You want me to read what MKF?? Wednesdy 1/15/03

[WebWarlock]

Ok,

We have had lots of book threads here.

But this one is different, trust me!

Has someone ever told you you had to read this or that book because it is so good and you just thought it sucked?

Here are my two examples, keep in mind that these are my opinions only, they more than likely reflect on me rather than the book or the people that wanted me to read them.

Catcher in the Rye, I thought it was awful. If I wanted to read sophomoric drivel I'll read a Buffy script. I just don't see what is so damn attractive about this book. Sorry.

Dune now this one I get. My wife RAVES about Dune, she loves it. She reads it like once a year. I can tell it is a great book, I just have never been able to get into it. I begin to loose interest around page 40. One of these days I will read it and I am sure I will like it.

Now my wife is the exact same way with Lord of the Rings she never read it and has no desire to right now. She loved the movies and the Hobbit. I tell her she can read any of my paper back versions or even my limited edition hardbound with fold-out map, but no interest yet.

So Kittens, what great piece of literature have you just passed on?

Have a great day all!

Warlock

[hellmouthhottie20]

Moby Dick, I was always told that i should read it, and was given it as a present, but i read the 1st chapter and i just couldnt get on with it.
The person who gave it to me asked me if i liked it and i admit i lied and said yes, i felt real bad, so i watched the movie instead, well, its a comprimise,

I love the book Girl interuppted and read it years before the movie and made my friend read it and she hated it,
i told her not to worry.
what ever floats your boat!

Caz

[sparrow]

The first present my girlfriend gave me was a copy of the first Harry Potter book. I told her I had not read it, I know I am probably the only one left on the planet who has not read it. During vacation she started to read it to me. She has also recommended The Mists of Avalon to me.

[Still Waters Run Deep]

Yes it's strange, unless a book grabs me in the first couple of chapters then it becomes hard work. Something to do with moods methinks.

James Joyce - Ulysses left me completely unmoved, as did Catch 22

Sadly great books from the 19th C also left me, the entire Dickens canon, most of Shakespear. Wuthering Heights etal.... they all passed me by [Ruth will be cringing by now ]

In my defence I loved Joseph Conrad, HG Wells, Jules Verne, Conan Doyle as a lad...yes all 'laddish' authors I know.

Once a book starts being a chore it has to be put aside. consequently I have around 20 books stacked up in various stages of reading.

[tommo]

*runs in, cringes, runs out again*

[Still Waters Run Deep]

ruth:

*runs in, cringes, runs out again*

What you doin' out there?

[Patches]

Hey great idea.

Two books really stick out in my mind. Good friend recommended Nightwood by Djuaa Barnes; she raved over it. I picked up a copy and eagerly started reading. I kept thinking, Ok, she liked it, it must get better, I'll keep reading. Nope, by the time I put the book down, I wanted to strangle the lead character, Felix - I kept thinking, enough already, please slit your wrists NOW! - Ycch, I hate wimpy characters. I can look past plot holes your could push a black hole through, but wimpy characters who refuse to learn, blah a blight on them!

Other book is Anne Marie Macdonald's Fall On Your Knees, now I know why I never watched Oprah - just can't empathise with a character who is motivated by incest, nope nope nope.

I hate books that are, "plot driven" where the writer feels that character development is unimportant, and all the matters is his/her grand ideals - (humm, why does this sound familiar.)

I also take a pass on just about every book in the Canadian Literary Cannon - bored now! Well I guess there's one other that came highly recommended (at the risk of offending ...) the Bible - I read it, had some good stories, interesting moral conflicts and all that, but the punchline was they expected me to believe it.

[WiccansIllusion]

Tim definetly!

Hemingways Old Man in the Sea

Now I know it's a classic, but...it's a novel about a man trying to catch a fish. Enough said. I will never read it again, and had to read it for Highschool.

Now Catcher in the Rye I actually liked..


But go figure

[jixer]

Hello Kittens-

Stephan R. Donaldson's the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Never got past the darkness and bailed out at about page thirty. Later I hear my friend who recommended it saying it was really dark and there was a rape by the main character but by the third book the main character is redeemed. No thanks. He still watches BtVS by the way.

