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.
This was mine, too. That book has become a bit of a “didn’t finish” joke which is sad.
Anyone who’s a David Foster Wallace fan should check out the article he wrote about a late 90s AVN awards weekend.
I had no idea who David Foster Wallace was, but I read a collection of his essays one day on a plane and the ones about the AVN awards and grammar/snootiness have always stuck with me.
I’ve read infinite jest and really liked it. Or at least told myself I did.
What I really loved, though, is his article for Gourmet, “Consider The Lobster”
In which he turns what was supposed to be a journalistic coverage of a lobster festival into a philosophical debate on the ability for simpler organisms to feel pain and fear.