What do you mean selection?

My parents never read to me XP Not that kind of family XP
i think i have a natural tendency towards reading XP
My parents never buy any books for me either
I borrowed from my school library or the national library
My first book was one who was bought by me by my grandfather XP
About a cat i think
hahahha XP

Originally Posted by neko79

My first book was one who was bought by me by my grandfather XP
About a cat i think
hahahha XP

omg neko that's so funny XDDD!!!

i remember my mom told me one of the first projects i did in preschool was write a story about cats. My story I wrote went like this "I like cats because cats are good animals and good animals are good" :D

You can tell I was just the gifted writer at a young age >.>;;;;;;;;


edit: OOH i mean you had to choose a book to read for english and couldn't change it ^^ I had chosen Lord Jim and had to suffer thru it @.@;; I think I eventually googled it or something cuz i honestly couldn't read it.

oh
we had that too
i never had any problem.
Our school was quite okay in that it doesn't gives any titles that we have to choose from
I know i did enid blyton in primary school haha
i would never choose that title XP Lord Jim <-- sounds boring to me? XP
i tend to choose things with elves and fairies and dragons and magic
so basically the fantasy genre XP

@Elie .. I do love classics though ^^ Just not Quixote .. But I did enjoy other spanish classic books XD The other ones I had to read them by myself.

I remebember once I was talking to this brit guy and he said 'Shakespeare sucks' and I told him ' HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!!!!' .. and then I thought maybe Shakespeare was to him what Cervantes was to me. In fact he had other stories did I actually didn't mind reading.

On 1984 .. Well, I did read this book but I never understood why people liked it so much. Granted, it was mainly my fault, since I kept comparing to a Brave New World by Huxley, which I adored ..

Eck, will elaborate later, have to head to work.

I got through The Hobbit just fine, but I could never get beyond the first 12 pages of Lord of the Rings. -.-;

I've also started and never finnished Flatland by Edwin A. Abbott. It has a verry interesting premise- but the writing is tortuous. Its a really small book, and its embarasing that it has defeated me, but when ever I pick it up, I always mannage to get distracted by something more entertaining and stimulating- like paint drying. So far I'm about half-way through. I've been about half way thorugh for three years. I'm a disgrace to the nickname book-vampire. Oh how the mighty have fallen :oops:

sychobunny, the first twelve pages of the Lord of the Rings where the worst :D. The first time I stared reading those books I stopped there as well because I found the introduction to be quite boring. The second time I just skipped those and now I've read most of Tolkiens books including the Silmarillion.

A book I never did finish was the Soddit, a Lord of the Rings parody. I'll probably start in it again one day though.
I never finished Watership Down of Richard Adams either, but again I only set asside the book for a while. There will come a day when I'll finish reading all those books waiting on my shelves.
I only stop reading a book when a more appealing one comes within my grasp, but it's only temporary. Even when I start a book I realy seem to dislike, I still try to finish it.
I've only come across one book I realy wanted to put down forever: De Scharlaken Stad by Hella S. Haasse (I don't think it ever got translated). I read it anyway because it was for a book report for school. :?

EDIT: I came up with a book I couldn't finish and that I don't feel like starting again: the Da Vinci Code of Dan Brown. Never got much further than the first chapter. I found it to be rather boring and certainly not as amazing as so many people seem to find it. But maybe that's just because I read such a short piece of the book.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This is because I just plain hate the way Tolkien writes. I mean, I know he was paid by the paragraph, but would it have killed him to make them interesting paragraphs?

Also, I've never been able to read Anne Rice's Violin or Blackwood Farm in their entirety. They were just.. I kept literally stopping to say "What the shit is this?!"

the hobbit, it never really interested me...

OMG
i didn't know that so many people is like neko who never manage to finish reading Lord of the rings XP haha

oh
hmm
shakespears
i will tolerate him comedy but i must admit that
i never did finish reading his tragedies *sweatdrop*

I can't belive Goblet of fire was on that list! I adored reading that one! I ate it up as though it were candy. Candy for my imagination!

Maybe the fifth book, OoTP, because that was a one time read for me, but not Goblet! <3 That's gotta be my favorite from the seris as of now.


As for what I couldn't finish... Lord of the rings...
>>;;

I tried! I liked the Hobbit, and I liked the movies, but I just could NOT sit down and read that book! I got through... 15-20 pages(?) before tossing the book across the room in frustration. It couldn't hold my attention like the Hobbit did.

