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What's the hardest book for you too read that you finished?
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"Do you mean hardest as in emotional hardest" . Emotionally | |||
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"A brief History of time. Stephen Hawking. So fascinating, just too hard to digest for me 😂😂" Yep, same here. Completely lost me as soon as he got onto virtual particles of spin 2 🤣🤣 | |||
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"Star of the sea by Joseph Conrad … what a book to plug through … Tough going like swimming in treacle … " I've read some Conrad recently and I must admit that Heart Of Darkness (and maybe The Secret Agent) aside, I don't get why he's so popular - certainly his novels based around sailing are very dull and frustrating because they'd all be half their length if his characters could just spit out what they're trying to say! | |||
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"Catch 22, I've no idea why it's so highly rated. A great idea for a story badly executed in my opinion." Totally, I really struggled reading it after watching the movie | |||
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"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now" A Child Called It by David Pelzer ? | |||
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"Catch 22, I've no idea why it's so highly rated. A great idea for a story badly executed in my opinion. Totally, I really struggled reading it after watching the movie " Tried 4 times and haven’t managed it yet. | |||
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"Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown, it was a hard read emotionally, it's about the United States westward expansion in the 1800's told from the point of view of Native Americans. It is a harrowing read." Oooo that’s been sitting on my shelf for years and I still haven’t read it 😳 For me I’d say Maus. A graphic novel told by a survivor of the holocaust. Absolutely haunting. | |||
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"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now A Child Called It by David Pelzer ?" I couldn't finish that one. I would have had nightmares for weeks. | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now A Child Called It by David Pelzer ? I couldn't finish that one. I would have had nightmares for weeks. " There is also one by his brother about why he was so mean to "It". I think it was very brave of him to write so honestly. | |||
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"Fifty shades of gray. I was leant a copy, heard all the hype, trudged my way through it hoping it would get better..... It didn't. Happily gave it back. " Yes...this is just badly written drivel...how it was a sensation and made into a film i'll never know. Also the Jack Reacher books are awful...but the series is kinda ok tbf | |||
"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first "Watched the film 'Salo' which is based on 120 Days of Sodom. Didn't know anything about it other than it was on a list of best horror films of all time. It wasn't for me. | |||
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"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now A Child Called It by David Pelzer ?" A child called it, The lost boy and a man named Dave all broke me Donna | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now" I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story. | |||
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"For me? It was Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America by Audrey Farley. It's the true story about one of the first known cases of identical Quadruplets bring born, their life, and how all four ended up in a study in the 1950s after all were diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was difficult to read, but was interesting since it was a local case. My aunt even knew two of the sisters when she was a nurse." Tender is the flesh by Agustina Bazterrica. I really struggled with the themes in this book although equally I didn't want to put it down. | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story." I have the 3 books but I’ve never been able to bring myself to read them for a second time | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story. I have the 3 books but I’ve never been able to bring myself to read them for a second time " I agree,not an enjoyable read. The emotions it evokes are not ones you want to revisit. | |||
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"The Bible... Bit Boring 🤷♂️" If it were a true story,terrifying. | |||
"The Bible... Bit Boring 🤷♂️ If it were a true story,terrifying. " The Song of Solomon is hot stuff tbh.🔥 | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story." Thankyou so much I was looking but I neither knew the other or the title. They are such an emotional read. There is another one about a girl and I thought it was called blackbird but what came up it obviously isnt | |||
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"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first "120 Days of Sodom was on my uni reading list. I remember reading it once over summer and my grandmother asked what it was about - then adjed to borrow it. Her words "how will I ever learn if I don't read these things". I told her she has no business marching such things. I never did lend it to her 😆 | |||
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"The Bible... Bit Boring 🤷♂️ If it were a true story,terrifying. The Song of Solomon is hot stuff tbh.🔥" Im all for sexuality & the beauty of the human form-good old fashioned old testament. | |||
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"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story.Thankyou so much I was looking but I neither knew the other or the title. They are such an emotional read. There is another one about a girl and I thought it was called blackbird but what came up it obviously isnt" There is a memoir of Jennifer Lauck from childhood to adulthood called Black bird,so i think you might be right 🩵 | |||
"It's to late for me to remember but there is one if not two books a guy wrote about his abusive childhood but I forget just now I think you may be referring to A Child called it by Dave Pelzer. Utterly harrowing . There are 3 books in the series & is an incredibly inspirational story.Thankyou so much I was looking but I neither knew the other or the title. They are such an emotional read. There is another one about a girl and I thought it was called blackbird but what came up it obviously isnt There is a memoir of Jennifer Lauck from childhood to adulthood called Black bird,so i think you might be right 🩵" Yes her name is Jenny. | |||
"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first "I downloaded this to see what all the fuss was about and it seemed to blur into the literary equivalent of a porn horror....and all i really got from it was that it was too messed up even for me. You seem to have got so much more from it...by virtue of processing it through a better brain i imagine. Maybe i should give it another go..  | |||
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"Algebra Advanced mathematics by Derek Portman, sobbing every time I read it " 😅 | |||
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"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first
120 Days of Sodom was on my uni reading list. I remember reading it once over summer and my grandmother asked what it was about - then adjed to borrow it. Her words "how will I ever learn if I don't read these things".
