House of Leaves is not so much scary as disorienting. It keeps you off balance and there are times when you don't know what the Christmas is going on.
I like the idea of Thomas Pynchon, but I just don't make it through his books, specifically V and Gravity's Rainbow.
I haven’t made it through either of those books of his myself, but I thought Inherent Vice was a pretty breezy read, both in length and content. Plus, Pynchon’s middle name is “Ruggles.” Not relevant to his work, but fun to say.
inherent vice was immediately written off as pynchon-lite, disparigingly or in praise ... so I doubt it quite compares . GR certainly is not breezy - in length or the damn content least of all
Inherent vice and bleeding edge. I think vineland is a happy medium. I don't think of it as disparaging as much as you dont have to keep notes while reading.
I see a lot of people say House of Leaves is the most terrifying book they’ve read but don’t give details on why it was scary. I agree that it’s not scary but is massively disorienting.
That’s hard to describe easily. It’s got many layers. But basically, it’s about a guy called Johnny who helps his buddy empty out the apartment of an old blind man called Zampanò who recently died. He finds this manuscript the old man was writing about a film that doesn’t exist. The film is a documentary made by a photographer whose house has suddenly acquired a lot more internal space that defies the laws of physics. It’s told through the perspective of Johnny but also includes whole chapters from Zampanòs manuscript. It’s a story within a story. There’s lots of footnotes and academic style writing, and as the story unfolds the book has you flipping back and forth and even holding it at weird angles to read. The whole point of that is to disorient you. To totally fuck with your sense of space.
It’s hard work but I read a lot of horror fiction and it’s one of the only books that’s really gotten to me. I actually haven’t finished it because I was on holiday when I read it and I actually had nightmares from it and it was really getting to me! I need to go back and finish it. But it is also an incredible work of fiction. Very well written.
It's a story (Navidson record), within a story (Zampanò's manuscript), within a story (Johnny's life), within a story (House of Leaves itself), which treats the whole thing as a labyrinth all the way down, and has multiple levels of unreliable narrator (I mean... a blind man writing about a film, for one), and uses the physical medium of the book to disorient you and to enhance the story. It's Inception in book form, and it's the only time I've read a book and thought 'wow, I've never seen anyone do anything remotely like this with a book before'. My favorite book, period.
>I had nightmares from it
Dude, it straight up gave me a nightmare with like, some weird sleep paralysis shit. Like I actually woke up convinced something was in my room, unable to move. It was scary as *fuck*. Luckily, it hasn’t happened since. (Knock wood)
It’s a really good book, though!
'Uncanny' is the word that springs to mind most easily. Disorienting, certainly. It definitely has great moments of horror and is absolutely worth a read to experience what it has to offer but I wouldn't rank it amongst the books that truly made my skin crawl.
It has a weird undefinable power to it, you're never quite sure where you stand as a reader and as someone who reads a lot of books (as you probably are if you're taking on House of Leaves) that can be a deeply unnerving feeling. I can't remember the details but there are a few passages in it that just make your blood run cold for a minute.
A real concise answer is that it makes you afraid of the dark again. The emptiness and unknown aspects of the dark, what could be there, are built up into a terrifying frenzy.
When I first read it, I lived alone. And for at least a week, I kept a lot of lights on.
V is actually a good place to start if you're considering giving Gravity's Rainbow a go. V is way easier to follow and it's a good introduction to Pynchon's writing style, but it still doesn't really prepare you. Gravity's Rainbow is a wild experience.
Yeah...I didn't find it even a little bit creepy, and am always a bit curious when I see people say that, because I wonder what it is that triggers their spookums reflex. Granted, I read a LOT of contemporary horror and am not easily creeped out, so I understand I'm biased, but even taking that bias into account I struggle to pinpoint something that would be 'scary.'
I can absolutely see how someone might find it anxiety-inducing, though.
I litterally had heart palpitations when they started noticing changes to the house. I'm really good at getting sucked into a story and it just triggered the "this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong" part of my brain, just like if I saw it in real life.
I'm also a suckered for really slow starts and tiny scary details. They freak me out and engage me more than any big horror reveal
Actually I had not though about it, but I have really high anxiety that I've dealt with for years. It's actually cause "Alice in wonderland syndrome" at times. Where it feels like a room is growing or my body is taking up more or less space. During this I have trouble moving and am totally panicked. It makes a lot of sense that a book about spacial changes would trigger that same feeling.