I've read one Harry Potter book. My goddaughter insisted.


Thanks for the odd thread.

Jixer

[TaraManiac]

Happy Wednesday all!

I have to say I can get into DUNE either... one of my friends totally Loves it and he recommended it to me, I gave it a try but gosh, i couldn't even get to page 40 ...
I don't remember of any others... Oh Yeah! LOTR, most of the people i hear talking about it totally Love it, but I don't know, It just doesn't get my Atention... who knows, maybe one day i read it coz i have nothing else to do and discover i was wrong.. hehe,

anyways, U have a nice day

-Lila-

[AmberEyedDragon]

I have to say...I eagerly picked up the Excorsist...ya know...I hadn't seen the movie, I thought the books were always better. ...By the time I was done I was bored to tears. I couldn't stand it, it was just horrible and boring.

Sadly enough, I can't seem to make it through Dracula either. It interests me...but I've started it a million times and..just...never...finish. Gah!

~Sara

[Pipsqueak]

OH. MY. GOD.

I am on a self-imposed hiatus from the Kitten Board until Friday (have lots and lots of work to do, and this board can distract me for hours!!), but I just had to break it in order to share the news.

Fred Phelps is coming to my town.

Yes, ladies and gents, Mr. "God Hates Gays" himself will be arriving in Nashville, Tennessee next Tuesday in order to protest a gay-rights bill. (Which is actually something of a miracle in and of itself; the so-called "Buckle of the Bible Belt", Nashville, is about to pass an anti-discrimination bill for gays. If you look up, you may see a herd of pigs flying overhead.)

And here I thought the biggest protest was going to be by the Southern Baptists refusing to hold their annual convention in our town. (Color me disappointed.)

Anyway, there's a news article here (beware, there are quotes from Phelps at the end). Should be a fun and exciting day. If there are people protesting the protesters, I may show up and join them. The bill is still facing a LOT of opposition, even after several amendments were added to clarify that "sexual orientation" does not, in fact, include pedophilia, and that religious organizations will still be allowed to hate and discriminate.

Someone remind me why I still live here?

[Ben Varkentine]

I want you to read this. It's mostly off-topic, although it does raise the question "What industry chief doesn't dream about being able to market his product in an atmosphere where the public has no information save that provided by the manufacturer?"

Which reminded me of the "Tara's death was necessary because Joss thought it was, end of story" mindset we run into sometimes.

But that's just an incidental note. What I want you to read is...

"The War Against Movie Critics"

salon.com/ent/movies/feat...index.html

[darkmagicwillow]

I've actually read and liked a lot of the misliked books: [i:e1b5668223]Dune[/i:e1b5668223], [i:e1b5668223]LotR[/i:e1b5668223], the Harry Potter books.

But Hemingway. Yuck. My mother loved him so I read so many of his books, and I loathed them all along with his simple, short sentences.

Here's one that will get me stoned: Shakespeare. It's not him really; I just hate reading scripts. I love seeing the plays performed, and good movie versions of them, but reading scripts is just painful compared to reading a complete prose story.

[darkmagicwillow]

Good article, Ben. I'd like to bring up another worry: How long will it be legal to review movies?

Sound like a stupid question?

Think again. It is [b:c9c01fb78e]already[/b:c9c01fb78e] illegal to publish reviews of some software without submitting the review to the software company for approval. Guess how many bad reviews will be approved. Most commercial database software is released under such a restrictive license.

Books and movies on digital media are subject to the same laws, and they're already beginning to apply them to textbooks on DVD.

[tommo]

To my great chagrin, I've never read any of the LOTR series. I had to teach The Hobbit once, and honestly, there's nothing like teaching literature to...well, to put you off reading literature.

I've never read The Mists of Avalon, although I'm under severe pressure to do just that. Ahem. I'm hoping if I put out enough perhaps the person pressuring me to read it might forget she ever mentioned it to me.

I wish that I'd read the classics; Dr Zhivago and War and Peace. I always admire people who can quote incidents and ideas from novels like that; mainly because I'm an intellectual snob. Without any foundation for that, naturally. Heh.