EEk There is actually a ton of books I haven't finished! thinking about it makes me want to try and read them! Half the books i haven't finished I've forgotten the name of too! Ke-ke I admit i didn't finish the most recent Harry Potter book. It seemed to monotonous a read for me.
Oh! Ive never actually be able to read Anne Rice's books, i think thats how you spell her name! I claim lack of sleep and ignorance. But I;ve never been able to get past a few pages in her Vampire books. the whole Series on Lestat~[I know a person who has the same name!]
Considering a love the movie, i feel bad that i cant sit through her book. Though i know there not the same thing i always like to read what I've watched. I've also never been able to get through anything of J.R.R.Tolkens but the whole Trilogy, I'm actually reading that for the seccond time.
Theres a ton others, if i recall there name I'll try and remember to post them here~

Originally Posted by c0rpse

EEk There is actually a ton of books I haven't finished! thinking about it makes me want to try and read them! Half the books i haven't finished I've forgotten the name of too! Ke-ke I admit i didn't finish the most recent Harry Potter book. It seemed to monotonous a read for me.
Oh! Ive never actually be able to read Anne Rice's books, i think thats how you spell her name! I claim lack of sleep and ignorance. But I;ve never been able to get past a few pages in her Vampire books. the whole Series on Lestat~[I know a person who has the same name!]
Considering a love the movie, i feel bad that i cant sit through her book. Though i know there not the same thing i always like to read what I've watched. I've also never been able to get through anything of J.R.R.Tolkens but the whole Trilogy, I'm actually reading that for the seccond time.
Theres a ton others, if i recall there name I'll try and remember to post them here~

hmm for Anne rice
Some of the vampire novels are quite nice
i end up liking some of the other vampires instead of lestat and what's the character that brad pitt was?
I rather like Queen of the damned too
Maurice? or something one of the older vampires, i remmeber like one of the older vampires than lestat XP
Geesh thats soooo long ago since i last picked up a Anne rice book XP

I've only read 'Interview with a Vampire' by Anne Rice. And I didn't like it enough to continue the saga or go on reading her books. I did read another book of hers ... just because my mom had bought it at a cheap price. I don't remember the title, but it was about a mommy coming back to life & persuing Cleopatra, who had been , at the same time mommified?

I must admit the storyline was interesting but I thought the writing sucked, sorry for Rice fans ^^;

On the other side I never had trouble reading HP books. I fnished them all in like 2 or 3 days but then again I am obsessed with HP ^^;

The only book so far that I haven't been able to finish is War and Peace.

I picked it up in high school, and read until page 662 (yes, I still remember the page and it's been...6 years? 5?)

It's just painful to read, and you have to keep track of characters or you will get lost. I plan on finishing it, in fact I bought an old version of it off of Ebay, given, it's more for decoration since it does look really really old, but I will read it. I guess I'll have to start back from the beginning though. ><;

I suppose that's what I get though for deciding to read a book just to say I have.

Oh I have a couple I wished I could finish, but boredom made me quit.
Hunchback of Notre Dame was one. I was only about a hundred pgs lacking. But I know how it ends, and I couldn't motivate myself to finish it.
I believe I also quit on The Vampire Lestat, no wait.... No I actually did finish it. Sorry I forgot I forced myself to finish it. But I quit on the desire to read any of her other books. Her style bores me a bit.
The other one I did quit on was Paradise Lost. I want to finish it, but.... The guy kept inlongating what was going on!! I get what happened! You do not need to add 3 more pages on the same topic! I know and love the style, but T-T.....

I don't read a lot of book, Shezzy, but I do remember this one book that I had to read in college... The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Ugh. I just couldn't get into that book at all! It was too boring for me x___x; I couldn't get all the "hype" about it, too. Gah. I ended up going for the cheatnotes instead XD;; hahah...

Hahah, yay for HP! XD <3 Same thing~ Well, the books were targetted for a younger audience, so they were defintely easy reads XD <3 Some of my friends were actually "amazed" that I was able to finish reading the books so quickly. They just haven't tried to read the books, that's all hahah.

HP is definitely very easy to read
ALthough i don't like the main leads *hides*
but i can always finish one book easier within a few hours XP

Originally Posted by Victor Von Doom

But yeah, usually I'll plow through any book, but there have been more than a few I've been tempted to hurl against the wall. I actually did that with the unabridged version of Les Miserables. I forget which part. I think it was when Hugo was giving background on a character (Fantine's lover/Cosette birth father) that Hugo states right off the bat has nothing to do with the main story. To be fair, I was in a foul mood (bad vacation) and needed some light reading instead of some deep introspective literature. And don't boo and hiss me. I picked up an abridged version that only cut out the really unnecessary stuff (basically, it was edited. Hugo was notorious for refusing any editorial advice) such as the whole chapter on Parisian street slang and the chapter on the history of the sewers and I ended up loving it and it's now one of my favorites. But trying to read about the miserable ones when you're stuck in an underfurnished hotel room that's leaking water and feeling claustrophobic in a city of 3 million people is not the time to read it. That's when you pick up Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and have a few beers.

xD I read Les Miserables. The most torturous parts, for me were the parts talking about Waterloo. (JESUS, CAN HUGO RAMBLE.) and the part at the beginning with the bishop who seems to have no correlation to the story whatsoever. xD My book actually ripped in half from it's own weight. I did love the book, though. The ending made me cry.

