I started reading for fun a few years ago and started with the top 100 classics as voted by the readers of penguin books.

While I’ve loved some of them, and enjoyed others even if they weren’t my cup of tea, there have been some that I’ve had to grind them down page by page until they are finish.

I want to finish all 100 as it’s the challenge I set myself, so what do you do get through a book that you aren’t enjoying/connecting with?

Sorry if this had already been asked, I only joined yesterday!

  • Cordelia-Shirley@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    10 months ago

    I find this post a bit confusing.

    You are reading for fun, but you aren’t enjoying some of these books? But based on your comments this is important to you and get something from some of these books after slogging through nearly 90% of the book?

    I think it might be helpful to ask yourself if you’re really doing this for fun or if theres another reason. Maybe you are doing it for fun, but maybe you have other motivations as well. I say this because I personally used to be someone who read classics just to say I’d read them. It’s a good feeling to say “I read Moby Dick” or Anna Karenina or Crime and Punishment or Ulysses or what have you (I totally listed all the classics I haven’t read yet lol).

    But if you really, truly want advice, here is what I suggest though it might not sound perfectly appetizing:

    1. Pick one of the classics from the list that sounds really interesting to you based on a blurb or a review

    2. read that classic book as slowly and thoroughly as you can. Don’t read it to get through it. Read it like it’s real: treat characters like people you’re trying to get to know; don’t speed through the seemingly arbitrary descriptions of landscapes but try to picture them in your mind’s eye and ask yourself why a celebrated author (who clearly knows what they’re doing according to the cannon) would include this particular description since it must be relevant somehow; try to breathe life into each and every scene. Take notes if you want.

    This is of course my personal reading philosophy, but classics are works of quality that take time to appreciate and understand. Burning through them for the sake of completing a list, maybe not even remembering most of them or getting the depth of them, doesn’t seem to have a point for me, but everyone is different so I don’t want it to feel like I’m judging you—just want to give feedback since you yourself say you’re not enjoying them all. I actually find classics really fun, but depending on the length, it can take me months or even a year to finish a big book. But when I’m done I feel like I’ve made a wise friend who has taught me a lot about the world and the people in it. Even then though, I also wouldn’t put time into a book that’s not jiving with me.

    If this sounds interesting but not totally convincing, I suggest checking out Benjamin McAvoy’s YouTube channel. He has a way of explaining how reading and literature can change your life and how to get the most out of these works, treating them like living beings you can have a conversation with.