[gspiggott]

One of my best friends gave me the Outlander books for Christmas last year. Hated them and found the heroine insufferable.So I bluffed my way through discussing them with her while they gathered dustbunnies under the bed.I wish Hemingway had shot himself earlier, you didn't miss much with Dr. Zhivago and War and Peace wasn't the same after Prince Andrei died. Oh and the borzois slept on the sofas.That's as deep as I get.

[TromDeGrey]

Thank goodness I'm not the only person on the face of the earth that doesn't like Shakespeare!! Maybe it's just the ugly American in me, but I just can't stay awake through any of it.

[La]

my dad bought me a dickens book (i think it was david copperfield) when i was probably in 3rd or 4th grade, and i couldn't get into it then, and haven't touched a dickens book since. when i was in korea, we had a limited supply of books that we could read because we basically just traded books around with other english-speakers, so you were at the mercy of other people's tastes. i ended up reading and loving jane eyre (did i spell that right?), but being bored stiff by wuthering heights.

[oneyedchicklet]

Hello everyone.
All the books that were required reading in high school I absolutely hated. "Old Man and the Sea", "Annie Get Your Gun". The only one I ever liked and has become my favorite book of all time is "To Kill A Mockingbird"
I told my daughter to read it when she gets bored. She watched the video with Gregory Peck and she really liked it. I still have a copy of it on my bookshelf. Its a classic, and I've read it about 10 times. I don't think I've read anything I've liked as much as that book.

Love to All,
Barb

[WebWarlock]

Jixer, I agree with you. I could not get through Thomas Covenant either, though I got a bit further along. I have to admit the rape put me off as well and I was 14 at the time. Though Stephan Donaldson has written other books that I liked better.

WI, Never read Old Man. But my brother dressed up as Hemingway for Halloween one year. He wore a fishing hat and drank a lot. Could have been me fishing.

Pip. That sucks about Freddie Phelps.

Well gotta go teach now....

Warlock

[Rosenberg]

I was absolutely captivated by the film, Dr. Zhivago, so after seeing it, I just had to read the book. Bad idea! I was totally disappointed in the book because I already had the image of Julie Christie firmly implanted in my minds eye. The movie really didnt follow the book at all, and it was kind of frustrating to me because I loved the romance in the film which I just didnt feel when reading the novel. Dune is another book that friends of mine have raved about which I just couldn't get into.

[Kalita]

I had to read Catcher in grade 11 English. I can count myself as somewhat more literate, now, but it wasn't a fun or enjoyable read.

Same for Dune, which I did read of my own volition. Never quite got it, and the '84 movie wasn't much help. It took the Sci-Fi Channel's miniseries of it to get me to say, 'oh, that's what it's about'. Go figure.

I've yet to read any Hemingway or Joyce or Dickens, and I have no plans to. Anyone wanna argue with that?

[Consolata]

Faranheit 451 just couldn't get into at all..The LOTR books really tough to read for me so I'm just catching the movies...On the flipside..I've been recommending White Teeth by Zadie Smith to everyone and my mom's had it for awhile and she calls me last weekend and asks me all these questions about it and says she's on page 70 something, later in the convo she tells me she's actually on 24 and then I bust up laughing and tell her it's ok, let it go, but she won't. She's the type that has to finish it since she's started it.

[Patches]

That frightens me DMW, a lot more than your zombies! Also received this from a friend a few days ago. The implications are just as scarry.

Dear listers,

Please take a minute to read this mail. It is very important.

The British Government is intending to introduce new licensing laws governing the performance and rehearsal of music in public buildings, a move that will drastically affect the whole culture of music-making in England and Wales. Essentially, what they are also trying to do is legally redefine the notion of "performance" to include "performance and/or rehearsal". They want all venues (and this includes any church holding rehearsals or performances not directly related to the religious function of the building) to be subject to a Public Entertainments License. Currently they haven't published a fee but leaks to date have suggested that this fee will be between 500 and 1000 per annum.

Clearly this will do a lot of harm to both amateur and professional music, drama, and dance - informal rehearsal venues will be a lot thinner on the ground as smaller organisations that play host to choirs, amateur theatre, musical groups, and concerts will simply not be able to afford the license. It will be illegal even to burst into song spontaneously in the pub, as the current two-in-a-bar rule will be abolished, and any "entertainment" at all, however informal, will require a license. Failure to comply? Currently
suggested penalties include a 20,000 fine or a 6 month prison sentence.

