The Bookshelf of Constant Reproach
NPR.org has a blog series based on the idea of “The Bookshelf of Constant Reproach,” where contributors confess a list of books they’ve always meant to read but have never gotten around to. The subheading, “Best Books You Never Read” is another way of getting at the theme with slightly less guilt, but the results are interesting nonetheless.
Moby Dick and anything by William Faulkner seem to pop up quite often here, along with another one of my own (perhaps) shameful reading omissions, Charles Dickens. The great Russian novels are well represented as well, especially an imposing Big Three I’ve started and never finished myself: War and Peace, The Brothers Karamazov, and Crime and Punishment.
Surprisingly, many commenters cop to never having read Lolita while on the other hand greatly enjoying Reading Lolita in Teheran. Hemingway and Steinbeck are quite well represented on the list as well, and they also appear along with Ayn Rand in more than a few comments in regard to “Books I’ve Actually Read But Wish I Hadn’t.”
Before I end up feeling too guilty on this topic, though, I like to remember the immortal thoughts of Mark Twain: “A classic is a book that everyone wants to have read but no one wants to read.”
Commenters also note a few interesting websites where readers can trade unwanted titles with other readers, like bookins.com, paperbackswap.com, and the very nicely designed bookmooch.com.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
I barter my books with http://www.barterquest.com ! recently I traded sidney sheldons’ “nothing lasts forever”… very nice reading and very nice website
Lolita is one of my all-time favorite books. “Lolita. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul.” Nobokov’s use of the English language is intoxicating.
As far as great books I’ve never read… I haven’t read Ulysses. I did crack it some years ago and then put it down. It’s still on my bookshelf waiting… waiting.
And of course, there’s a whole host of other titles that I’ve never tackled from The Great Gatsby (one of my niece’s favorite books, and one she rereads from time to time) to Moby Dick. With all of those other books I really *want* to read, I’ve never taken the time to make sure I experience as many of the classics as I probably should. So many books, so little time.
Moby Dick? That’s another in my “wish I hadn’t had to read in school.” The plot may be timeless, but the appeal of the time of explaining every single minute aspect of the ship, even those that had no bearing at all on the story, was just dull.