comments

1. Michael Smith on March 22nd, 2011 at 10:11 am

   Books I haven’t finished: Infinite Jest (my kindle tells me I’m 48% through – I’ve been reading it since December, November maybe).

2. Deron Bauman on March 22nd, 2011 at 10:20 am

   Ulysses. Moby Dick.

3. Michael Smith on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:10 am

   The Road, Wonder Boys, White Teeth, Twilight.

4. Amanda Mae on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:11 am

   Infinite Jest, which I’ve started and stopped about 4 times.

   Everything. I’ve been going to the fiction section of the huge Central library in LA and taking one book off each shelf alphabetically to read in an attempt to read something from every shelf (and get to know the collection) over time, but that will take several years at least. When I browse I realize I haven’t read anything and all I do is read.

   Penelope Fitzgerald. The new Aimee Bender.

5. Sheila Ryan on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:32 am

   I haven’t read The Golden Bowl several times.

6. Dave Vogt on March 22nd, 2011 at 11:45 am

   It’s a very long list

7. Andrew Simone on March 22nd, 2011 at 12:41 pm

   Ditto with Deron. I’ve tried both twice. The first I still think is unreadable, the second failure was just because of bad timing.

   Oh, and I also haven’t read The Brothers K.

8. Sheila Ryan on March 22nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm

   You’d like The Brothers K, Andrew. At least I think you would.

9. Sheila Ryan on March 22nd, 2011 at 1:01 pm

   I’ve been working on Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon since 2007. There are some books you just can’t rush.

10. Deron Bauman on March 22nd, 2011 at 1:17 pm

    I couldn’t read Ulysses for a long time, and then I got to where I could, and then the moment seemed to be gone.

11. Casey on March 22nd, 2011 at 1:25 pm

    Do you ever have the problem where there’s a book you think you ought to read, it’s not really working out for you, but you feel ashamed and just can’t put it away unread, and so you leave it on your nightstand for a year with the bookmark sticking out at 25%?

    I do, and that book is Ulysses.

12. Michael Smith on March 22nd, 2011 at 2:21 pm

    I’ve never tried Ulysses. But I know what you mean Casey. Also, I’ve started books I’ve enjoyed tremendously but things happen and interest fades or it sits on the nightstand and seems more like work than entertainment.

    Infinite Jest was like that but I’m beginning to feel like I’m past the point of no-return. I read a (small) bit each day and even if it takes me another 3 months, I’m going to finish the thing this time.

13. Daryl Scroggins on March 22nd, 2011 at 2:58 pm

    I tend to favor short fiction, so I have struggled some with Proust and Henry James, and have not read some of their works that I should have. I have read Ulysses, though, and I remember the experience the way one might recall a two-week holiday in a wonderfully strange country. It’s the music of it I think of, and the fecund vibrance of the narrative that is so skillfully punctuated with stretches of sadness brought by perspective–walking a dog on a beach so bright and dim at the same time that it doesn’t seem to have a horizon.

14. Joshua Goodwin on March 22nd, 2011 at 3:16 pm

    Oh, “have” would be much more straightforward.

15. jbc on March 22nd, 2011 at 4:56 pm

    i went to one of those canon-busting high schools out in the pacific northwest (we read ursula hegi in ap english), but still this does not excuse my never having read: twain, hemingway, austen, faulkner, bronte, chaucer & many many more.

16. Rick Neece on March 22nd, 2011 at 6:20 pm

    We have five bookcases of books, some tall, some small.(That’s hardly a library.) Of the collection, there are a few books I’ve read through. Many I started thinking I would finish. Most fell by the wayside in my attempt thinking I would read everything, but move on to the next thing delivered to my eyes. I’ve lost count. So much! So much in the world to consider. I have almost given up on knowing everything.

17. Rick Neece on March 22nd, 2011 at 6:24 pm

    I have touched all the books in this house. Is it possible I got something from all of them?

18. Cindy Scroggins on March 22nd, 2011 at 7:02 pm

    One of the great appeals of retirement is the promise of time to read. The standout of not-reads, for me, has to be Macbeth. I’ve read the most obscure Shakespeare plays but somehow managed not to read the one that everyone else has read.

19. Carole Corlew on March 23rd, 2011 at 8:22 am

    I promise to one day actually read my book group selections. The latest one was “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand. I think I actually might like this one, about a WWII bombardier whose plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean. But I consider reading it and the Pacific morphs into the English Channel and my mother’s fiance shivers there before slipping under the cold, dark water a world away from his Tennessee farm. Strange, this wasn’t my tragedy, but so often I see its shadow.

20. Sheila Ryan on March 23rd, 2011 at 11:42 am

    Trying to say something about the shadows of other people’s grief, and it’s not coming out right, but I think I understand, Carole.

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