Books You Will Never Read

[ToALonelyPeace]

'Never' is a strong word, but I doubt I will read American Psycho anytime soon. I hear plenty about it from readers with 'disturbing' taste'. I even watch some trailers for the movie, listen to Bret Easton Ellis' podcast and check out highlighted quotes. I get the general gist of the story...However, I can't bring myself to buy the book or get excited over reading it.

Instead of disturbing me, reading the passage below reminds me of boring assigned books in school.

           “There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with  the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the  mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now  surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better  world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I  want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no  catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper  knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling.  This confession has meant nothing. ”

Feel free to contradict me if this is your favorite book (especially if you like to read disturbing book)

A couple on my list:

Mein Kampf
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
The Hunger Games
Anything by Terry Goodkind
Twilight
Fifty Shades of Gray
Anything published by Counter-Currents

I was tempted to also include The Mahabharata. I wish to read it, but its incredible length deters me. As does The Golden Bough.

[Nemonymous]

I recommend the following novel for everyone's lists under this heading:
'Nemonymous Night' (2011) by DF Lewis

Quote Originally Posted by Nemonymous

I recommend the following novel for everyone's lists under this heading: 'Nemonymous Night' (2011) by DF Lewis

Oh come now, "Blueberry Muffin" was quite agreeable, and surely the disparity between short tale and novel isn't so wide as, say, Laird Barron's

[miguel1984]

The Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.

One of my three sisters was reading it in Spanish and I skimmed through it at the beach, to see if it was as bad as I suspected it was. I could not help it and laughed out loud at how dreadful it was and people were looking at me like I was crazy. I do not know if it was the Spanish translation or if it was already that laughable in English; my guess is the latter.

[Liam Barden]

Quote Originally Posted by ToALonelyPeace

'Never' is a strong word, but I doubt I will read American Psycho anytime soon. I hear plenty about it from readers with 'disturbing' taste'. I even watch some trailers for the movie, listen to Bret Easton Ellis' podcast and check out highlighted quotes. I get the general gist of the story...However, I can't bring myself to buy the book or get excited over reading it. Instead of disturbing me, reading the passage below reminds me of boring assigned books in school. “There are no more barriers to cross. All I have in common with the uncontrollable and the insane, the vicious and the evil, all the mayhem I have caused and my utter indifference toward it I have now surpassed. My pain is constant and sharp and I do not hope for a better world for anyone, in fact I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape, but even after admitting this there is no catharsis, my punishment continues to elude me and I gain no deeper knowledge of myself; no new knowledge can be extracted from my telling. This confession has meant nothing. ” Feel free to contradict me if this is your favorite book (especially if you like to read disturbing book)

America Psycho is hilarious. The meticulous ultra-violence, paedophilia, rape, torture, coprophagy and urophagia in 120 Days of Sodom by Marquis De Sade is far more vile.

I haven't read 120 Days of Sodom from start to finish, I just skim through it, frigging my little tally wacker till my f••k flows and mother sounds the bell for dinner . . .

A lot of the language in it is quite similar to that hahaha.

There's nothing I wouldn't read because of transgressive or racist content, nothing problematic! upsets or offends me . . . useless boredom . . . that's the killer, I'd rather read 268 pages of Céline's anti-semitic Trifles for a Massacre, than 5 of anything written by an academic.

[Justin Isis]

White Man Novels (Updike, Franzen, Lethem), Ayn Rand nonsense bricks, MFA Pushcart manicured journals, etc. These are all things I'm now too old to worry about never reading; life is finally not for so long.

White Dad-penned cosmic horror and Cthulhu anthologies. Because, no.

More seriously, every single Conrad and Faulkner book - probably won't make it to them all, even though I'd like to. No need for Hardy and no need to finish The Mill on the Floss. 

Interest in reading the Bible straight through actually decreasing with every year. Same for lots of important works of philosophy. 

Various popular and allegedly important Gladwell-style things on economics, culture, etc. 

[Lord Jim]

I've worked at libraries for nearly two decades and have never read Danielle Steel. On a recent vacation, my wife blutoothed the most recent Steel in our car, and I finally got to experience the clunky and unintelligent writing. Will never read. It hurt a little more having come after the first Night Vale podcast.

[Fenris Technique]

The Book of Mormon.

. . . unless we go through an 'End of the World Event' . . . in which case it'll probably be the first thing I read. Hey, those guys stockpile months worth of food and water.

Quote Originally Posted by Justin Isis

White Man Novels (Updike, Franzen, Lethem), Ayn Rand nonsense bricks, MFA Pushcart manicured journals, etc. These are all things I'm now too old to worry about never reading; life is finally not for so long.

I concur, Justin, with the possible exception of Lethem. The premises of his novels intrigue me enough to get to them eventually.

I would also like to add anything by John Green, any long work by Haruki Murakami, Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis, what I have not read already by Stephen King and Palahniuk, Knausgaard, or ASOIAF.