Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by the Broke and the Bookish. Book bloggers create their own lists based on the chosen topics and post links to our lists. It’s a way of all sharing our thoughts and our love of books. And who doesn’t love lists??
So this week’s challenge was to list the books that I find most intimidating. This was a little difficult for me – I’m not typically intimidated by books – just interested or not interested. I’ve read and loved Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, and Atlas Shrugged. Length does not intimidate me most times, I am mostly afraid that I will not like a book and some of the lengthy classics listed below require a lot of effort for little gain if I don’t enjoy them and there are so many books out there that I really, really want to read!
- In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust – 7 volumes and about 4300 pages, need I say more???
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy – I loved Anna Karenina, but I have never been inspired to tackle this tome.
- Moby Dick by Herman Melville – The idea of an epic struggle with a whale just doesn’t make me want to dive into this one…
- Ulysses by James Joyce – I know that it is a 20th century classic and that it is supposed to be beautiful, but I have heard far more about how long and difficult it is…
- Complete Works of William Shakespeare – I have read Shakespeare – Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo & Juliet, ... but I just don’t see myself having the focused concentration required to get through it all while appreciating it.
- The Bible – I’ve read it, parts of it, just have never attacked reading it from cover to cover – maybe someday.
- Paradise Lost by John Milton – Over 10,000 lines of poetry? Probably not…
- Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin – With the HBO series so popular, a lot of people are devouring this series – but the books are so long and there are so many of them, it seems like a commitment I don’t want to make right now!
- Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon – Another series with a lot of long books in it… I hear good things, but I’m not reading to dive in yet…
- Boring Non-Fiction – I’ve written plenty of research papers and didn’t like to read my own. I certainly have no desire to read books that are basically research papers that are hundreds of pages long…
Watching the Words 
Moby-Dick was on my list up until last year and it’s now one of my favourite books. Of course, I went into it wanting to know all the whaling stuff that many people tell you to skip. Ishmael’s voice made me laugh so much.
I completely forgot about Proust. I’m tempted to go edit my post now. 🙂
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Moby Dick is on my list too. I also have War and Peace and Ulysses. They’re just too intimidating to even think about starting!
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Yep, Outlander is on my list as well! I have actually read 4 of the 5 Song of Ice and Fire books so they no longer intimidate me (though books 1-3 were in my TBR for about 7 years).
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I had to read Paradise Lost in college and it is definitely a beast.
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Outlander is on my list too. My friend swears it’s her favorite series ever, but the size alone makes me shrink back. I’m not afraid of huge books but wow. every book in this entire series is massive.
What if I love it and have to read them all?? 😉
My TTT
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Ulysses is on my list too. I have others than I plan to persuade myself to read eventually, but Ulysses is definitely not one of them! 🙂
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