Dear Readers, this week I’ve started reading Moby Dick by Herman Melville, inspired by one of the other participants on my Azores trip. And what an astonishing read it is! It’s a beefy book and I’m only about 15 per cent of the way through if my Kindle is to be believed, but already it’s had me roaring with laughter, scratching my head and holding my breath.
And this got me thinking about what other books are out there that I’ve never tackled. I studied English for my first degree, so I’ve read a lot of ‘the classics’ – the whole of Austen, Dickens, most of George Eliot, a lot of European fiction. But here, off the top of my head, are some of the books that I’ve never read and would like to have a go at at some point.
- The Great Gatsby (Scott Fitzgerald)
- Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
- Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achuebe)
- In Search of Things Past (Marcel Proust)
- Wide Sargasso Sea (Jean Rhys)
- The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
- The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton)
And I’m sure there are hundreds more, but one has to start somewhere. However, I also have a pile of non-fiction books nearly as tall as me waiting to be read. I think that now I’m retired I can justify popping a ‘reading hour’ into the day’s activities somewhere – I read before I go to sleep, but sadly these days sometimes that’s about 20 minutes before I’m dropping my book on the poor unsuspecting dozing cat, who curls up on my stomach and complains if I’m not in bed by 9 o’clock.
So, Readers, over to you. Do you have books that you feel you’d love to read, but have never managed (so far) to find the time? Have you read any of the ones on my list, and if so, do you have thoughts about them? Which of the books that you’ve read do you wish you’d never bothered with? Let me know in the comments if you are of a literary persuasion.
There are so many books (fiction and non-fiction) out there that we cannot possibly read them all! I am enjoying working my way through a pile of fiction, mostly bought from charity shops, as during my years of teaching my focus mostly had to be on the set works of the day. In this way I have read (and taught) Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby, The Catcher in the Rye, as well as Things Fall Apart ad nauseum. They never lost their appeal though. The next four on your list have not made it onto mine either – yet 🙂
I’m a newish reader of your blog, and I find it so different to the others I follow – thank you! I always learn something and I appreciate the gentleness and contentment which comes through in your writing.
I studied English at university and since then I have revised old favourites (all of Jane Austen’s books particularly) but I do tend to read for fun and stick with the same genres.
I recently joined a book club which I’m enjoying so much – firstly being pushed to read books I wouldn’t choose for myself, some of which have been wonderful surprises. Secondly, having the opportunity to discuss books in detail again has been a huge joy!
I’ve never read Moby Dick either, and I hadn’t thought it would be humorous – maybe I’ll add it to my list!
Thank you, Bluebelle, so glad you’re enjoying the blog! I keep thinking about joining a book club, maybe this is just the push that I need (although with my reading backlog it might be the straw that broke the camel’s back 🙂 ).
Moby Dick was one of the two set books I couldn’t finish at university – the other being Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit – but I can’t remember what it was about either of these books that I disliked so much!
In my years commuting to central London on the tube I lost myself in countless 19th and 20th century classic novels (which was wonderful), whereas these days I tend to go for non-fiction – history, biographies and books about the natural world.
I hadn’t thought about joining a book club until two friends invited me to come along to theirs at the beginning of the year, but it’s got me reading some contemporary fiction. I’m also looking forward to reading the first non-fiction book to be chosen by the club this year – In Search of England by H V Morton, published in 1927.
Ah, what a shame about Martin Chuzzlewit, I think it’s one of my favourite Dickens novels, particularly for the way that he eviscerates the slave trade. Maybe worth another look? I’m so enjoying Moby Dick. Plus I’m wondering about the link between the first mate, Starbuck, and the coffee chain 🙂
The Starbucks name did come from Moby Dick! They just added an S because people were going to do that anyway, just as you might say, “let’s meet at Costa’s,” I suppose. They could have solved that by adding Cafe on the front, like in Caffe Nero.
Please report on Moby Dick as you read it. I have always aimed to read it but been too intimidated to start. I’ve read the first five of your unread books (well the first two volumes of In Search of Lost Time anyway). Of those only The Great Gatsby stands out as something I would press on others.
