Guilty secrets: books we SAY we've read...but haven't

**buttmunch** · October 21st, 2009, 04:57 PM

Originally Posted by zigzag

well i know that in the early 80s i tried to donate some Nancy Drews to the local library and they were rejected for not being appropriate. it was 83 to be exact as i was not working that summer so i remember it specifically. i thought that was downright unreasonable. so if that was any indication of the times, the 70s should be have stricter. thats just one persons thought, and i'm certainly not opposed to many opinions here. the books were obviously read and nobody said anything.

I think the '70's were far mroe liberal than the '80's, which is when the whole moral majority/reagan bullshit kicked off. I can't believe, though, that Nancy Drew was rejected! I read over 100 of them before I hit junior high...and then my sister nicked them and sold them. Bitch!

**JuicyLucy** · October 21st, 2009, 04:59 PM

The diary of Anne Frank and Angela's Ashes. I watched the movies instead.

**buttmunch** · October 22nd, 2009, 10:21 AM

The Diary of Anne Frank was banned? For what, being too realistic? I remember doing a report on it in the 5th grade. Angela's Ashes, same thing. Sure there's a bit of naughty goings on but it's a fantastic and moving story. God, schools are so stupid. I'm glad my parents let me read whatever I wanted.

**NVash** · December 17th, 2009, 06:14 PM

I cant recall lying and saying I read a book when I havent. Usually I tell people I tried to but never finished. Some books in that list are Catch-22, Shogun and Moby Dick. I find these books to be amazing to start but man they just get so boring in the middle that you barely care anymore.

Books that I started reading in high school but never finished? To Kill A Mockingbird and A Time To Kill. To Kill A Mockingbird was a school assignment that the teacher never had us finish, she made us jump to another book. Ill never forget how angry the class was, thats something you never see. Usually theyd be jumping for joy, but the book was that good and all of us wanted to finish it. A Time To Kill I picked up during In School Suspension one year. Think I found it in a locker, it helped pass the time seeing as how I was stuck in that one room all day. Never finished either book though, just remember that both were good.

One book I did finish was Great Expectations, overrated and depressing book, if I do say so myself.

Since going to college Ive had my eyes opened to a few more books Id like to read some day, such as McTeague, Scarface and Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. Kind of funny to find out how many movies you see actually began with a book.

**75Sasha** · December 18th, 2009, 08:55 PM

I love this site for taking the mickey out of some of the "greats" that are only great because no one has actually finished them.

Book-A-Minute Classics

Don't forget, Dickens was paid by the word. Just love the summary of all the Jane Austen novels:

Female Lead

I secretly love Male Lead. He must never know.

Male Lead

I secretly love Female Lead. She must never know.

(They find out.)

THE END

**NVash** · December 18th, 2009, 10:37 PM

I like that site. Its funny.

**JohnConnor** · December 19th, 2009, 11:16 AM

agreed that madame bovary is very boring. die already.

**buttmunch** · December 20th, 2009, 12:33 PM

I like the book itself (Bovary) and think it has some of the best writing ever in a novel but towards the end I am quite 'fucking die already, bitch'. I still re-read it fairly regularly.

**katerpillar** · December 21st, 2009, 12:19 AM

I read 1984 and Animal Farm when I was 12. I haven't read War and Peace or Ulysses, though. I also read The Bell Jar when I was 12... heh, poor mum. Even when she wanted to she couldn't contain my choice of reading material to "age appropriate" stuff. I can still remember the look on her face when she walked into the lounge room and found me reading A Brief History of Time (I understood most of it, go me) at that age, and just threw her hands in the air in exasperation.

Catch 22 can stay unfinished. I'll probably also skip anything written by a Russian in the 19th Century and just read the Cliff Notes summary or something.

I really need to read more though. I'm not half as much of a bookworm as I used to be, which is a shame.

75Sasha - bahahah! So true. The only Austen novel I've read is Emma and that was enough for me.

**stella blue** · December 21st, 2009, 06:43 PM

I've actually never finished a Dickens novel. I remember a history class where we had to write a paper on Hard Times and the teacher said not to even think about using Cliff's Notes because he'd been teaching 30 years and would know. I guess I took that as a challenge, and got an A+. Take that Mr. Fain!

**buttmunch** · December 27th, 2009, 01:34 PM

I'm not a huge fan of Dickens either, but I think that's because most of them read like what they were: serial cliffhangers. They were released chapter by chapter and every one had to stand alone, I guess.

**GaPeach** · February 5th, 2010, 09:12 AM

^^ Dickens was a bitter betty but I loved Great Expectations. I love the ending he was forced to write instead of the one he wanted to write (they never got together again)

I am not a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I like the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button more than the book. His male characters seem to look down on life and have a sarcastic feeling towards anything different than themselves.

**sputnik** · February 5th, 2010, 09:22 AM

f. scott fitzgerald wrote some of the most beautiful english out there. i've read 'tender is the night' more times than any other book and it still takes my breath away every single time.

**bellini** · February 5th, 2010, 09:22 AM

Originally Posted by JohnConnor

agreed that madame bovary is very boring. die already.

I loved Madame Bovary!

I had to read a lot of books being a Lit major. I probably never would attempted two-thirds of them had I not been forced.

I could not get through The Mill on the Floss.

**Ravenna** · February 5th, 2010, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by GaPeach

I am not a fan of F. Scott Fitzgerald. I like the movie The Curious Case of Benjamin Button more than the book. His male characters seem to look down on life and have a sarcastic feeling towards anything different than themselves.

When it comes to Fitzgerald, character and plot are secondary for me. He wrote the most gorgeous, poetic prose of anyone I've read, yet it is still very readable, (unlike the pretentious gobbledy-gook of, say, The English Patient). I'm tempted to break out my inner dork and do some quoting about green lights on docks and enchanted objects and the moon soaking with wet light tangled clothes upon the floor. I love Fitzgerald. But to each her own.