I told her she has no business marching such things.
I never did lend it to her 😆"I think you probably made the right decision | |||
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"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first
I downloaded this to see what all the fuss was about and it seemed to blur into the literary equivalent of a porn horror....and all i really got from it was that it was too messed up even for me.
You seem to have got so much more from it...by virtue of processing it through a better brain i imagine.
Maybe i should give it another go.. "I wouldn't sweat it too much, actually other people's writing on him are probably more interesting - the likes of George Bataille & Simone de Beauvoir. His ideas about the paradox of personal liberty are interesting. But yes not being narrative driven makes it a somewhat cumbersome reading. That wasn't even the finished work either | |||
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"For me? It was Girls and Their Monsters: The Genain Quadruplets and the Making of Madness in America by Audrey Farley. It's the true story about one of the first known cases of identical Quadruplets bring born, their life, and how all four ended up in a study in the 1950s after all were diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was difficult to read, but was interesting since it was a local case. My aunt even knew two of the sisters when she was a nurse." World War 2 ~ 6 volumes Winston Churchill... Took me a while! | |||
"Lair - By James Herbert. Part of The Rats trilogy. Got to the bit where people locked in an underground bunker were commuting suicide after hearing news from the surface. It was depressing, but I finished it. Decided against reading the third if the three books." fuck that for a game of soldiers, I read them all and scared the life out of me | |||
"Plenty at university - "The Industrialization of the Continental Powers" has scarred me enough to remember the title (mainly as it was written by someone called Trebilcock!) 🤣 But in fiction, "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara was pretty harrowing. Excellent, but left me reeling." Oh uni... urgh yes that unlocks a miserable memory (thanks for that) 
I was completing an awful unit on offshore fisheries and had to slog through The Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive - specifically the EU Fecal Waste Management then write a huge essay about it.
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"When I was much younger I decided to give some Marquis De Sade a read out of curiosity, and bought a collection of his work that was translated and amalgamated into one volume (120 Days of Sodom, Juliette, Justine, Philosophy in the bedroom and some others). It was definitely a challenging read at first. Much of the depravity/sex was extreme and obscene, but you almost became a bit numb to it after a while. I enjoyed the philosophical aspects and the way he uses themes around morality, virtue, religion, hypocrisy, power, freedom, autonomy, liberalism, science, sexuality (so much to unpack there), especially when you consider the period and context within which it was written. He was transgressive and shocking, and for some he still is. But if you can get over the graphic and extreme sex and violence, his philosophical ideas are genuinely quite thought provoking. You just have get accustomed to the obscenities first
I downloaded this to see what all the fuss was about and it seemed to blur into the literary equivalent of a porn horror....and all i really got from it was that it was too messed up even for me.
You seem to have got so much more from it...by virtue of processing it through a better brain i imagine.
Maybe i should give it another go.. "I think if you can look beyond the "torture porn" aspect, which admittedly is "a lot", and interpret much of that as metaphorical representations of larger concepts I think you can see what he was trying to achieve (to a point). His characters and their behaviours are extreme and grotesque, it is shocking even now let alone to audiences of the time, but it could be argued he is using them as a foil to discuss ideas of human nature, civility, morality, desire, power and automony/freedom. Especially baring in mind that much of his work was written against the backdrop of revolutionary France and the cultural and political turmoil of the time. Or you can see them as the depraved fantastical ramblings of an imprisoned mad man | |||
"… it could be argued he is using them as a foil to discuss ideas of human nature, civility, morality, desire, power and automony/freedom. Or you can see them as the depraved fantastical ramblings of an imprisoned mad man" Why not both? | |||
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"Plenty at university - "The Industrialization of the Continental Powers" has scarred me enough to remember the title (mainly as it was written by someone called Trebilcock!) 🤣 But in fiction, "A Little Life" by Hanya Yanagihara was pretty harrowing. Excellent, but left me reeling. Oh uni... urgh yes that unlocks a miserable memory (thanks for that)
I was completing an awful unit on offshore fisheries and had to slog through The Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive - specifically the EU Fecal Waste Management then write a huge essay about it.
