Confessions

This blog is entitled Confession of a Hopeless Bookworm.  Thus far I have focused on books I am confessing to have read or books I am actively reading.  There is another kind of confession: those books that I am supposed to have read but, for whatever reason, I have not.

Some of them just didn't catch my interest.  Some of them took too much time.  And some of them have sat on my shelves for decades now, waiting for me to stop putting them off.  At any rate, here is my List of Books I Should Have Read By Now:

1. Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank.  I went through a major Holocaust phase in elementary school.  I have read The Cage, Night, and countless other books and personal narratives.  So why I have I not read THE book of the Holocaust, that quintessential story of this horrific era?  I honestly don't know.  I have started it dozens of times.  I have never even gotten to the point where they start hiding.  It's embarrassing, but no, I've never actually read it.

2. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott.  You would think with my affection for Gone With the Wind that I would be addicted to Civil War novels.  However, I have never gotten past the first chapter of this book.  Does that  get me thrown out of the girl club?  Oh well, I don't know how to do my eye makeup either, so maybe it's just as well.  I simply never got into this book. 

3. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens.  This is a confession because I was SUPPOSED to have read it in high school. Plus I really like Dickens, so I should have read the thing. I had five novels to read for my summer reading assignment in preparation for English 12AP.  I read four of them.  I ran out of time and Cliffed this one.  I also rocked the test on it...but what goes around comes around: I was so busy reading the Cliffs Notes* for this book the night before the summer reading test that I did not review the other books and bombed the other parts of the test.  Well played, Mrs. Turk. 

*Cliffs Notes, children, were what we used in the days before Wikipedia to fake our way through tests.

4. The Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder.  As I mentioned in this post, I never got into these books.  I realize that I am a girl that grew up in the Midwest and therefore I am supposed to fawn over these books, but I just can't get there. 

5. Anne of Green Gables and the rest of the series by L.M. Montgomery.  When I was about 8, I fell in love with the Avonlea series and the Anne of Green Gables mini-series on the Disney channel.  (For those of you who might be my younger readers: children, once upon a time the Disney channel produced good, quality family entertainment, unlike the nonsense you find on there now.)  I asked for and received the entire series for Christmas, and I eagerly set out to read them...and never succeeded.  Not even once.  BUT - I view them as my next A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  It took me decades to getting around to reading that book, but once I did, I loved it.  I really think I will conquer Anne one of these days. 

6. The Complete Works of Shakespeare.  This is on the list because I love Shakespeare and I feel like I should have read more of his works by now.  But I haven't picked up one of his plays since high school.  Pity - they are amazing, he does incredible things with the English Language.  This is on my bucket list - to read every one of his works. 

7. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen.  Confession: I love Jane Austen.  Second confession: the only novel I have actually read in its entirety is Pride and Prejudice.  But I WILL finish her complete works one day!

8. 1984 by George Orwell.  I haven't read any of Orwell, actually, but I feel like I should in order to be a well-rounded adult. 

9. Wuthering Heights  by Emily Bronte.  I've read Jane Eyre - why haven't I read this one again?  More confessions: haven't even seen the movie.  I know, I am a terrible excuse for a young woman. 

10. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.  I covered not reading this book in this post, but it still embarrasses me that I've never gotten through it.  I really would like to, but every time I try, I fail.  I absolutely love the movies, even the extended versions, so it's not the length.  I have no idea why I have this block against finishing this book, but it's there.

Phew!  I feel so much better getting that off my chest.  What about you?  What books have you never read that you feel like you should have by now?