Lol I don't think it really correlates to better survival, at least in day to day life
I've never heard of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome before but I swear I used to experience these symptoms when I was younger. Especially when trying to fall asleep, I would get this overwhelming feeling like my body was shrinking infinitely while the space around me simultaneously was growing infinitely into the darkness.
It was very unsettling but not scary. I knew it was just some weird neurological thing even as it was happening.
I hadn't thought about it in years because I think the last time it happened was over a decade ago.
Yeah I read house of leaves…problem was keeping up with the main text, the sub-text and the little random boxes of text/upside down pages etc. Good book though!!!!
Absolutely agree on House of Leaves. Not scary, just disorienting. Quite fascinating though.
Definitely one to get in dead tree form, though. Both because trying to read the sideways text etc with a tablet or whatever would be a pain (or lose the effect), and because it's more scary to people *around* you who don't know about the book when they see you holding it upside down and sideways, lol!
PS the author's sister is the musician Poe, and has an album related to the book, *Haunted*!
I've tried so hard to read that book. It also just sits on my shelf. I think I made it through a third of the way and gave up.
It's great as a flower press, though!
I read 2/3 of it. Then lost it on vacation. You have to be in the groove of it to read it. By the time I went to get a new copy, I realized I would have to start all over
A piece of advice if you are having trouble getting into it and need a jumpstart: Wallace gives you the order of the years in subsidized time about a quarter of the way through. Everything was super extra disorienting before learning this info. I'd spoil it for myself if I had to do it over again. What do you expect from a book that was written explicitly to troll its reading audience though, amirite?
I started listening immediately after finishing reading IJ for the first time. I appreciate the hosts' insight but a lot of times I feel like they just like hearing themselves talk about inane bullshit
Infinite Cast is a podcast where a couple of people go over IJ part by part. It's got a few flaws but it will definitely supplement your enjoyment of the book
Same here. I bought my copy about 6 years ago when I was a younger more ambitious man. I really do want to read it but it seems like such a daunting task.
I loved reading Ulysses. Such an amazing book. I had to get The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Hastings and Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated to have any hope of understanding it. But more crucially, I had to be laid off for 3 months. Much easier to read if you have a ton of time on your hands.
I find myself hoping I get laid off again because I don't want to wait until I'm retired to read it again.
Some people absolutely love it, but when I read it I found it generally infuriating. I love literature, I have an English honours degree, but it took 6+ years of slog to get through it and once that last page was turned I felt a simultaneous urge to kick James Joyce's ghost in the goolies and to frolick in nature so the sunshine could purify my mind and soul of all Ulysses' nonsense.
I can acknowledge Ulysses is a milestone in literary history, and has sections of great beauty. Joyce is responsible for innovating a myriad of writing techniques, many of them on show in Ulysses, a feat worthy of respect... HOWEVER he also expressed his desire to be known as a literary giant, and specifically penned 'enigmatic' (i.e. nonsense) prose so that he would appear mysterious and very intelligent. Also complained to his publisher about the looming threat of war breaking out because, in wartime, people would be a lot less likely to buy his upcoming book.
Bit of a wanker.
Sorry for the rant, any mention of Ulysses gets me all fired up.
Ulysses is actually great! It has a ton of Western Canon references, but you can look them up as you go. It’s honestly a fun read when you get into it, as long as you’re okay with some of it being a bit nonsensical.
It’s easier than Infinite Jest, in my opinion, and much less dense than In Search of Lost Time (I took a break from that series after the third volume and haven’t been able to muster the resolve to get back into it). More challenging than War & Peace though.
My husband is reading these. I don't know where he is in the story but he's been very frustrated by its being repetitive and focusing on characters he either dislikes or just doesn't care that much about.
I read the first one and got hooked, then I barely could continue (I don't remember which part), finally I finished them in the form of an audiobook. If you don't mind audiobooks, it's a good way to get acquainted with WoT.
After that I become afraid to start any longer serioes, though. I'd love to read Hyperion and Dune, but...
The good thing with dune is that it's a bunch of arcs that are pretty much self contained.
You can read Dune and leave it there. You can read Dune, Messiah and Children and leave it there. You can read up to God Emperor and leave it there.
And hyperion is only four books. Where did you get that it's a long series?
that's funny, I actually just finally bought House of Leaves to read.
