Do you think you're the only one that skipped great works of English classic literature? Well, here's a little secret: even respectable authors didn't read 'em!
At the literary festival Ways With Words 2008, The Daily Telegraph asks established authors which books they are most embarrassed to admit they've never read:
During this year's Ways With Words festival at Dartington Hall, Devon, we would collar our guests and ask: what's the book you're most ashamed of never having read?
Would the eminent Cambridge classicist admit to The Iliad? Would V S Naipaul's old editor cop to A Bend In The River?
Or would the former schoolmate of a fellow guest confess - with apparent relish - to never having read a word his old friend has written?
Link - via Chasing the Southern Cross
So - 'fess up: what works of literature are you ashamed of never having read?
Don't think I missed any of the "great" classic.
Maybe we are just jaded.
The info goes in, I digest, and 90% of it makes me puke it out of my head.
But I will give Orson Scott Card his due. The Ender saga is incredibly pleasant to read, satisfying, and creative.
Most of the stuff mentioned in the video
The Bible beyond the first few books of the Old Testament (I am working on this one slowly but surely)
Moby Dick (I meant to get started on it this Summer, but too many other things got in the way)
Anything by Joyce other than a couple of his short stories that I read for a class once
Paradise Lost (I did read the beginning and end of it for a class once)
The second two-thirds of The Divine Comedy
The Aeneid (I plan to tackle this one soon)
Anything by Cormac McCarthy written before Blood Meridian
I keep telling myself I'll read it but I keep finding other books to read instead.
I finshed reading Jude the Obscure last year. It took me ages but was worth it. Also, after it came up in a pub quiz last week I started reading Pepys' Diary at the weekend as ignorance of its historical significance has always caused me some shame. I'm only about thirty pages in but I'm really enjoying it.
Oh, and according to my mates at the pub I should be ashamed that I've never read The Godfather but then, I didn't even finish the film.
Actually. I take that back. It doesn’t really matter. I’m not even Christian."
I'm not either, but I read the Bible for its literary/historical/cultural importance.