<p>I’m another who couldn’t finish the first Harry Potter book. My daughter didn’t like the books either and most of her friends think she’s a freak because of it. </p>
<p>I happened to like “Heart of Darkness” but I think it is because I really loved the professor I had when I studied it and she is a well known authority on Conrad.</p>
<p>Montegut: keep reading; it’s not at all just about her publishing the book…</p>
<p>^^^My son had to read Heart of Darkness for a class and absolutely hated it. They had to watch Apocalypse Now, and he refuses to take a film class which he would have otherwise loved because that is one of the subjects covered.</p>
<p>Anybody dislike Conroy? He’s an alum of my son’s high school, and they’ve had to read several of his books, and he even visited the school. I don’t know if it’s his books that my son doesn’t like or if it’s just his association with his high school. I think he liked Prince of Tides, though, but I know he despised This Boy’s Life. He had to read it over the summer, so that was a strike against it right there.</p>
<p>Faulkner, God help me. He is beloved here in the South, but I can’t stand unreadable dialect. Even Mark Twain is annoying with this. </p>
<p>I do like that The Help uses “phonetic dialect”. It makes it readable, while still keeping the language authentic.</p>
<p>Actually I am not sure the book was the worst… but I was about 15 pages into reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen and heard him on NPR and then simply had to ‘unkindle’ it.</p>
<p>Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond has resisted every one of my attempts to get past the opening chapter.</p>
<p>I love Conrad-
never tried reading Dan Brown as flipping through it at the bookstore showed me all I needed to know.
Like King’s short stories best by far.
Haven’t read much Conroy but Tobias Wolfe wrote This Boy’s life. ( The memoir that was also a film.)</p>
<p>I have been trying to read Anna Karenina ( on my iPhone so I can’t tell how much i have left) but it is getting slow.</p>
<p>Also didn’t like Austen for years, but now am also reading Pride & Prejudice. It helps that I loved * Bride & Prejudice* ;)</p>
<p>Most of my books are now kindle versions which I share w H ( & I notice that he is reading authors like Maeve Binchy, which I think he would dismiss as " chick lit" if he was reading it in paperback), & even if I can’t get through it ( as with Shantaram : A Novel, where I got bogged down with the graphic descriptions of Indian prison), he persists till the end.</p>
<p>I don’t do well with depressing violence- Angela’s Ashes made me want to slit my wrists. :(</p>
<p>I read Hawaii years ago and loved the book but I skipped the first 75 pages or so because it was so boring. I have no qualms skipping tedium to find the story.</p>
<p>For the life of me I don’t know how the “Twilight” series even got published.</p>
<p>“Anybody dislike Conroy?”</p>
<p>I thought The Lords of Discipline was a great read and a look inside a military-academy life I couldn’t imagine. If you’re interested in modes of education and so on, it’s worth reading just for that.</p>
<p>“The Help” works as chick-lit, a Hollywood book. If you approach it that way, you may enjoy it – I did. If you’re looking for the next To Kill A Mockingbird, you’ll be disappointed. But as a little paper movie about society ladies in Mississippi, it was a hoot.</p>
<p>Wasn’t it Tuesdays with Morrie?</p>
<p>I used to devour Stephen King too. But lately…
Although I picked up Duma Key at the library last summer and it was good. More like his old stuff.</p>
<p>Thanks for the correction, emerald. I thought I had that wrong. I know of the Leonardo Dicaprio film Boy’s Life, and I didn’t think it was the same story my son was reading. His book was definitely a Conroy book, as the whole school had to read it that summer, and Conroy visited the school early in the year to discuss it with the boys.</p>
<p>Thank you for the encouragement to read The Help. I grew up in the South in the 60s and 70s, and went to school with many girls who had “Help”, so I am very interested in the story.</p>
<p>Had to read “Death in Venice” for a college lit class and absolutely hated it.</p>
<p>I never made it through Stephen King’s “Lisey’s Story” and haven’t read anything else by him since.</p>
<p>Loathe Jodi Picoult and Nicholas Sparks. I was also another person who couldn’t stand “Lovely Bones.” </p>
<p>I feel the same way about the newer Stephen King. I would love to read a good, old fashioned, scare-me-awake scary story. Nothing terribly gory, though. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>robyrm2–what did Jonathan Franzen say that was so off-putting? I liked Freedom some but not as much as The Corrections.</p>
<p>I though Olive Kittredge was over-rated. Well-written and sort of interesting, but…</p>
<p>A Tale of Two Cities…<strong><em>yawn</em></strong></p>
<p>Loved The Help (and counterpart in Southern Chick-Lit, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells)</p>
<p>Well, tastes are different. I have loved all the books by Geraldine Brooks. “March” was very good. I also love the books by her husband Tony Horwitz. “Confederates in the Attic” and a more recent one following the voyages of Captain Cook. Highly entertaining.</p>
<p>I hated “Little Bee” and “Bel Canto,” two novels that many people apparently love.</p>
<p>In college, I had to read Faulkner’s “Absalom, Absalom,” and I disliked it. Then, a few years ago, I picked up “As I Lay Dying” because it was on my son’s high school reading list. After being a little confused by the first few short chapters, the book drew me in, and I was utterly blown away! Fabulous!</p>
<p>After that, I used the internet to look up which other books by Faulkner are the most accessible ones. I have read several with great enjoyment and intend to read more!</p>
<p>Re Pat Conroy, I read “Prince of Tides” a number of years ago when it was a bestseller because a friend urged me to. I was sorry I did…ugh.</p>
<p>Zeitoun - waited months for it from the library. Did not finish, even though, I almost always force myself to finish books.</p>
<p>Book I really loathed, Bridges of Madison County. EVERYONE was gushing about it. I hated it.
Ditto for One Thousand White Woman - just cringed at every page. Awful.</p>
<p>Anna Karenina. I keep trying, but I don’t care about anyone in the book, anything they’re doing or anything they’re thinking.</p>
<p>Catcher in the Rye. I read it as a teenager, and couldn’t stand Holden Caulfield then. I’m sure I’d like him even less now.</p>
<p>I haven’t read any Dan Brown, but I treasure Geoff Pullum’s description of his prose:
[Language</a> Log: The Dan Brown code](<a href=“http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html]Language”>Language Log: The Dan Brown code)</p>
<p>(Note to moderators: Language Log is not a personal blog. It’s a professional blog by a group of linguists.)</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s worthwhile revisiting a classic. I read Catcher in the Rye as a teenager and was baffled and rather turned off by it.</p>
<p>I reread it again recently and thought that it was rather touching. It’s about a boy who is having a breakdown as a consequence of the death of his brother. Somehow it never struck me that way the first time.</p>
<p>I tried several times to begin Marcel Proust’s Rememberance of Things Past (whatever the first volume is called) and kept falling asleep! Maybe like Donna L it was because of being a very old translation.
Otherwise I actually loved many of the books mentioned-Tale of Two Cities is one of my favorites but I really have a love for Dickens. And I did enjoy the Help.</p>