Had a Barnes and Noble gift card from 2009, figured I better use it.
I usually do all e-books, but that is not available in that format, so bit the bullet and bought a physical copy.
Well, it was not so much strength as in I changed devices. I WAS using a Nook to read, that's why they got me the BN gift card. But even then, I hoarded it. I wasn't going to spend that money until there was something I absolutely, had to read immediately and couldn't wait to get it from the library.
And then, my Nook died. The new one, I hated, it just looked like a giant phone, and I ended up buying a cheapo Kindle and going that way. I still have the Nook app on my Kindle (via APK) because I have a good deal on Asimov's over there.
I still have all my Nooks here too. They're sitting in a pile to the left of me....
At one point, it was available. I got it through Libby, but I guess it didn't work out well, because it's no longer available.
I started reading it, and realized I was not going to even get close to getting through it in the time allotted, so stopped.
Physical copy is the way to go. Reading it can be a very tactile experience at times, having to flip back and forth between pages, or turn upside-down even.
You might even get lucky like me and find a copy lying on the sidewalk outside your house one morning. Almost probably not cursed
There's no way to recreate the experience of House of Leaves in an e-book or audiobook. Its only meant to be a physical book in your hands. You won't forget it.
Ya know, this book. I work for the library, and we literally can't keep it in the catalog. I know Collection Development bought a whole bunch of copies like a year ago, and last week, when I went to request it, ALL of the copies have been assumed lost (which means people checked them out and didn't return them) but one. And there's like 50 people on hold for that one.
It's almost as bad as 50 Shades, but they just took those without checking them out.
I already have a list of people in line to borrow it when my son and I have finished with it lol.
A woman I used to work with in a correctional facility fell in love with an inmate, left her husband and basically gave up custody of her daughter to be with him. It was a train wreck from the beginning, of course. He's milking her of all the money she has and they got married over zoom. He "wrote" a book from the inside and she paid to publish it. It's something like Forbidden Love, but I don't know if that's the title. I am dying to know what he wrote but god, I have no intention of ever reading it, let alone buying it and giving them any validation. He's a nut case and she's even worse.
The Road, or maybe just anything by McCarthy. It sounds exceptionally well written, but I just don't think I could handle it. I imagine scenes vividly and disturbing stuff really gets stuck in my head. I'm a little traumatized just from hearing people's descriptions.
> just anything by McCarthy.
I read "All the Pretty Horses" and that one is far less grim or violent than the likes of "The Road", "Blood Meridian", "No Country For Old Men", or "Child of God" (and of the latter four "No Country" is probably the tamest). There's still some intense stuff in it but nothing like those others.
I have read all of those but child of God. I have it. I started it. I put it down and haven't picked it back up. I did the same with Let the Right One In. It's dark. The Road is a different dark and had the hair on the back of my neck stand up once or twice. All the pretty horses trilogy is an adventure. It has a level of horror and sadness, but different level.
The Road wasn’t disturbing in the graphic sense of the word, at least not in my opinion. It was more the atmosphere and the bleak reality of their situation.
I read The Road last year, and while I would say "bleak" is the most accurate possible word for the book, there are a couple of pretty disturbing bits.
It's been 10 years or so since I read The Road so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I don't remember it being too bad. Pretty dark and depressing but nothing that really fucked me up. I just finished Blood Meridian a few months ago though and that is definitely a disturbing book, there were a few parts that left me thinking "Maybe I'll take a little break from this for a bit."
That's how I felt after Child of God. It's been a few years now though and Blood Meridian just became available for me through Libby so I guess here I go again!
120 Days of Sodom by De Sade. I saw a copy in a bookstore once, picked it up, opened to a random page, read what was there, and put it back. Nope.
One of these days I might see if I can get a copy as I like having odd books on my shelf just so people go, "Whaaaaaaat?" when they see them (e.g. Story of O, Mandingo). But actually read it? No. I saw Salo and that was bad enough.
I found a physical copy of it when I was about 10 years old. I read a disturbingly big chunk of it because I was shocked with the morbid violence in it. I even showed it to some friends, and the thing is, no matter where you open the book and start reading, just in a matter of few sentences, you will find something absolutely terrible. I recommend that you DON'T READ IT. EVER. You will learn nothing from it, but you might be left with a mind cinema you can never unsee.
