Couldn't pick it up

I am so glad that I didn’t go to work yesterday as by the evening I was really flagging. I’m such a lightweight. Anyway, it’s back to work today *sigh*. At least it is a short week.

Teletext recently carried out a survey of the books least likely to be finished by Britons. I think we’ll have to brush over the fact that this survey is likely to be very flawed (unless all of the 4000 people surveyed had actually tried to read all of the books then it doesn’t mean that if 25% failed to finish a book that the other 75% succeeded, they might just never have even considered reading the book. So it’s not really clear what it is showing. There are various other things which are really unclear about the survey too), when has something being based on sound research prevented something being reported on as fact.

I think a lot of the books on the list are ones that have received critical acclaim but that doesn’t mean that they have appeal to the average reader, some of them strike me as the sort of books that people feel that they *should* read, but the reality doesn’t quite measure up. I have to say that I haven’t read most of the books. Of those on the fiction list I have only attempted two of them, which were Captain Corelli's Mandolin and The Alchemist* and I didn’t like either of them (but did finish them both). I haven’t read any of the books on the non-fiction list.

Personally I tend to struggle with ‘classic literature’ because it just reminds me of being forced to read books when I was at school – although having said that I am currently reading Armadale by Wilkie Collins and am really enjoying that. The comments on the BBC story (linked to above) are interesting and I think just prove that whether people enjoy a particular book is very subjective. In the comments on the BBC, some people have said that books like Catch 22 and We need to talk about Kevin should have been on the list, but I think they are both really good books. Catch 22 is totally absurd, but that’s the point really. It’s basically showing how absurd war is and how mad and arbitrary the decisions are about how to fight a particular war. I know other people who have read it and hated it but personally I thought it was a really clever and insightful book. I’ve already said before about what a good book I think “We need to talk about Kevin” is. Very dark, but well written and I was really shocked by the ending (which might just reflect how unobservant I can be!)

Anyway, should you be interested in the fiction list, here it is:

1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky


* One person who commented on The Alchemist on Amazon said “what is wrong with people? This book is simply terrible. I was given it as a present by a man I was potentially falling in love with, when he declared this was his favourite book I realised it would never work.” Enough said…