@read-and-be-merry List of Books to Read Before You Die
- Any book you want
- Don’t read books you don’t want to read
- That’s it
- Congratulations you did it
@iammewhooaryou | really like this list. All my favorite books are on it.
@ read-and-be-merry Thanks | worked really hard on it
Even better. None of the books I don’t like are on this!
I know, right? It’s an amazing list!
Unfortunately I don’t want to read my favorite book so my favorite book is still not on the list.
I have to disagree with this list and say that, at least sometimes, it’s good to read books you don’t want to read.
Absolutely. Ignoring all the books you don’t like is a perfect recipe for ignorance.
It’s a tricky situation, because reading a book you don’t care about, whose topic triggers no interest in you, most likely will not improve for life at all. On the other, challenging yourself, discover new things, reading some “unpleasant” books (I am thinking along the lines of the Anne Frank’s Diary) does expand your horizons and help you develop. And sometimes I read some books I only understood in hindsight, maybe with some help. Off the top of my head I can think of “the man in the high castle” making way more sense after reading its Wikipedia page, or “de Avonden”/“the evenings” clicking in my brain only after a friend of mine told me “it’s a book about PTSD”. While reading the last one, I thought it was quite dull but stick with it just because. Now I’m glad I did. On the contrary, I also stuck with GRRMartin way too long, and nobody is going to give me back those hours. I still think those books are an exercise of “look how many plot twists I can stack!” and I dislike them all.
There’s always room for people in this wild world whose opinions are wrong.
So, a Zionist is correct to avoid any book that shows the Palestinian side?
I think you’ve mistakenly lost yourself on the path to the “c/stridentpolitics” group. This is “c/books”. It’s an easy mistake to make, seeing as the names are nearly identical.
TIL ‘books’ only means safe fiction and not scholarly works.
So, you’re saying it’s okay for people to avoid fiction books by LGBTQ+ people, or Africans, or any book that might upset their ideas?
We should only stick to things that don’t upset us?
Lot’s of books on the list still, but they’re all good or interesting.
Reminds me of this time I made it a point to read Hemingway because I felt like I should and a friend of mine bet me ten bucks that I’d be unable to finish a single Hemingway book and long story short I’m out ten bucks.
I forced myself to read a book I didn’t want to read and it literally killed the hobby for me, number 2 is really important to follow.
In school I was forced practically at gunpoint to stare at poetry and regurgitate the teacher/professor’s opinions about what it means. It killed my ability to enjoy poetry for over two decades.
Reading something that doesn’t engage with you is not helpful. Ever.
Oh yeah, I suffered with poetry in school too. Tho my story is quite different, what happened is that I was quite active in the fantasy community in the old site and one day some author was giving away her book to a few people in exchange for reviews on amazon (ebook). It was quite frankly terrible but I got it for free so I felt like I owed it to her to read it all. When I reached the end I didn’t even review it because I could not bring myself to rate it higher than 2 stars.
I’ve never heard of any of those four titles. Who are the authors?
I am 60, i have read alot, I mean a lot, severalbooks a week for decades. I also don’t watch TV and quit work when i was 35, so i am always busy.
I am starting to think this is juat like social media brain rot, what was the book 10 books ago I read, no fusking idea.
I am thinking of changing it up and selecting say 20 books and just re reading them a 1/2.dozen times to really know them.
The probelm with that is what ? Of all the books I’ve read in my life maybe 3 stand out. I tired going highbrow and read stuff like Joseph Conrad but “Heart of Darkness” is dull as batshit :) Watership Down (at least I finsihed it).similarly, Tolkein I gave up on 20 pages into The Hobbit etc
I’m also in my 60s, I’m recently retired, and have been reading quite a bit (not as much as you, but I’m on my 70th book since the beginning of the year).
A couple years ago, I started keeping a log of the books I’ve read. It’s just title, author, brief synopsis, whether I liked it or not, and maybe a little commentary. I initially started it just so I could remember what books I read, but then some friends started asking to see it to help them their next book.
It’s really helped me remember what I’ve read. Often I can remember just from hearing the title, but sometimes I have to look back at my notes, and then it usually all comes back to me. You might give it a try and see if it helps you, too.
i think one solution is to take notes while reading. maybe try and summarize the plot or write down some interesting things. I also read a lot and notes help keep things together. What I do after reading a book is to go through the highlights I made (which don’t take much effort in the moment) and see if I wanna make any of them permanent in my obsidian vault. That process takes from ten minutes to an hour per book, but that’s how insights stick. It gets you actually thinking about the book, instead of just experiencing it without much brain activity. But sometimes when I know I’m reading trash turning off my brain can be comfortable too.
I too found myself not being able to really discuss books I had read that long ago. So I slowed down my reading pace. Not just how many I take in, but how much time I spend reading the books. With particularly challenging things I have always returned to them, and re-read them as my understanding of the book expands, or my perspective on things changes, however I realized I remembered them in far more detail than others, and it was because the challenge slowed me down, and forced me to spend time contemplating what it was I was reading, as I was reading it.
I enjoy reading a lot more now. I am not in university any more, I do not have to read 500 pages per day.
Required reading in school fucked up item 2 for me.
I’d like to add that you are under no obligation to keep reading a book you don’t like. Doesn’t matter why, doesn’t matter if it’s an esteemed book, if you don’t care to continue, just stop. It’s perfectly fine. Pick up a different book. Don’t waste your limited time doing something you hate.
Yep I should probably clear all those books I don’t like off of my shelves… To name drop a few, in case anyone relates:
spoiler
- Eyeless in Gaza by Aldous Huxley. I hate this one, it’s just absolute nonsense
- Column of Fire by Ken Follett’s. I was invested in finishing his Kingsbridge series but only the first 2 are actually important to read.
- Some of Rick Riordan’s later books - again, I felt compelled to finish because of how many of his earlier works I read, but the viking stuff just seemed dull.
There are oh-so-many “you simply must read this!” books in my trash bins over the years I could likely open the worst bookshop in the world with them as stock.
Wow! Really? Damn! I needed that permission decades ago! 🤭
