Two GCSEs in the subject, an A-level, an S-level, a STEP paper and a degree in English, and still...
Stuff I genuinely haven't read:
- 1984 - George Orwell
- Anything by Charles Dickens (with the exception of the first and last chapters of Bleak House for a tutorial and David Copperfield's Boyhood when I was at school)
- To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
- Paradise Lost - Milton (again with the exception of the first and last bits for essays at uni)
- Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier
- The Mill on the Floss - George Elliot. In fact anything by George Elliot. And what's a "floss" anyway?
- Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
- War and Peace or Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
- Any of Shakespeare's history plays (with the exception of Richard III, which doesn't really count)
- Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, and most of the other drivel from Ms Austen
And I don't like Hamlet. At all. In fact (look away now English teachers), I prefer Shakespeare's comedies to his tragedies. I think this makes me a bad person.
Help me out here - surely it's not just me who's been faking it all these years. I'll probably add to this list as I remember more. What haven't you read? My dirty secret's out... time for yours.
13 comments:
I'm sorry, I would share my dirty secrets, but I am so shocked by some of the items on your list that I am unable to speak.
Avoiding drivel from Ms Austen and tedium from Dickens, that I can understand, but how have you not read 1984 or Rebecca?!
(Actually, I can also understand not liking a lot of Shakespeare, and Victor Hugo does a good line in long winded tedious drivel so as long as you've seen Les Mis you don't need to read it, the musical gets the important bits... And don't even get me started on Milton, my god that man goes on!)
I own To The Lighthouse, do I get points for that?
I know, I know. You did well to pick out "1984" and "Rebecca", as they're the two about which I'm most ashamed.
Come on, Karen - I want to know your literary gaps!
No points for owning books, because I've still got my Norton Anthology somewhere...
Just to add to your pain mate, even I've read "To the Lighthouse"!
It's one of the 10 books I've read :o)
"Road to Wigan Pier", "War and Peace", "Shogun" and the one after it, and two shelves worth of classical looking stuff including the teachings of buddha that moved in with Ant and he claims to have read (not sure I believe him). Thinking about it I may have avoided George Elliot too, however I have read a fair amount of Thomas Hardy.
I look up floss, it would seem to be Soft, loosely twisted thread, as of silk or cotton, used in embroidery. Not sure how they fitted a mill onto it mind, cotton being quite slender and all.
hey, my name is matt. i love your blog. I'm a fellow blogger who lives
in London. I'm putting together a blogstock with the help of some
other people. i have been reading your blog for a few months, and am
excited to have finally gotten your email address! hopefully you get
this. since your web page is very popular, and you are an excelllllent
blogger, I was wondering if you'd like to take part, and help set up
such an event? I think that blogging is very underrated socially (not
politically) in London. Having friends and a former resident of the
Us, I've seen some very successful blog meet ups in LA and NYC. if
interested let me know. thanks for your time
let me know via email or comments on my blog, or yours or something.
Yep, not read any of the stuff on Karen's list either. Also, haven't read "Catch 22" or "The Lord of the Rings".
Have read loads of Hardy... but never finished "Tess of the D'Urbervilles". (Oh come on, you could see what was coming.)
Crikey, how on earth did I pass my degree? I have read pretty much all the Booker winners over the last ten years or so... But Bristol's modern literature module stopped at 1950. Go figure.
Matt
Thanks for your note - nice of you to take the time to write.
Unfortunately, I'm so busy at the minute that I'm actively trying to lose friends, rather than make new ones. Just this week I've been unkind to three of my closest mates. I'm hoping some of them will sod off so that I get some time back to myself.
Thanks anyway - and good luck with your meet-ups.
Now I am home I can survey my bookshelves, and it would seem I have subconsciously arranged them so the 'greats we all should read' are hidden behind the sofa.
More exciting is the shelf at easy grabbing height, it is full of things I want to read but haven't got to yet. It has an eclectic mix including, in no particular order, two by Harlan Coben, Memoirs of a Geisha, Rebecca's Tale (yes, they made sequel!), Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, three Tess Gerritsen's, and many other things. I think I'm up to 26 :)
Things I have read recently and can heartily recommend are 'The Shadow of the Wind' by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, 'Desert Flower' by Waris Dirie, and 'The Other Side of The Dale' by Gervase Phinn. All very good for very different reasons.
And I HAVE read both Lord of the Rings and Catch 22. That makes me special. ;)
As a fellow LESer, I have to confess that after two maths A-levels, I've yet to expand a bracket. In fact, the only thing I've integrated since I left is my fridge freezer.
The only Latin I can now remember were the Catullus poems which were part of the set texts - not exactly useful in polite society even to the very very few people who could understand the Latin in the first place!
Love the Blog Laura; if I ever head anywhere south of Loughborough I'll keep an eye out for your shows!
I never got past page 5 of the Bible. Does that count?
Is To The Lighthouse the one written like waves? I get seasick, so I've avoided that. If that's not the one written like waves, I've been avoiding all vaguely marine based 20th century novels, just in case.
I have never read:
Alice in Wonderland
Little Women
War and Peace
Robinson Crusoe
Any Dickens (well never completed)
Any George Eliot
Any P G Wodehouse
Might it be easier to list what I have read?
Cloud Atlas is annoying me. I will persevere, and blame you Laura if I am not completely satisfied at the end.
Oh - good call on P G Wodehouse. I tried reading one once, but never finished it. Add that to my list.
You'd like "Alice in Wonderland"... And "Little Women" is OK too.
And, unlike me, at least you can spell George Eliot. Did you know that she was really ugly? She finally got married, and on the first night of her honeymoon in Venice, her new husband jumped out of the window into the canal and killed himself.
I think that's true anyway. It's one of the only three things I remember from lectures at Bristol.
PS You are aware I didn't actually write "Cloud Atlas", aren't you?
I've never even heard of 'Cloud Atlas'!
And a no here on P J Wodehouse and War and Peace as well. I have read Little Women though, was a long time ago mind.
YES 'Drivel' and Austen together in a sentence without a negative!
i can't admit to not having read things yet as im still at uni...but il get working on my "unreading" list
Jack
Post a Comment