Sunday Salon – Books I Haven’t Read

Published on by Margaret

I’ve seen others have been writing a sort of meme “confessing up ‘ to the books they haven’t read, so I thought I would too. These are the books that maybe I “should have read” by now but haven’t yet got round to. I don’t actually believe there is any “should” about it, but there seems to be some idea that to be “well read” you have to have read from a “canon of literature”.

I haven’t read:

  • The epic poem Beowulf, and reading about the film doesn’t count (I haven’t seen the film either)
  • Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queen has passed me by as though it was never written. Apparently Elizabeth I loved it.
  • Gulliver’s Travels, although I think I “know” the story of his time in Lilliput and Brobdingnan from watching a cartoon version once.
  • Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, although I read extracts when I was taking an Open University course.
  • The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith – it’s one of those books I’ve been meaning to read for years.
  • Anything by Samuel Richardson, although he is considered one of the authors of the first novel in English, but I have read Tom Jones by Henry Fielding, amd Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe, other contenders for the title.
  • There are several of Charles Dickens’s books I haven’t read, such as The Pickwick Papers, The Old Curiosity Shop, Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby and Barnaby Rudge although I have read some of his books – Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol and Great Expectations immediately spring to mind – there many be others.
  • The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, although I have read The Moonstone.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – this is on my tbr list.
  • Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome – apparently a classic satire.
  • The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith – a classic British comedy.
  • Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas – one of my school friends (and that’s aeons ago) was forever extolling its praises and I still haven’t read it,
  • Ulysses by James Joyce – need I say anymore?
  • The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy. But I did watch both of the TV series of the books.
  • A Dance to the Music of Time by Anthony Powell – I did try the first book once.
  • Anything by Salman Rushdie.
  • Ditto Terry Pratchett
  • White Teeth by Zadie Smith, although I have read On Beauty.

This list is getting far too long and depressing in the amount of books I haven’t read and I’ve hardly touched the surface of the 20th century, never mind the 21st. Looking at this list of English Novelists on wikipedia is even more depressing (or exhilarating depending on how you view things) because of so many authors I haven’t tried that I’m stopping now. And there are so many more world wide authors as well!

10 thoughts on “Sunday Salon – Books I Haven’t Read”

  1. This is the old argument of literature vs. popular press Margaret.
    When I did my English major I read stuff like The Faerie Queen, Under Milkwood, and Ulysses. But I could never understand why we studied these people who could not make a living out of writing, and did it essentially in their spare time, and we didn’t read Agatha Christie, a successful author who made a living out of it. Sure, I was educated in standards and quality, and works that paved the way, but we largely ignored living writers who were successful in their trade. We were a bit guilty of that in schools too. We favoured literature over the stuff the kids really wanted to read.

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  2. Margaret – I agree 100% with Kerrie’s well-taken point. When I was in school, we, too, read “great literature” which included several books like Beowulf and Ulysses, but not Agatha Christie and not Kurt Vonnegut, among many other books that are often considered popular fiction, but not literary fiction.

    I wonder how many more kids would grow up reading and loving it if they had a chance to read books of their choice as well as books that are acknowledged as important works of literature. I know my daughter struggled with that question. Makes one wonder how to balance out introducing students to literature and letting them choose their own…

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  3. These lists are sort of depressing as I then realize how little I’ve really read even though I am constantly reading. I was able to choose at whim when it comes to books when I was growing up, though in school we read the books that were part of the Canon. I think I read a lot of books that I’ve forgotten or that most people probably didn’t read–that’s good and bad. I was left to choose whatever I felt like reading without any judgement on choices but I think I also missed out on a lot of books that everyone else was reading as they had more guidance. I struggle with this question, too. Am I not very well read because I missed out on so much or can I just be happy that I enjoy reading even if it is often middlebrow stuff. That said I have read a few things on your list–The Woman in White and The Count of Monte Cristo, which I love (and here I pick the more sensationalist and adventure titles out of your list!). I’m ready to start the second book of the Forsyte Saga and I also want to read Anthony Powell’s books. I should also read Zadie Smith….I’d better stop thinking about this. :)

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  4. It does get depressing, but I have to agree with your commenters. Why do we feel guilty having not read so many of the classic canon? Why are these books “better” than others? I have read a couple on your list. The Count of Monte Cristo was absolutely phenomenal, I have to say. On the other hand, my 17-year-old has been determined to read Ulysses for over a year now. He has started and gotten 3/4 of the way through 3 times and just can’t finish. He says he is trying to figure out why it’s dubbed the best book ever written.

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  5. My feeling is that kids should be exposed to some of these works, but also to the other books that are successful. There should be a range of choices and possibilities, otherwise we risk “turning them off” reading altogether. Let’s face it, those “canon” books can be boring for people in our modern world. A taste or a tidbit could go a long way, when mixed in with other books.

    I even allowed my older two to read comic books rather than nothing, and they then moved on to other things…Stephen King, etc., and not the old literature. But they do read. And they are successful people.

    What an intriguing discussion, though, and I’m sure you’ll get lots of fascinating thoughts on the topic.

    BTW, it’s such a treat to open your blog and see those lovely flowers in the header! Thanks!!

    Here’s my salon:

    http://laurel-rainsnowsaccidentallife.blogspot.com/2010/06/sunday-salon-june-27.html

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  6. I’ve been an avid reader all my life but there are many, many books (classics) that I haven’t read and others that I read “because one should” but don’t remember well. My husband on the other hand is not a reader and I think it’s because he was forced to read books that completely turned him off of reading. The one book he has read all the way through in his life (I know, my chin drops at the thought too) is a biography of Henry Ford that he read in high school. He was fascinated by cars, even built one himself, so why didn’t anyone direct him toward books about cars and carmakers? I now have him reading magazines and bits of books about planes, cars, inventions of machinery, anything that really interests him. He has discovered that he enjoys such things and I have the pleasure of knowing I’ve widened his world.

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  7. Thank you all for your thoughtful comments. I was lucky I suppose in that my parents gave me books from a very early age and encouraged my love of reading. I read widely at home if not at school, so got to read authors like Agatha Christie and Daphne Du Maurier. I think that getting children to read particular books too early can turn them off reading (like Barbara’s husband) and I know that when I read Gaskell’s Cranford at school I thought it was dreary but re-reading it last year was a completely different experience.

    Most of the books I read for English literature at school were good – Tale of Two Cities for one and gave me a liking for Dickens. We also read Jane Austen, etc but the most modern book (at that time in the 1960s) we studied was Lord of the Flies.

    The books I listed are all books I would like to read – I don’t think of them as books I ‘should read’.

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  8. It all boils down to the fact that there are so many great books to read and never enough time! While I have read a few of the books on your list, I will admit I am severly lacking when it comes to Dickens–I have read A Tale of Two Cities but I was not a fan.

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  10. Like a lot of people, I have read voraciously all my life but there are huge gaps in the list of ‘good’ books that I keep meaning to address.
    I grew up in a house that was full of a wide range of books and don’t remember my parents ever being prescriptive over what I read although there was a bit of a row when I got caught reading a Harold Robbins (remember him) at the age of 10 and my mum had a fit when she discovered that I had filched a copy of Lady Chatterley from her book case when I was 11!
    For the record, I thought it was boring at the time and forty years later I haven’t changed my mind!
    Ditto Wuthering Heights – although I love Charlotte Bronte’s books and have lost count of the number of times I have read Jane Eyre over the years, I have never got more than four chapters into WH before I got thoroughly fed up with Cathy and Heathcliffe and gave up.
    Haven’t even attempted Ulysses because I was forced to read Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist for A-Level and loathed it!

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