it doesn’t have to be your favorite book or anything. It can be any book that you find yourself thinking of with a sense of pride for having read it.
Personally, I am really proud of myself for not DNFing A Little Life and pushing forward. I read a very good chunk of that book with tears running down my face–mind you, I was reading it on my phone during lectures for the entirety of my first semester last year–and I was always on the verge of putting it down just because of the horrible content. Also, it was pretty long; too long, actually. So when I was done, I was simultaneously Heartbroken, broken (just like in general), and relieved. It was truly a feat.
An honorable mention is A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, because I swear to God I did not understand a single thing about it even 10 chapters in. Charles Dickens is too much.
Finnegan’s Wake. For obvious reasons. I read it in college and found it quite fun, not to say I really understood much of any of it. But reading it out loud a bit at a time over the course of 8-9 months became a joyful, silly, meditative practice for me. I don’t think anything will ever take it’s place as my most accomplished read. Unless I someday find it in me to try to tackle like, all of Prousts In Search of Lost Time or something.
I’ve also read the entirety of The Bible (I studied religion in college so it’s not that big of a deal to me I guess). War and Peace, the Count of Monte Cristo, and some other large books that people usually hold up as their most accomplished reads don’t mean a whole lot to me; I found them both to be incredibly readable, especially the Count of Monte Cristo, which I would probably consider my favorite book of all time.