It's worth noting that not only the administrator of an unlicensed venue but also any musician performing in such a
venue would be criminalised. If you want to read the whole Bill (greatfun, I can assure you!), it can be found at

www.parliament.the-statio...html#j1s1.

This threatens the whole spectrum of musical performance, from a production of Dream of Gerontius at Worcester Cathedral in the Three Choirs Festival, via school performances, music at weddings, and hospital concerts, right
through to folk sessions in the local pub (a spontaneous activity encouraged in Scotland and Ireland). Closer to
home, the fundraising work we do through concerts in our local churches will no longer become a tenable way of supporting our local charities, and reduces the role the Church can play in the local community.

There is a petition on-line, to be found at www.petitiononline.com/2i...ition.html
(the wording of this is taken from an early day motion, the text of which can be found at edm.ais.co.uk/weblink/htm...l/ref=331)
when I checked five minutes ago, this had over 7000 signatures, more than double the number there yesterday!. If you are a musician, or feel strongly about this, please can I urge you to sign this petition, and also forward this message on to anyone you can think would be affected or would care
about the issue.
Best
Emma
Emma Preston-Dunlop <prestondunlop@btinternet.com>

At this point, I'm suggesting everyone read Orwell's 1984 - it ain't so outta date as you might think!

[NoveltyAct]

Possession, by A.S. Byatt. Though it seemed almost sacrilegious, as an English literature major, to admit it--since most of my classmates were frothing at the mouth in their enjoyment of it. But I've never been able to get through the damn thing. I used to keep picking it up, trying to continue on from the chapter I left off at, and I'd just get...bored. *shrug* I gave up a few years ago. It's still on my shelf with a bookmark stuck in it.

Oh, and Ruth? You're not the only one who hasn't read the Lord of the Rings series. *ducks the razzes* I missed out on a lot of the classic series' when I was a child for some reason, and am only very recently starting to catch up. I actually went out and bought the entire LOTR series after watching Two Towers because I got impatient and wanted to know how it all ends.

~petra

[Penrose Orleans]

Man, do I have a lot of these...

Any play by Shakespeare (I really love his sonnets) and the Dickens collection really stick out in my mind... though I couldn't really appreciate some Hemingway and most of the Dostoevsky novels (exception: MOST of the Brothers Karamazov).

I have to admit, though, that my taste in books has left others with a bitter taste in their mouths, as well (I don't know why!). Some recommendations for which I've been criticized: Immortality (Milan Kundera), Being and Nothingness (Jean-Paul Sartre), and The Island of the Day Before (Umberto Eco)-- these make me sad, since they're practically my favorite books ever, and no one I know likes them too much... so feel for those poor souls who put their tastes on the line for their friends! -Nora

[taralicious]

I've only torn up and thrown away three books in my entire life.
1.The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike.
Bloody hell, this was the most appalling piece of drivel I've ever had to read. It was for a class at university.
I tore it up and stood over this railroad bridge and cast the torn pages into the Iowa River.
2. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
What the hell was this about? Some woman goes off her trolley by being shut up in this room and has psychotic episodes where the wallpaper is coming to life and is going to strangle her with the vines so she rips it all off exposing the wood panelling underneath. End of story.
3. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I'm not afraid of Virginia Woolf, I just believe that when those monkeys got done writing Hamlet with the typewriter they could have cranked out something far better than this load of codswallop.
I hate stream-of-consciousness rubbish, why doesn't she just shut her bloody cakehole and quit whining about the futility of existence and just take the gas pipe.

[willow4tara2gether4eva]

I have tried to read "Catcher in the Rye" myself many times and simply could not get into it.

"valley of the dolls" is also one I read after strong reconmendation, but just plain didn't like.

[relativegirl]

A Confederacy of Dunces.

Just.
Couldn't.
Care.
Enough.
To.
Finish.

But then what do I know? I adore Hemingway and LOTR, and I made it through all of the Thomas Covenant series.