I'm usually a very avid reader: I don't mind volume, I don't mind small print size as long as the stuff inside is good. The only books I had trouble with were compulsory literature class ones but you could say that being compulsory somehow made them lose part of the "discovery" charm you have when reading a book (since you had no choice but to read it before a set date when you got tested to death about every page of it). Among these, Emile Zola's books gave me the most trouble (being French, of course we studied French authors in class, no Shakespeare for us XD Welcome, Molière~ XD). Hadn't I been forced to read them, I think I'd just have piled them away in a corner of my bookshelf.

Zola was too keen on descriptions for me... 2/3 pages describing a shelf that had was of no relevance whatsoever in the story, just for the pure describing high of it. At 14, I must admit that really damped any enthusiasm I might have had, failed to consider it as one of the beauties of literature XD Maybe it'd have been different if I read it a bit later since I read his "Nana" in HS and found it more tolerable - even though I can't say I liked it.

I liked Hugo's writing better, it "flowed" more as I see it.

As for books I picked up myself, it was a series the bookshop girl advised me to read as it was very popular with her readers, or so she said. It was Kate Elliot's Crown of Stars Series (I was very much into fantasy at the time and had run out of things to read so stupidly bought volumes 1 to 3 at once). I painfully forced myself to read book 1 and 2 but never finished the third, the Burning Stone. The starting idea could have been good but to me, reading it was just painfully plowing through, hoping that finally next chapter something would catch my attention and make it all worth it. And knowing that it went on for at least 2 more volumes at the time killed any desire to know how it'd end up halfway through that 3rd book XD

Originally Posted by ChibiPillow

Zola was too keen on descriptions for me... 2/3 pages describing a shelf that had was of no relevance whatsoever in the story, just for the pure describing high of it. At 14, I must admit that really damped any enthusiasm I might have had, failed to consider it as one of the beauties of literature XD Maybe it'd have been different if I read it a bit later since I read his "Nana" in HS and found it more tolerable - even though I can't say I liked it.

Holycow XP
i mean if its 2/3 page of describing a bishie
i am not even sure i will be even to sit through that
let alone a shelf with no relevance?
was she writing a detective story or something LOL?

Originally Posted by neko79

Holycow XP
i mean if its 2/3 page of describing a bishie
i am not even sure i will be even to sit through that
let alone a shelf with no relevance?
was she writing a detective story or something LOL?

My lit teacher considered that all this pointless rambling was part of the beauty of literature as an art XD Words for the pure sake of the beauty of sentences, grammar subtleties and figures of style.

Totally escaped my barbarian mind XD I don't like pointless rambling, much less when it's devoted to describing a wooden shelf with a few pots of jam on it as if it were the seventh wonder ._. Think the point was that, to the character, it was a wonder to have those few pots of jam sitting on that shelf (Zola's books are 18th/19th century working class drama types so... I suspect that was the reason for the whole thing). My teacher positively adored it and saying it was slow or boring was forbidden XD For art is never boring, it is only you who are too dull to understand it and enjoy it as it deserves.

<---- dull (since in the end I tended to skip/read diagonally everything that sounded like descriptions that seemed useless to the plot).
I like poetry better in that aspect because you can let your own mind work out what the author meant, not stupidly endure lines upon lines of descriptions x_x

/end of rant XD (must admit ever since I've been biased against Zola so I could be harsh and unfair and indeed missing the whole point that it was art XD)

(And it was a he, not a she too XD)

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: I just couldn't do it... It just... I don't know... and I tried reading it TWICE! The second time I didn't read the last 100 pages... The worst part is that I did a research paper on it >.<;

Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman: I am still trying to read this series. I read the first one perfectly fine all the way through and then I got into a rut with the second one.

The Red Badge of Courage by I don't even remember: If there is any book that is more boring than this... well, it's just not humanly possible for another human to put people through such suffering...

Originally Posted by secretdae007

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien: I just couldn't do it... It just... I don't know... and I tried reading it TWICE! The second time I didn't read the last 100 pages... The worst part is that I did a research paper on it >.<;

Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman: I am still trying to read this series. I read the first one perfectly fine all the way through and then I got into a rut with the second one.

The Red Badge of Courage by I don't even remember: If there is any book that is more boring than this... well, it's just not humanly possible for another human to put people through such suffering...

You couldn't finish the Hobbit, really? I thought it was the best book ever. In fact, it's the only book of J.R.R Tolkien that I even bothered to read..

Well, anyways, the books that I haven't been able to finish:

Any of the book in the LOTR series.

The Lord of the Flies -- Thank god for Sparknotes

The Scarlet Pimpernel -- recommended so many times, I just couldn't get past the boring beginning though.

And many others that I've probably forgotten by now.