James Joyce (fair enough !)
- Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
- Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
- The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie (boring book)
- The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
- War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (too long, needs editing)
- The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
- Crime and Punishment - Dostoevsky
The Top Ten Unread Non-Fiction Books
- The Blunkett Tapes - David Blunkett (boring politcal garbage)
- My Life - Bill Clinton
- My Side - David Beckham (yawnnn)
- Eats, Shoots & Leaves - Lynne Truss
- Wild Swans - Jung Chang
- Easy Way to Stop Smoking - Allen Carr (why stop, smoking’s nice)
- The Downing Street Years - Margaret Thatcher (too many pages)
- I Can Make You Thin - Paul McKenna (move around & eat less instead)
- Jade Goody Autobiography (if you bought it you probably can’t read anyway)
- Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? (why indeed, someone tell me)
There is a suggestion that in a digital modern era attention spans fall and general interest in reading is diminishing. There is some truth in this, anyone who seriously studies search marketing will already be aware of how many words in a block of text is the optimum and how much you can put on a page before you get the back click.
There’s no doubt the EGO effect (eyes glaze over) is a factor in the reading of ‘quality’ literature but I believe a large factor is people buying what they feel they ought to buy or be seen to have. This is as old as books themselves, hundreds of years ago people were building libraries to impress others.
After all that waffle there is one thing that cannot be ignored, these books failed to capture the imagination of the reader, that is a failure in many ways - a fantastic work of fiction should be able to grab a reader even if the genre is not immediately appealing.
The book I started and never finished was War and Peace - how about you ?
Rod said,
March 12, 2007 @ 2:08 pm
As an aside, this post is too long, nicely split up and laid out but most visitors will only look at the lists before bailing out.
Nice to know I am using my time wisely !
the dinosaur said,
March 12, 2007 @ 11:55 pm
I read War and Peace from cover to cover when I was in my teens, I cannot imagine doing so again but that is down to lack of time not the fault of the content! Too many other demands on my evenings, like the computer, it is a changing world and the book was written in an age when the longer the story lasted the better. The lists include plenty of recent books, if people dont have time for those should we shorten them too? Are we going to abridge all the classic literature like they do for children? What does this say about the future not just for books but about the way we live our lives now? Answers on a postcard as I dont have time to read anything longer.
Rod said,
March 13, 2007 @ 8:47 am
Dino
some very good points - condensed books !
What about going much further than Readers Digest did. Just give a brief overview of the main characters and the story say in about a chapter !
You can sum most books up this way so people could read a classic a night in bed
The Bluffer’s Guide to Literature !
Regards
Rod
Ayse Erin said,
March 18, 2007 @ 12:04 am
Hi Rod.
The Viennese artist Julius Deutschbauer has realized an installation about the issue, which has been presented last year at BOZAR (Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Belgium): http://www.bozar.be/activity.php?id=6110
He’s built a library out of books people haven’t read. Among those, all the “should be read” classics, and number one… the Bible!(he’s received 15 of it).
Best,
Ayse Erin
Rod said,
March 18, 2007 @ 9:04 am
Hi Ayse
thanks for taking the time to comment and for the the info, very interesting and much appreciated.
You’re always welcome back
Regards
Rod
Gabriel Oak said,
March 19, 2007 @ 9:02 am
I started and finished Nos 2, 4, 6, 7 and 8 on the fiction list and Nos 4, 5 and 10 on the non-fiction list. I have not started any of the others, and have no intention of doing so.
I enjoyed the unashamed escapism of all the Harry Potter books, and I could hardly put down ‘Wild Swans’, which was fascinating just because the events described were so horrific.
‘War and Peace’ is far too long and wordy, ‘The Alchemist’ is just plain dull, and I do not have the words to express my disgust at ‘Midnight’s Children’ which is a thoroughly unpleasant book. It has completely put me off reading anything else by Rushdie, or any other Booker prizewinners.
Books I have not finished include anything by Dorothy Dunnet, and one called, I think, ‘Niccolo Rising’.
Rod said,
March 19, 2007 @ 7:28 pm
Gabriel
thanks for the input, and for using such a fine upstanding literary name !
I very much echo your thoughs on Rushdie and War and Peace is simply too much like hard work to be enjoyable.
I have not read any Dunnet but I have several I cannot sell so could do
seems collectors share your opinion too
Thanks again and do return to comment anytime
Regards
Rod