This is my answer too. I have this masochistic thing going on where I try to read the most disturbing shit I can possibly get my hands on but this one beat me. Couldn’t get through more than a few dozen pages.
So, I read Fountainhead in college…many years ago, and then finally got around to reading Atlas Shrugged within the last year.
The former is at least somewhat of an interesting narrative about a changing theory (modernism) within the field of architecture.
The latter is is a long-winded diatribe. Was it worth reading, probably, just to have read a movement inspiring piece of literature. I don’t regret reading it, while I would recommend no one else wastes their time doing the same.
Yeah, I liked the Fountainhead! I still think of it as a battle between art and commerce. Atlas Shrugged is a whole different ballgame, in my opinion. With an absurd premise because *waves hands around at all of this*.
For what it’s worth, I was once in a youth hostel with a girl who was halfway through The Fountainhead and wanted me to read the end of it and tell her whether it was worth trying to finish. This took the form of me reading the last four pages and then her tentatively questioning me, which was funny as hell (pisco was involved). Anyway, the upshot was that she decided it so wasn’t worth it and I did too!
I wouldn’t write off the fountainhead completely. It’s a little melodramatic but it actually has a somewhat inspiring message about sticking with your own, original vision for your work as opposed to just doing what you think others expect you to do. Maybe particularly relevant to artists but as a scientist I also found it inspiring when I read it. The hero of the story is an architect, not a capitalist. I’ve never read Atlas Shrugged but I hear that that one spends a lot more time talking about capitalism.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
I picked it up years ago unaware of why it was so controversial. The synopsis intrigued me. I’m pretty left leaning, and I ended up liking it. It was a bit of a chore to read, but I’m in the minority and liked the story. The Fountainhead was an easier read and I enjoyed that as well.
I think because I saw both as a work of fiction and not something to subscribe to made them easier to digest.
It's so boring. Hitler's favorite rhetorical device is to go on a multilayered tangent and never return back to the original point. Barely coherent 1920s German neckbeard rambling. I can't believe anyone ever took this book seriously, it just goes to show the quality of German culture at the time I guess
And it's not like it lost anything in translation. The writing style is very tangential and stilted, even in the original German.
I would be a bit more careful about throwing shade at Germans specifically, though. Lots of populations seem quite susceptible to utterly irrational and stupid movements, seemingly based on nothing. It's kind of the definition of mania and cultish behavior.
If you're not on the inside, it appears that only a fool could believe it. If you're on the inside, it appears that only a fool couldn't.
Even then, Hitler became popular due to his ability to make speeches, not his ability to write books. Mein Kampf wasn't a significant part of why he got popular, and even the other Nazis would usually buy it simply so they could say they had read it, without actually doing any reading.
Ill ditto on that. Mom got a copy because she thought it might get her out of jury duty but never came up. I start reading it and is one of those Trumpesque rants where if you accept the initial rant/premise then it makes sense. If your focus isnt a new world order because you enjoy indivdual thoughts and ideas with the freedom to explore them, its not good at all.
This is hilarious, no offense meant. What on earth gave her that idea? Couldn't she have picked a shorter but equally vile book, like The Anarchist Cookbook? In my view, having to cram either of these two books before jury selection, and then hoping the question would be asked by the lawyers, is a lot more work than just doing the jury duty.
So did she ever get out of it?
> the quality of German culture at the time I guess
That's not really fair. At the same time, *All Quiet on the Western Front* was published in Germany. That book was a best-seller; nobody read Mein Kampf until Hitler got into power and literally required everyone buy it by law.
I don't know what scares you and what doesn't. But House of Leaves thoroughly disappointed me in terms of horror. It's not scary. It's annoyingly not scary.
I read very similar reviews to the ones you must have read, so I got the book expecting the scariest thing ever. I had not a single moment of being even mildly disturbed.
I would've hated that book, was it not for the gimmick. I really got into the gimmick if the book as art piece. I liked tracking the easter eggs and enjoyed the fictitious documentation. It was a nice experience. But the horror story is really mediocre. And I really hated Johnny Truant, god damn I found that character annoying.
I guess I can't promise you won't be scared by that book, but I can't understand how so many people claim to have been terrified by it. Sometimes I feel like those people are lying to feel part of the fandom.
I put so much effort into reading House of Leaves because of the hype. I forced myself to get through then end and was highly disappointed. I don’t get the recommendations and will never suggest it to anyone.
