Today's prompt from The Broke and the Bookish is "Ten Books You Struggled to Get Through." Here are mine. That doesn't mean I disliked all of them, just that I recall having to push myself to finish them.
The Blythes are Quoted by L. M. Montgomery (Not a cheerful book.)
Cold Shot by Dani Pettrey (I actively disliked the writing.)
Death Comes to Pemberley by P. D. James (Repetitious.)
The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Was interesting, but not particularly applicable to my life.)
Hood by Stephen Lawhead (I had a hard time engaging with the characters.)
The Iliad by Homer (Is loooooooooooong.)
Jane Austen's Cults and Cultures by Claudia L. Johnson (Was fascinating, but very dense.)
Papillion by Henri Charrière (I was engrossed whenever I was reading it, but as soon as I put it down for any reason, I had no desire to pick it up again.)
The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien (So full of detail I kept getting "full" and having to take breaks.)
The White Company by A. Conan Doyle (Went on and on.)
Okay, that's my list. What's yours?
I've only read a little bit of The Iliad and I think I struggled with the prose, or whatever it is written in. But...someday...I...am...going...to...conquer...it. Someday. : )
ReplyDeleteI made it through, and one day I will read The Odyssey too. I WILL.
DeleteThe Iliad and the Odyssey both are favorites of mine, but the subject matter of those is very high on my list of things I love. I also love my versions, which were easy to read, for me. (The Lattimore versions, which I bought for a classics class in college and got rid of all other versions because these were far superior.)
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, I can only think of books that I was unable to finish, like Middlemarch. Although P&P was a slog, but I think that was mostly because reading it in that daily calendar format just didn't work well for me.
DKoren, I'd like to try a different translation for both of Homer's works. I know there was one Hemingway thought was particularly good too, and I wrote it down somewhere...
DeleteActually, the prompt had a parenthetical part about books you never finished, but I could only think of five.
The Silmarillion and Hood are a long 300-some pages! The Silmarillion is still good though. :)
ReplyDeleteMeredith, so true. I did like The Silmarillion a lot in the end! But it took me like 6 months to get through.
DeleteI really tried on Death Comes to Pemberly, but I thought the characters seemed like wooden copies of themselves...
ReplyDeleteLauren @ Always Me
Lauren, I agree. I like some of P.D. James' other books, but this one just didn't work for me.
DeleteUgh, The Iliad and Odyssey, Merchant of Venice (although I got through Julius Caesar easily enough), the Scarlet Letter, Anne of Windy Poplars... maybe I'm picker than I thought, haha.
ReplyDeleteComenting as part of my challenge: rebekahdevall.wordpress.com/challenge/
Rebekah, yeah, Scarlet Letter was a tough one for me too. I read it in high school and then had to read it again in college and was like, "Noooooooooooo!"
DeleteAnne of Windy Poplars, though? Is one of my favoritest Anne books. But I know a lot of it is epistolary and that is not everyone's thing.
Your challenge is very cool! I follow like 80 blogs and am constantly struggling to stay afloat with them. I need more hours in the day. Or a time-turner like Hermione's!
Haha. I'm reading the Illiad and The Silmarillion, so I know what you mean. :)
ReplyDeleteMaura, that's quite a load to read all at once, Maura!
Delete(Oops, didn't mean to say your name twice, hee. Been a long day!)
DeleteThe first time I tried the Silmarillion, I got stranded and couldn't finish it. A few years later, I got through quite easily. Huh...
ReplyDeleteBirdie, I think the next time I read The Silmarillion, it will be much easier now that I've kind of wrapped my head around everything going on in it!
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