I was just wandering around my emails a bit ago, and found that Kelsey @ There’s Something About KM tagged me in her post with her answers to this tag.  Well, I’m not one to avoid a challenge, but I’m afraid it has taken me a bit of time to publish this, as my blog calendar has been filling up quickly (lots of books I wanted to read seem to have come out this month). But, better late than never, right?

The Rules: 

• Link back to the original tag on Jamishelves
• Complete the questions with books you do WANT to read, but the actual process of reading them seems daunting or unappealing
• Tag some people at the end to do this tag next

The Questions:

A book you feel you need to read because everybody’s talking about it:

I think the book that I feel many people are talking about is “The Vanishing Half” by Brit Bennett, but I’m unsure about all the hype. I still want to read her debut novel, “The Mothers” which didn’t get as much hype. I tried to get the ARC of it, but was turned down.

A book that’s really long:

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” by J.K. Rowling is a book that weighed in at 759 pages, and although I tried, I just DNF that one! It SO needed some truly severe editing, I got totally bored with it. I guess I should have figured out that this would be the case when I struggled to get through the previous book in the series. (Of course, Rowling isn’t a very PC author anymore, so no great loss, right?)

A book you’ve had on your bookshelf or TBR list for far too long:

Since I mention “Gone with the Wind” and “The Diaries of Jane Somers” below, I think my answer to this would be “The October Horse” by Colleen McCullough, because that’s the oldest one on my Goodreads list. I own a copy and I did start reading it, but after reading the first five of her Masters of Rome books, I sort of got bored by them. Plus, it is another door stopper!

A book that is “required reading” (e.g. a school text or popular classic – something you feel obligated to read):

Okay, so I’m retired, so there’s absolutely no one telling me what I should read in any official sense. Plus, I’m too old to feel obliged to do anything that doesn’t… well… bring me joy, as they say! Mind you, I am willing to listen to recommendations, but don’t expect me to be convinced that I “have to” do anything. So no, you’re not getting an answer from me on this one!

A book that intimidates you:

Not much intimidates me about a book, to be honest. Sure, a really long book or one on a subject that sounds unsavory could be daunting, but then I might not bother to even try to read those books. That said, I think “Gone with the Wind” by Margaret Mitchell, which is over 1000 pages fits this bill nicely. The thing is, I have a very old, hardcover copy (from 1952) on my shelf (which I believe belonged to my mother-in-law), but I’ve never been brave enough to pick it up to read it. I think I’m more afraid of causing any further damage to this old copy than I am of the length of the book itself (I mean… just look at it!).

A book you think may be slow:

I bought a copy of David Mitchell’s novel “Cloud Atlas” many years ago, and I haven’t gotten around to reading it, because I’ve read so many conflicting reviews. Some people adored it, others thought it was complete crap. Also, I didn’t realize when I bought it that it is about Greek Mythology, and has fantasy elements, and that’s not really my thing.

A book that you need to be in the right mood for:

I recently read a blog post that talked about George Elliot’s books, and I decided to look them up. Well, she certainly wrote some door stoppers, but I don’t think that’s what would bother me. She’s such an iconic personality, that I feel ashamed that I’ve never tried to read anything by her. I did find a novella of hers on the Gutenberg Project, so I took it down. It is “The Lifted Veil” and I just know… I’m going to have to be in the right mood to read it, that’s for certain.

A book you’re unsure you’ll like:

Many years ago, my mother-in-law gave me the book “The Diaries of Jane Somers” by Doris Lessing. I think she gave it to me to encourage me to keep writing, because apparently, Lessing wrote the book under a different title with the pseudonym of Jane Somers to prove a point – publishers weren’t interested in publishing unknown female authors. Anyway, I’ve had it on my shelves and ignored it ever since, but then I recently read her novella “Adore” (aka The Grandmothers) and loved it. My worry is that I might find a full-length work less interesting than a novella.

So, there you go.

Please feel free to try to convince me otherwise in a comment below, and if you join in, don’t forget give some love by linking back to the tag creator, Jamieson at Jamishelves.

I Tag: Anyone who wants to join in the fun, because I don’t like to tag people so if you want to do this one, consider yourself tagged!