I recently read a classic of nature writing that is been on my ‘to read’ list for years: The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen. I would strongly recommend it. There is quite a lot about Buddhist philosophy and history that at first I was tempted to skip over. But actually I find myself thinking about it a lot. The writing about the Himalayan landscapes he walked through and the wildlife there is excellent. And he is thoughtful and interesting about the human aspects too: his late wife, his feelings of guilt about his young son who he has left behind to go on this journey, and the relationships with his expedition partner and the sherpas and porters who accompany them and the people they meet along the way.
I devote a lot of time to reading. When I stopped commuting I lost over an hour of reading time every day, so I’ve replaced that by reading for an hour when I wake up. And I read a lot of most evenings too. I seldom read fiction, mostly nature writing, biography and memoir. But I recently enjoyed The Perfect Golden Circle by Benjamin Myers.
I loved ‘The Snow Leopard’ – so much about the value of the journey whether or not you achieve your ‘goals’! Mathiesson also wrote a great book about cranes called ‘ The Birds of Heaven’ that I would strongly recommend.
Still enjoying Moby Dick! He’s such an experimental writer. One of my tutors described the book as the first Modernist Novel and I’m beginning to see why. Melville goes off at tangents regularly, and Ishmael is a far from reliable narrator, but this is still an astonishing story of monomania.
The Myers sounds v. interesting, thanks for the recommendation!
Thanks for the recommendation. I will look out for The Birds of Heaven. And I will make a start on Moby Dick!
I wrote a long-winded reply on my phone the other day, lying in bed with Covid, and then accidentally deleted it before I could post! I gave up at that point. But I’m feeling better, so here is my (still long-winded) contribution.
Like you, I have an English degree, but because I spent most of my childhood reading Brit lit, I decided to focus on North American writers at university. I had read a few in grade school that I pulled off of my grandfather’s book shelves when we lived with him, and it was a revelation to read books from my own country, if not my era. I read all he had of Steinbeck, Hemingway, John O’Hara, and F Scott Fitzgerald. He, of course, had no female authors. So I spent my college years discovering the joys of Willa Cather, Edith Wharton, Carson McCullers, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, and so many more. What a joy that time in my life was.
As to your list, I would say that Things Fall Apart is a must read for those of us who are part of aggressively colonizing cultures. It’s not very long, but it stuck with me. I can’t think of a better illustration of the arrogance and greed involved in forcing our religions and rules on others.
I cannot recommend Catcher in the Rye, as I only finished the book because it was for school. I found Holden Caufield exceedingly annoying.
While I love Edith Wharton, I think you might enjoy Willa Cather more, if you haven’t read her books. She had such a feeling for the land. My Antonia is my favorite.
I did not read Moby Dick; just Bartleby the Scrivener. I don’t know if I would like it, but perhaps I’ll give it a go. I have never heard anyone else say it made them “roar with laughter,” and I am intrigued! I don’t enjoy modernist literature in the sense of Virginia Woolf and William Faulkner (embarrassing, I know, for an English major), but I don’t know if that’s what you mean when you say Moby Dick is modernist. I don’t enjoy feeling unmoored in a story, or excessively confused.
I found some quotes from My Antonia to show you what I mean. See what you think.
“In that singular light every little tree and shock of wheat, every sunflower stalk and clump of snow on the mountain, drew itself up high and pointed; the very clods and furrows in the fields seemed to stand up sharply. I felt the old pull of the earth, the solemn magic that comes of those fields at nightfall.”
“I sat down in the middle of the garden, where the snakes could scarcely approach unseen, and leaned m back against a warm yellow pumpkin. There were some ground-cherry bushes growing along the furrows, full of fruit. I turned back the papery triangular sheaths that protected the berries and ate a few. All about me giant grasshoppers, twice as big as any I had ever seen, were doing acrobatic feats among the dried vines. The gophers scurried up and down the ploughed ground. There in the sheltered draw-bottom the wind did not blow very hard, but I could hear it singing its humming tune up on the level, and I could see the tall grasses wave. The earth was warm under me, and warm as I crumbled it through my fingers…I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes naturally as sleep…”
“Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons.”