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When You Try to Read a so Called Classic Book and It so Dull

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I know we do have some avid readers here at latest deals. I'm 108 pages into Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, which won the Nobel prize for literature back in the day. What a boring load of nothing. This is meant to be a classic, yet I'm struggling to be bothered to pick it up. Apparently nothing much does happen apart from them all taking their temperatures a lot. They lie down to have 'rest cures' then go and eat. That's it. I give up with this already. What so called 'classic' books have you tried and failed to get into?

ShellyAnn
over a year ago
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Lynibis

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, what a yawnfest. I think Germaine Greer or another feminist said 'life's too short to stuff a mushroom'. Well in my opinion life is too short to read a bad book! Of course it may be a good book to someone else but I just move on.

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ShellyAnn

I haven't read this one, but I know it and I don't fancy that! 😀

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Glitterandgold

James Herbert's Rats. Horrors not my fav genre to read but I didn't find rats scary, just thought it was a bit silly really. I struggled to get through it. Listened to Herberts The Fog on audio & much prefered that.

Iv picked pride & prejudice up a couple of times to read but never got further than several pages. I just dont like the style of writing so knew I'd struggle.

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ShellyAnn

I have read pride and prejudice. I made it through. Can't say I really enjoyed but it was something I could finish. I haven't read anything by James Herbert.

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MrsCraig

ShellyAnn I love pride and prejudice! I've read all of Jane Austens books!

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BonzoBanana

I know its a common problem for many but I can't read Shakespeare, I try to enjoy it and feel the history of it but I'd much rather read Dickens. I seem to remember starting to read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton many years ago and thinking it was very poorly written and lost interest but it probably isn't viewed as a classic book anyway but seemed surprisingly poorly written or at least I just couldn't get into it.

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ShellyAnn

Back in the day at school, I was forced to read Taming of the Shrew and Macbeth. History was one of my fave subjects, which I went on to do my degree in, so reading ye olde english wasn't too difficult back then as I had to read documents written in it all the time. I bought Shakespeare's complete plays but I have never touched them. I think I would find it so hard to read that old English now. I've read a few by Dickens and quite enjoyed them. Haven't read any Michael Crichton.

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ShellyAnn

I gave up on The Magic Mountain. I haven't read fiction in probably 2 years or more and I was hoping to get sucked into the plot as I read non-fiction nowadays, but no. It was the kind of book where it take 2 pages to move a person from the bed to the door, if you know what I mean.

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KirstyWhit29673

I'm struggling to read Jane Austen's Persuasion at the minute. I was original going to do an English Lit course, changed my mind and thought I'd read the book anyway. It's only 200ish pages but feels like 600

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MrsCraig

I love Persuasion! I've read it about 5 times!

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MrsCraig

I absolutely love Jane Austen books, I've read a few Charles Dickens and enjoyed those, especially Little Dorritt. My favourite classic book is Jane Eyre! I've read it over and over, watched the tv show, the films. I just love it.

I found Thomas Hardy quite hard to get into.

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ShellyAnn

Yes, I've read Jane Eyre. It was probably about 20 years ago now. Not sure about little dorritt. Thing is my book collection is in boxes and I can't remember what I have until I finally get book shelves in my new living room and put the books out again. I don't think I'll see my whole book collection until early winter of this year.

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MrsCraig

ShellyAnn that is a shame, I love a good book but never have time to dead these days, unless it is one of my sons books

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