I was looking at all my books the other day, and wondering how many of them I've actually read? At a guess, I'd have to say perhaps 60% of them. Generally the easier 60%
Here's what I'm missing out on:
- Charles Dickens: I've got 9 or 10 of his books. Only read one.
- Latin books: I did read "Latin in 3 months" when I was 18, but never got round to actually doing anything with it, though I did get hold of quite a few easy texts by people like Cicero.
- "Italian in 3 months". I've only been putting this off for around 10 years, so won't be touching it any time soon.
- "The Complete Works of Shakespeare". I read one of the comedies once.
- Various Peter F Hamilton books: These look good, but are very long and involve huge numbers of characters. Real epics.
- "Step By Step in Esperanto" - Like a lot of my books, this is second hand, and I read enough of it to understand why the language is only spoken by people who believe that we should scrap cultural identity and any trace of individuality for the sake of all becoming soulless Europeans.
- The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe - I've read a couple of stories. I'm not quite sure what everyone raves about. Going to the moon in a balloon isn't exactly exciting these days.
- "Morte D'Arthur", "Don Quixote", "Ivanhoe" - All classics, but I just haven't found the stamina yet.
- "Teach Yourself to Compose Music" - One day...
I admit it, I'm the sort of person who starts things and doesn't finish them. Having said that I did manage to read "The Life of Samuel Johnson", which is possibly longer than any of the aforementioned works, and in fact, it wasn't until I started to look through them that I realised I'd read so many of them.
They serve a useful purpose though - they make me look erudite - a fiction that a surprising number of people swallow. You won't tell them the awful truth, will you?
![[Picture License]](http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Bibliothek_kalocsa.jpg){kind=link}
17 comments:
"You won't tell them the awful truth, will you?"
Yes.
If I start a book I have to finish it no matter how awful it is. I love EAP, he speaks to my dark soul.
The Shakes dude, his stories are good his writing is over-rated.
::GASP!:: did I just say that out loud? :o) SO?
Salsa!
Needed to leave another comment so I could click on the e-mail follow up thing.
you can't not like the raven, come on now. or the one where the one dude bricks in another dude (can't remember title0
although some of his gunk about his wife blows.
Dickens is okay-ish i think I've read 3 of his could not get through that oliver twist
shakespeare is good if you see it acted by someone who makes you forget they are speaking mumbo jumbo
books were taking over my house at one time so I had to ditch them and now read mostly library books
no one ever mistook me for being literate
what are you two emailing about? is it mt Christmas gift????
or are you planning a get rid of the hoard intervention?
I've always wanted an intervention but not a drug user, drat.
Yeah jean knee, we're trying to decide if we should send you a subscription to "Clown Weekly" or a lifetime supply of Nair.
I vote for nair
Feeling a little hairy?
[snicker] That's what she said!
oh, my
I rather feel a big Harry, that's what bee said
snort
Blimey, who's Harry and does your husband know?
Perhaps I'll have another go at EAP sometime. I wonder if they do it in Greek? That's my current excuse for not reading any of my other books...
No library is complete without a few classics that no one will ever read, and an obscure language primer.
Since my library now includes the books my husband brought to our marriage, and since I buy books at a faster rate than I read them, I think I have only read about 45% to 50% of my library. The issue is that I reread the same books over and over again, instead of reading new ones. Is that weird?
Ingrid:
I don't think that's weird - I've certainly read books again rather than pick up an unread one...
Hahaha! I'm glad I'm not the only one with this same "problem"
However, my average is likely lower than yours - 50% of my books have been read cover-to-cover.
Let's start a bookclub!
Berta:
Thankyou - I'm glad it's not just me as well!
Did you inherit all these books ?
Dan
Dan,
The books in the picture aren't mine I already posted a picture of those on 26th November ;-)
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