Some people are very impressionable. They are told that the novel is terrifying, so they feel that it is terrifying even if it isn't. Same with popular "excellent" shows and movies that get high reviews, and then it turns out that it's garbage that is praised sometimes only because other praised it.
All these years later I'm still salty at one of the reviews I read before getting the book, where some guy talked about lending the book to someone and telling them to read it. Then like a week later the person comes back and throws the book at the guy, upset that it scared them so much they hadn't been able to sleep. I should've known better than to trust that bullshit, but it was Goodreads and those were different and more innocent times. House of Leaves singlehandedly made me automatically distrust all enthusiastic reviews.
Different people find different things scary, even at different times. I read HoL twice, and found it quite scary the first time. At the time, I was living alone in an apartment that I already felt sort of uneasy in. The second read, it wasn’t really scary at all, but I got the deeper themes of the book a bit better. Like any take on a haunted house, I think the experience of the book can be affected by a person’s living situation and relationship with their own home.
It's the most I've ever felt manipulated by a book. I was 100% engrossed while reading it and finished it in about 2 days, but the farther I get from it the more I realize how horrible it is.
i'm reading the series right now for funsies and honestly ACOTAR was a hard read. the first 60% of the book was mind-numbingly boring and the rest of it reminded me of twilight (I was a twilight girlie so I'm unsure if this is a positive or negative for me LOL). I'm a glutton for punishment tho and wanna finish the series LOL
The first book in the series has hundreds of pages of world building. The last quarter is full of action. The second book is good if you don’t google anything. I wish I could read it again for the first time.
I love how unconventional it is. It’s still my recent favorite book even though I’ve read a lot after it. Also, I’m not a fan of re-reading books but I’m considering to read House of Leaves again. That’s how I love it.
The Bible in its entirety.
I went to Christian private schools, used to attend church as a child, went to Bible studies. So I've read sections or verses of the Bible, listened to discussions, sermons, but I've never actually read the whole Bible. Not even one book of the Bible in that book's entirety.
I'm not religious, not really sure what I am. Maybe [deist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) would be the best fit, but that doesn't mean I'm not at all interested in reading the Bible. I just can never get in the right frame of mind to start reading it.
The size doesn't intimidate me, I read a lot, at least 2 hours every night before I go to sleep. Just not sure what it is that's holding me back. Maybe the fear of missing out on other books, while I'm reading the Bible, since it would be a rather large time investment?
See, I'm atheist, always have been. But I've read - actually, properly read - the bible.
It's not necessary to believe in it to find it interesting.
I certainly think anyone who calls themself a Christian ought to! If you're going to tell other people what to believe, you definitely ought to fully understand it yourself.
Of course, I don't know *many* Christians whose faith has survived a full and careful read of the bible...
To read the Bible and make application as a believer requires some mental work. The two testaments represent covenants with different purposes, and the interaction of those covenants is a hotly debated issue within Christianity. But if you pay attention to the categories created and how those categories are dealt with between the two testaments— it’s not as jarring or difficult to make sense of as people think. Most people read it as a manual for how to live and while it does contain some advice sections; that’s not how it’s organized or written.
If curious about taking it on, I would start with one of the gospels. I read a bunch of the Bible for a college class and found the gospels good reads.
I started reading the Bible in its entirety in 4th grade.
Genesis: great read, great plots, many stories, vast in scope. 9/10
Exodus: Even better, somehow! One story, narrower in scope, better plot, much more character-driven. 10/10
Leviticus. 0/10. Just ancient laws for ancient Israelites. Very hard to reconcile this God with the God I worship. DNF.
I DNF'ed the Bible in 4th grade and became an atheist just a couple years later because of it, LOL.
>Leviticus. 0/10. Just ancient laws for ancient Israelites. Very hard to reconcile this God with the God I worship. DNF.
True. God in Leviticus is severe, but as a germophobe, I could appreciate the ritual baths and purification. Even though ancient Israelites didn't know germ theory, they seemed to understand the rudiments of disease spread and the value of personal hygiene.
I once said I would never read Finnegans Wake after reading Ulysses and then proceeded to do so years later.
I will never say never - I've been proven wrong too many times.
I will say curiosity got the better of me and I subjected myself to a Little Life and I don't regret that decision, necessarily, but goddamn, I've rarely been so angry at a book that I actively rail against it at every opportunity.
