Books You Can't Quite Get Round To Reading

[AB Editor]

I have had the girl with the dragon tattoo on the "to read" pile since it was first published here, well before any of the hype of (last?) summer.

I still haven't read it. I just can't bring myself to. I don't know why particularly, many people who I trust recommend it.

What book do you seem to be completely unable to pick up and read?

[Tilly2]

Any book that's hyped up. If everyone's reading it, I don't want to.

[woofgang]

Schindler's list. I really tried, can't do it.
The Dragon Tattoo trilogy, skimmed the first, super skimmed the second, couldn't manage the third at all. I only skimmed the first because the books had been loaned by a friend.
Fifty shades. Couldn't even finish the Amazon free sample.
I agree with Tilly regarding hype too.

on a different but tangential subject, here's one that is worth a look

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

[bibblebub]

Ed, watch the original Swedish tv version of The Girl Who... i.e. Millenium trilogy, it's v good (and the first part is better than the American movie version imo.). 6 episodes of 2 hours each were cut down into 3 films, each of about 2.5 hours duration.

[Canary42]

Being exclusively anti-hyped books can mean you miss a good book. Fifty Shades, I agree, was AWFUL. But I enjoyed the Millenium Trilogy, especially the feisty main character.

To get back to Ed's original question, I bought the His Dark Materials trilogy about a year ago and can't get past the first chapter somehow, most unimpressed I'm afraid.

Each to their own I suppose.

[Rosetta]

Its worth a read ed. I made a New Years resolution to read Charles Dickens again but I am a master of procrastination ;-(
I've just started The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng. Looks good so far

[EcclesCake]

Catch 22 and Ulysses are still gathering dust on the book shelf......

[bibblebub]

(slight correction - the tv episodes to which i referred are each 1.5 hours long)

[Tilly2]

I might read a hyped up book when it makes it to the charity shop.

[Canary42]

Catch22 and Ulysses ? Unlikely bedfellows surely - LOL

[AB Editor]

"most unimpressed I'm afraid"

That's a shame Canary, it's good if you know a little Milton and can bounce along the connections there. I think the characters & engagement is aimed much younger than I assume you are, so it can seem a little clumsy.

Hi Woof, I don't read Crime as a general rule, because it usually bores me.

Here's my recommendation for the week:

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

It's post modern Jewish sci-fi about the poison of language

[AB Editor]

"Catch22 and Ulysses ? Unlikely bedfellows surely - LOL"

I think they're pretty similar really. Catch 22 is particularly good.

[Brinjal]

Read the first two millenniums but could manage the third. Catch 22 is great. Loved it have read it a couple of times to give myself a giggle.

[EcclesCake]

Indeed Canary......

Ab Editor, what was the book you suggested for the AB book club.....Jewish Policeman's Ball or summat like that. A friend also recommended it and I can't for the life of me get the title to stick!

[Canary42]

///aimed much younger than I assume you are///

A good point - age probably does come into it for some books - and your assumption is correct, I'm 70.

On the subject of hype, I read (many times as I enjoyed it so much) The Lord of the Rings trilogy years and years before any hype at all appeared.

[AB Editor]

Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation

This one? The Yiddish Policemen's Union. That's a cracker! His other books are also wonderful - Chabom is up there with David Mitchell in terms of "muscular prose", probably only a rung down from someone like McCarthy

[AB Editor]

LOTR is great, when you realise it's about WW2 :) It can be a bit of an indulgent faff otherwise.

[woofgang]

Tolkien himself says not Ab Editor

"Still, we have to admit that Tolkien has been definite about saying that The Lord of the Rings series is not specifically about World War II. He has pointed out that he started writing the series right after The Hobbit, before war with Hitler seemed inevitable. In his "Foreword" to the new edition of The Lord of the Rings series in 1965, Tolkien wrote:

The real war does not resemble the legendary war in its process or its conclusion. If [World War II] had inspired or directed the development of the legend, then certainly the Ring would have been seized and used against Sauron; he would not have been annihilated but enslaved, and Barad-dûr would not have been destroyed but occupied [...] In that conflict both sides would have held hobbits in hatred and contempt: they would not long have survived even as slaves."

http://www.shmoop.com/two-towers/anti-war-allegory.html

Eye Contact isn't a crime novel as such. Its more about a bunch of people drawn together by a crime.

[AB Editor]

Tolkien said a lot of things :) I think his stated primary purpose was to "give the English their mythology/folklore back"?

[follyfancier]

I bought The Duchess when the film first came out but couldn,t get past chapter 1