Have you ever honestly read a book just so you could say you had read that book?

Answer 1

There are basically two types of readers. One will admit that of course they have. The other doesn't read books, plural, they read that one book that one time and they prefer to swap quotes off the Internet. Honestly, I don't care about that.

Yes I read Dostoevsky. I got 3 different book of his from the library and each had his name spelled different. The Idiot was the best. It was pure torture to read but at that time it was hip to be a sort of psuedo intellectual so you needed the basic plots to dicusss them. Now when a book becomes a movie everyone has read it, but the book sales don't relfect that, except for Harry Potter but those are mostly kids. Just wait until they remake Romeo and Juliet again. Everyone will be saying how they read the book and want to discuss it. I believe in today's language reading the book and watching the movie basically mean the same thing to most people. Of course I am 20 years behind because I prefer that my butt doesn't hang out of the back of my blue jeans.

Answer 2

Sort of. Back in 1979, when Salmon Rushdies' book The Satanic Verses came out, I was working at a book store. Because of all the attention this book got after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa calling for the death of Rusdie, I thought I should read it just so I could talk intelligently about it. Many people were condemning the book who had not read a single page.

I read a lot, and have read a number of difficult books, but this was by far the most obtuse book I have ever read. Needless to say, it was not an enjoyable read, but I ploughed through it.

This was a book that was destined to sell very few copies, that is until the fatwa. After that demand for the book skyrocketed and it became a bestseller. Despite the fact that a lot of people bought the book, however, I can honestly say I think I am one of the few who actually got through it.

Answer 3

I can honestly say that I have not!

It really disgusts me when someone starts reading a book just because Oprah read it, or some other famous person recommended it. The books recommended have the same content before & after it was recommended (& in most cases, just as well known) & just as good a book or just as bad a book.

Reading is supposed to be done to improve the mind, not impress someone.

Answer 4

Maybe A Brief History of Time.
There are a few I've been planning to do that to, War and Peace and David Copperfield for example. If you keep this question open long enough I'll get back to you on that.

A Brief History of Time was well worth reading, btw, whatever my original motivation.

Answer 5

No, but there are plenty I should - I've never read Dickens or Lord of the Rings BUT I haven't read The Da Vinci Code either and I don't intend to for I suppose you could say, the inverse reason in relation to your question!

Answer 6

The books I have read, and they are legion, I read because I was interested. Who would you tell and who would care if you read it or not or what you read?
The classics are classics because they are really awfully good.
Those who can't appreciate a good book because it's good have like a literary tin ear, tone deaf to prose's subtleties.

Answer 7

The only one that comes to mind is The Corrections and I could not even get past page 20 because it was so bad.

Answer 8

No, if the book does not capture me at the beginning, it does not matter how other people think, I simply can no read it.

Answer 9

(2:230) And if the husband divorces his spouse (for the 0.33 time), she shall no longer stay his lawful spouse after this (absolute) divorce, till she marries yet another husband and the 2d husband divorces her. *253 (if so) there is no damage in the experience that they re-marry, on condition that the female and her first husband are confident that they're going to be able to shop in the barriers fastened through Allah. And those are Allah's bounds, which He makes clean for the practise of those who understand (the outcome of transgression). *253. it really is conventional from actual Traditions that it really is easily illegitimate for someone to rearrange the marriage of his divorced spouse with somebody else on the understand-how that the latter will divorce her to offer the prospect for the former husband to recontract marriage with that woman. Such trickery would in reality be an act of sheer sexual corruption and would not render the female at danger of remarriage with her former husband. in accordance to a convention transmitted from 'Ali, Ibn Mas'ud, Abu Hurayrah and 'Uqbah ibn 'Amir, >>>The Prophet suggested his curse on those who organize, to boot as on those who comply with contract, such fictitious marriages.<><< (See Muslim. 'Talaq', l5, 71; Nasa'i, 'Talaq', 8; Ahmad b. Hanbal, Musnad, vol. a million, P. 314 and vol. 5, p. 334; Al-Muwatta', 'Talaq', 27; Abu Da'ud. 'Talaq'. 10 - Ed.)

Answer 10

Nope! I love to read...and I probably have forgotten more books I have read than I remember!