"Ha, you definitely win!! 🤣 | |||
"… it could be argued he is using them as a foil to discuss ideas of human nature, civility, morality, desire, power and automony/freedom. Or you can see them as the depraved fantastical ramblings of an imprisoned mad man Why not both? "Why not indeed! It is often argued there is a thin line between genius and insanity. | |||
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"One I've read that Chris can't get his head around is "House of Leaves" - Mark Z Danielewski. I love it but Chris thinks it's absolute nonsense. If anyone's read it I'd love to chat to you about it!" Loved it, one of my all time favourites, but yeah a challenging read more for the format of it as opposed to the content. Amazed it's not been made into a film or TV series. | |||
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"Emotionally? The Shepherds crown. The last book of a favourite author. " It's still on my shelf, I can't even pick it up. The emotional weight of it being the last is too much. It's the same with "The Quarry" by Iain Banks. | |||
"Fifty shades of gray. I was leant a copy, heard all the hype, trudged my way through it hoping it would get better..... It didn't. Happily gave it back. " It’s terrible. The timeline from 9/11 to 50 shades though is a fun little journey | |||
"Emotionally? The Shepherds crown. The last book of a favourite author. It's still on my shelf, I can't even pick it up. The emotional weight of it being the last is too much. It's the same with "The Quarry" by Iain Banks." It took me 2 years and meeting Rob at clitfest who encouraged me, to decide to brave it. I’m so glad I did, but fuck I cried like a baby | |||
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"The NEBOSH Occupational Health and Safety manual. It took forever !!" You should try Tolley's Health and Safety Law for the most tedium. | |||
"The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. While I agree with the content message, I found it as preachy as any religious book, albeit the other side of the fence. Plus it could all have been condensed into one sentence, "I dont believe there's a God - the end" " Yes, he's as as radical as those he purports to disagree with so much. The God Delusion is interesting. Some valid points. Some nonsense. | |||
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"The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. While I agree with the content message, I found it as preachy as any religious book, albeit the other side of the fence. Plus it could all have been condensed into one sentence, "I dont believe there's a God - the end" Yes, he's as as radical as those he purports to disagree with so much. The God Delusion is interesting. Some valid points. Some nonsense. " Dawkins could still never best John Lennox in any debate and generally misses the point in my opinion. Though even he has to concede Christianity is the best religion. Mr I'm a cultural Christian lol | |||
"The Silmarillion. Tedious as fuck. " Oh god yes. After reading lots aged 11 I thought the simarillion would be the perfect read, I still haven't finished it and I'm 37 now lol | |||
"Bram stokers Dracula. For a book about an undead eternals dark prince it's boring as hell lol" This is one of my favourites. I almost called my daughter Mina (although arguably Lucy is the more interesting character) | |||
"The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. While I agree with the content message, I found it as preachy as any religious book, albeit the other side of the fence. Plus it could all have been condensed into one sentence, "I dont believe there's a God - the end" Yes, he's as as radical as those he purports to disagree with so much. The God Delusion is interesting. Some valid points. Some nonsense. " I read some of his books in the past, but I agree he has become quite fanatical, and it has put me off him quite a bit. Radical anything isn't great, even atheism. And he's also a bit of a sexiest dickhead. So he can go in the bin now 🚮 | |||
"Bram stokers Dracula. For a book about an undead eternals dark prince it's boring as hell lol This is one of my favourites. I almost called my daughter Mina (although arguably Lucy is the more interesting character) "Have you read Dracul? It is a prequel to Dracula written by Dacre Stoker the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker. I really enjoyed it. | |||
"Probably 1984 " That was my "O" level book | |||
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"The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. While I agree with the content message, I found it as preachy as any religious book, albeit the other side of the fence. Plus it could all have been condensed into one sentence, "I dont believe there's a God - the end" Yes, he's as as radical as those he purports to disagree with so much. The God Delusion is interesting. Some valid points. Some nonsense. I read some of his books in the past, but I agree he has become quite fanatical, and it has put me off him quite a bit. Radical anything isn't great, even atheism. And he's also a bit of a sexiest dickhead. So he can go in the bin now 🚮" Sexist!! SEXIST! not sexiest  | |||
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"Where’s Wally. I can never find the striped little bastard." Five have a Wonderful Time | |||
"Bible Was forced to read it in school Was told countless times I’m the child of satan catholic schools eh "I was challenged to read it cover to cover as a teenager. *So i did* Bloody hell. The lists of names. The contradictions and the bonkers bits. The stuff that makes no sense once it’s translated out of the source languages. But the ending really jumps the shark. Revelations. I’ve read a fair bit of scifi and fantasy but Revelations is absolutely batshit. So take away the key NT concepts of compassion and supporting others and of “don’t be a dick” and leave the rest for others to fight over, imo. Would not recommend. Especially all the bits of killing kids all over the shop out of spite. | |||