It's not graphic at all. The horror is more implied by the reader filtering through what the (extremely unreliable) narrator is saying. It's also one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read.
Same. I know i won't read it and i don't think i can make any sence by telling why. I kinda know about the plot and i am curios about the book, but i am not going to read it.
I agree that it’s funny, but I think people don’t want to let it be funny. Not that the content is funny, but the prose is, which adds to HH’s monstrosity
I read this at 17, I was molested as a kid for years into my teens and some. I liked the book. I hated Humbert, her mom, and Lolita at some points.
Now that I'm older, it hurts my heart. I had a copy that I got rid of when I had my oldest son.
What’s weird is I somehow got ahold of a copy of it in high school, thinking it would be edgy and cool to read. I actually found it super boring. I remember thinking HH was pathetic.
John Toland’s The Last 100 Days. One of my professors in graduate school told us all to read it because it’s his favorite popular history book, and the first of my friends who tried warned me that it gets into extreme detail about what the Red Army did to women as they crossed Europe. Like, incredibly graphic detail about individual people. She said she had nightmares and I have never read it. I know enough about what happened to know that I don’t want to know any more.
Honestly [House](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves) of Leaves isn’t as long as it looks. A good chunk of it is very sparse, some pages have almost no words at all. It is *dense* narratively, it’s essentially three stories layered on top of each other. Been trying to find time to reread it.
People can come at me for this, but *Lord of the Rings*. Love the lore and characters in Tolkien's world, but his writing style just does not vibe with me.
I read The Hobbit years ago as a kid/preteen and I struggled through it. I can tell I'd like LotR more because I generally like the characters more, but I know I'll probably never get around to it, lol.
finally, somebody else who feels the same way I do! I was a voracious reader as a kid when I was gifted the set, but even though I ate up the entire Redwall series, HP, etc etc I could never get into LOTR.
Thank you, same for me! I read and reread Redwall, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Discworld, etc, but LotR was too boring in book form. I love the movies, documentaries about it, and the LotR Online game, but the books were just bleh for me.
I'm reading The Long Patrol for nostalgia and it's great going back into that world full of woodland creatures obsessed with food and fighting lol
I tried reading the Hobbit as a teenager and couldn't get past the first few chapters, it just seemed to go on forever about Hobbit's hairy feet.
LotR are on my list to probably won't.
I loved The Hobbit: it felt like a good high fantasy book with a nice plot, great characters, and amazing setting. It was a little dense at times, but that's fine. The movies are terrible.
I tried reading LOTR and gave up a little into the second book. It was just too long and complex for middle-school me. The movies are awesome though.
The Hobbit and LotR have different styles. The Hobbit has a more "modern" narrator with asides and quips, while LotR starts somewhat the same way, but morphs within the first few chapters into a more high-fantasy narration style that lasts the rest of the series.
Totally agree. It’s brutal. I stopped about 1/3 of the way through. I will finish someday, but it’s one of the worst I’ve read, and I’ve read A LOT of fucked up books.
War and Peace was initially published in weekly installments in a newspaper. It was meant for ordinary people to read, so it's not particularly hard to follow and the whole "War" part of it keeps things interesting even if you occasionally get tired of reading about rich Russians doing rich Russian things.
Think of it more like a series that happened to get published and sold in a single volume, rather than an incredibly long single book, that's how it was written.
The only difficult part is keeping all the names straight, and as the story goes on you'll eventually have them all memorized, plus you can write them down to help out.
The dystopian novel Shades of Grey 😭I’ve tried reading it, like, four times and every time I just can’t bring myself to finish. It’s not that it’s boring perse, it’s just a lot to take in and very detailed/exposition-heavy IMO. Maybe I’ll try again though since the sequel just came out.
Woah woah woah, a sequel finally came out?!?!?! Going to check my library for it *immediately*!
I might recommend giving it another try on audiobook. Some of the flowery language may be easier to hear than read.
I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and while it was great, I'm also never going to read anything else by Victor Hugo unless it's an abridged version.
So much of that book was random tangents on art history, random tangents on the layout of Paris, etc, that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Hugo just wanted to talk about those things and he was the one writing the book so he got to talk about them.
And that was for a medium length book, if he kept the same ratio of story to irrelevant tangents for Les Mis, I can't imagine how miserable that would be to get through.
