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[parispundit]

I've never read War and Peace, which is shameful. I've never read Moby Dick either, but I'm not ashamed of it.

[yellowtractor]

Wow, Remembrance of Things Past, Moby Dick and Ulysses are my big three List of Shame.

Infinite Jest is on my list for this summer, but it was on last summer's list, too, so... *sigh* 

All four of these, actually.  Plus Milton's Paradise Lost.  And Spenser's The Faerie Queen (which was actually the work that inspired this thread, LarryC, believe it or not--a colleague from the English Dept. was talking the other day about works that had fallen out of any working version of a "canon").

Currently my Fora personality is ashamed it has not read Bachelard's Poetics of Space.

War and Peace is great.  It's like Dickens for the over-educated, as dictated by Proust (see, there I go name-dropping someone I actually haven't read).  You read War and Peace it for hours and you think "Wow, this is fantastic--why haven't I ever read this before??"  Then you realize you've got 7000 pages to go.

The list of books I'm ashamed to have read is much too long and much too discouraging.  But by all means, someone start that thread.  ...As for the Fora book club idea, yes, I think someone tried to start one in 2007 or 2008.  Perhaps a summer club would work better?  Acrimone once tried to start a Fora book awards, also.

[prof_smartypants]

I can't imagine reading Paradise Lost on one's own. I did, however, read it my senior year of college in a Milton class (all the Shakespeare section were full and I needed a pre-1800 to finish my major). I freaking LOVED it.

Moby Dick was on my list until this year when my husband read it, and hated it. Anna Karenina was on my list until last summer, when I read it. I won't be reading any more Tolstoy any time soon. Having read other Joyce while in Ireland about 15 years ago, I can't say I'm aching to tackle Ulysses.

I'd like to read more Dostoyevsky. I've never read any Proust - probably won't.

I've also never read any Sherlock Holmes books or any Dumas (3 Musketeers is also on my list). That might be fun summer reading.

Sorry for the lack of italics - I haven't had my coffee yet and can't be bothered.

[prytania3]

Wow, Remembrance of Things Past, Moby Dick and Ulysses are my big three List of Shame.

Infinite Jest is on my list for this summer, but it was on last summer's list, too, so... *sigh* 

All four of these, actually.  Plus Milton's Paradise Lost.  And Spenser's The Faerie Queen (which was actually the work that inspired this thread, LarryC, believe it or not--a colleague from the English Dept. was talking the other day about works that had fallen out of any working version of a "canon").

Currently my Fora personality is ashamed it has not read Bachelard's Poetics of Space.

War and Peace is great.  It's like Dickens for the over-educated, as dictated by Proust (see, there I go name-dropping someone I actually haven't read).  You read War and Peace it for hours and you think "Wow, this is fantastic--why haven't I ever read this before??"  Then you realize you've got 7000 pages to go.

The list of books I'm ashamed to have read is much too long and much too discouraging.  But by all means, someone start that thread.  ...As for the Fora book club idea, yes, I think someone tried to start one in 2007 or 2008.  Perhaps a summer club would work better?  Acrimone once tried to start a Fora book awards, also.

"Doris? She's the one who's always reading War and Peace. That's how I know it's the summer, when Doris is reading War and Peace."

Anyone know where that quote comes from?

I haven't read War and Peace, but I'm not embarrassed about it. I read Anna Karenina, and that was all of Tolstoy I needed. I've read at least one novel by the Russian greats (including Dead Souls), and that's a plenty.

[rebelgirl]

If memory serves, in David Lodge's Changing Places, the faculty play this game at a party, and a hyper-competitive rising star untenured guy, aiming to win, says he never read Hamlet . . . his colleagues don't believe him, he insists, and then his colleagues vote not to tenure him because, after all, you can't tenure an English professor who admits to never having read Hamlet!

Does anyone remember the name of the game in Lodge's book?  Was it "Humiliation"?

[catherder]

The Faerie Queen. Pilgrims Progress.

And I have read virtually no contemporary literature.

I've read, and mostly enjoyed most of the literature mentioned, but I also have been reluctant to spend much time on contemporary literature--it's because too much of it seems to be about middle class neurosis. Somehow neurotics are more palatable in a historical context.

[bluezebracat]

I'm never going to read Ulysses and I am ok with it. There is a Shakespearean play that I have not read that shall go unnamed. I haven't read my advisor's last couple of books but am always prodded for a short summary/commentary, which I make up.  I've stopped reading for fun--it wasn't planned, it just happened.  Never read any of the Harry Potter books, or Dan Brown's Vatican Hot Fuss book.

One of these days, I'll also get in trouble for talking about books that I haven't read closely.

[quotiazelda]

Middlemarch is one of my very favorite books ever!

I haven't read War and Peace, but I love Anna Karenina, so maybe I should give it a shot.

There's tons and tons I haven't read. Most Dickens, most contemporary literature, Chaucer, Milton, Don Quixote.

And in high school we read Moby Dick in excerpts. You see, we had to make room in the schedule for an extended analysis of themes of alienation in The Graduate. In an AP class.

On the other hand, I've read a lot of Victorian lit (besides Dickens, that is), pretty much all of Shakespeare, and I adore Hawthorne.

[tuxedo_cat]

I haven't read the Bible.  Well, yes, bits of it.  But I'm afraid I have this delusion that I know much more of it than I do.  I blame that on my Roman Catholic upbringing.

I read Middlemarch one summer as a college student while working on Wall Street as a cubicle dweller at an imports / exports company.  I obviously had a lot of free time.  That was an oddly enjoyable way of reading George Eliot, who is a delight.

[moodymoodie]

There's a long, long, long list, but Being and Time is the one that stands out in my mind right now.

[juvenal]

Too many to list, starting with Pat the Bunny.

I've most of the books from the anguished admissions in earlier posts on my shelves and... someday (maybe).

One summer, a number of years back, I girded my loins and read The Magic Mountain, finished it, and said, "Well, I never have to read that again."

[bioteacher]

I've never read War and Peace, which is shameful. I've never read Moby **** either, but I'm not ashamed of it.

I didn't know we were twins.

Juv: I can recite Pat the Bunny from memory for you if you want.

[fishprof]

My list is dwindling (but it isn't short), but only b/c of Audio books.  I have a 30-min commute each way, so I can get through typical book in a week or two.

Currently going through The Hunchback of Notre Dame but it also how I got though Moby Dick and several other classics.

[chaosbydesign]

"Doris? She's the one who's always reading War and Peace. That's how I know it's the summer, when Doris is reading War and Peace."

Anyone know where that quote comes from?

Philip Roth, but I don't remember the title of the book.

I never finished Ulysses (but did read the end) and I also have not read Moby Dick. Or the Bible. I am not particularly embarassed about this, though.

[prytania3]

"Doris? She's the one who's always reading War and Peace. That's how I know it's the summer, when Doris is reading War and Peace."

Anyone know where that quote comes from?

Philip Roth, but I don't remember the title of the book.

I never finished Ulysses (but did read the end) and I also have not read Moby Dick. Or the Bible. I am not particularly embarassed about this, though.

Then you must have googled it. No one who read Goodbye, Columbus could possibly forget Doris by the pool reading War and Peace.