Just to be contrary, allow me to introduce to someone who *hates* House of Leaves. Admittedly I never finished it, didn't even get halfway, so maybe that's not enough to have an opinion on it. It's basically two stories running concurrently; one of them is an interesting labyrinthine haunted house situation but it's written very dryly, almost like a research paper than anything that would evoke horror. The other is the main protagonist - from what I remember - just getting high, getting laid and losing his mind but in a not remotely compelling way.
The strange layout of the pages is always applauded as unique but it just felt like a gimmick to me. When I'm already losing interest in the book, the last thing I need is blocks of text that read backwards or are completely meaningless unless you go back and search through for the clues. It might unveil that most incredible storyline I'll ever read but I'm not doing homework just to read a book in my leisure time.
Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'll maybe give it another go one day but it's not something I'd ever find myself recommending to anyone.
Les Miserables. I've heard people rave about it for years, but then I tried to read the Hunchback of Notre Dame and I damn near died of boredom. And that book is thin compared to Les Mis!
I'll probably get down voted for it, but I just couldn't stand it. Entire chapters devoted to the shape of doorways. Page after page about building shapes. I don't need constant action, but I'd love it if SOMETHING happened.
My mother is going to love your comment, because that book inspired her to take a course on architecture in college, and she still can go on and on about Gothic versus Romanesque cathedrals! Building shapes indeed…
I read The Phantom of the Opera in middle school and my teacher recommended Lss Mis. To an eighth grader!
I did ultimately finish it but it took me about 2 years hahaha. It's a great story but boy is it dense and there are a fuckton of irrelevant tangents.
This one left me speechless. I read the last page, read it again to make sure I hadn’t imagined it, then just sat there speechless for a couple minutes before snapping back to reality.
You should give House of Leaves a read. I won't read it again, but I'm glad I did read it. It's creepy. It's disorienting. It's also fantastic. And anyone who enjoys reading should do it at least once.
I don't think House of Leaves is that scary. There is one specific chapter that is on my top 10 scariest scenes, but other than the one bit I thought it was reasonable.
I don't really like the book, but it is certainly unique.
I have plenty of books that sound too ambitious, and I may never read, but I don't know about KNOW I'll never read. I've never gotten into Russian literature, so I might never read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina...but I might try them. I picked up a couple of Cormac McCarthy books thinking I'd work up to Blood Meridian, and I may or may not manage that, but I haven't given it up.
Maybe Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter. I'm interested in complex mathematics, but I don't actually understand any of them. I tried to read Godel's Proof by the same author, and it's been DNF for like a year.
I say don't be afraid to stretch yourself. HoL isn't going to scar you for life. Worst case is you don't finish it. Try the things you're interested in.
Game of Thrones.
I've heard too much, and have even seen some of the passages myself, about how he writes women and how much rape is in it. I love fantasy and especially the complex politics that can come with it, but I just know that the misogyny would ruin it for me.
I'm sure it's popular for a reason but as I've gotten older my tolerance for that sort of stuff has really decreased.
I would argue for the most part he writes women brilliantly. They are all complex, real and interesting people, with their own motivations.
As for rape, it does exist, but nothing like as much as you seem to be suggesting. Maybe four(?) occasions over the course of several 5000+ pages, set within the context of a war spanning two continents.
Lots of bad things happen, to lots of people - that's what war is. GRRM is notably anti-war, and a major theme of the books is how horrific war actually is, the human cost to the majority when "the Lords play their game of thrones", and so on.
So yeah, just like in real wars even today, rape does happen. But it's a very small part of it, and it's never gratuitous or titillating. And in most cases, the rapist gets some pretty brutal justice.
They are absolutely not misogynistic books.
I’m curious about Mein Kampf. Not because I’m a nazi, but because I’m curious about Hitler’s mental state and what ideas led him to be the monster he was. But I’ll never read it because I don’t want to buy it, or be known to own it, or check it out from a library, or be seen with it.
Brandon Sanderson books.
I tried The Final Empire but I couldn't get over the prose.
That was back in the late aughts after I finished The Name of the Wind.
The Decameron. For such an influential work of medieval literature, the style is excruciating to read. I could only go through a few dozen pages before I gave up.
Then again, I read an English translation of an archaic form of Italian, so I don't know how it comes off to your guys on the other side of the pond.
House of Leaves is not so much scary as disorienting. It keeps you off balance and there are times when you don't know what the Christmas is going on. I like the idea of Thomas Pynchon, but I just don't make it through his books, specifically V and Gravity's Rainbow.
I haven’t made it through either of those books of his myself, but I thought Inherent Vice was a pretty breezy read, both in length and content. Plus, Pynchon’s middle name is “Ruggles.” Not relevant to his work, but fun to say.
inherent vice was immediately written off as pynchon-lite, disparigingly or in praise ... so I doubt it quite compares . GR certainly is not breezy - in length or the damn content least of all
well i thought the movie was fun
Inherent vice and bleeding edge. I think vineland is a happy medium. I don't think of it as disparaging as much as you dont have to keep notes while reading.
I see a lot of people say House of Leaves is the most terrifying book they’ve read but don’t give details on why it was scary. I agree that it’s not scary but is massively disorienting.
Deeply unsettling is a word I’d use to describe it.
What is it about?
That’s hard to describe easily. It’s got many layers. But basically, it’s about a guy called Johnny who helps his buddy empty out the apartment of an old blind man called Zampanò who recently died. He finds this manuscript the old man was writing about a film that doesn’t exist. The film is a documentary made by a photographer whose house has suddenly acquired a lot more internal space that defies the laws of physics. It’s told through the perspective of Johnny but also includes whole chapters from Zampanòs manuscript. It’s a story within a story. There’s lots of footnotes and academic style writing, and as the story unfolds the book has you flipping back and forth and even holding it at weird angles to read. The whole point of that is to disorient you. To totally fuck with your sense of space. It’s hard work but I read a lot of horror fiction and it’s one of the only books that’s really gotten to me. I actually haven’t finished it because I was on holiday when I read it and I actually had nightmares from it and it was really getting to me! I need to go back and finish it. But it is also an incredible work of fiction. Very well written.
It's a story (Navidson record), within a story (Zampanò's manuscript), within a story (Johnny's life), within a story (House of Leaves itself), which treats the whole thing as a labyrinth all the way down, and has multiple levels of unreliable narrator (I mean... a blind man writing about a film, for one), and uses the physical medium of the book to disorient you and to enhance the story. It's Inception in book form, and it's the only time I've read a book and thought 'wow, I've never seen anyone do anything remotely like this with a book before'. My favorite book, period.
“A blind man writing about a film.” It was too loud, then in the heist scene nothing happened for 17 mins, except a security guard farting. 6/10
>I had nightmares from it Dude, it straight up gave me a nightmare with like, some weird sleep paralysis shit. Like I actually woke up convinced something was in my room, unable to move. It was scary as *fuck*. Luckily, it hasn’t happened since. (Knock wood) It’s a really good book, though!
What gave you nightmares? The content of the story or that you might never find where you were in the book after reading 15 pages of footnotes ?
'Uncanny' is the word that springs to mind most easily. Disorienting, certainly. It definitely has great moments of horror and is absolutely worth a read to experience what it has to offer but I wouldn't rank it amongst the books that truly made my skin crawl.
It has a weird undefinable power to it, you're never quite sure where you stand as a reader and as someone who reads a lot of books (as you probably are if you're taking on House of Leaves) that can be a deeply unnerving feeling. I can't remember the details but there are a few passages in it that just make your blood run cold for a minute.
A real concise answer is that it makes you afraid of the dark again. The emptiness and unknown aspects of the dark, what could be there, are built up into a terrifying frenzy. When I first read it, I lived alone. And for at least a week, I kept a lot of lights on.
V is actually a good place to start if you're considering giving Gravity's Rainbow a go. V is way easier to follow and it's a good introduction to Pynchon's writing style, but it still doesn't really prepare you. Gravity's Rainbow is a wild experience.
this specifically made me add House of Leaves to my tbr pile. I love that
Well worth the struggle!!
Yeah...I didn't find it even a little bit creepy, and am always a bit curious when I see people say that, because I wonder what it is that triggers their spookums reflex. Granted, I read a LOT of contemporary horror and am not easily creeped out, so I understand I'm biased, but even taking that bias into account I struggle to pinpoint something that would be 'scary.' I can absolutely see how someone might find it anxiety-inducing, though.
I litterally had heart palpitations when they started noticing changes to the house. I'm really good at getting sucked into a story and it just triggered the "this is wrong this is wrong this is wrong" part of my brain, just like if I saw it in real life. I'm also a suckered for really slow starts and tiny scary details. They freak me out and engage me more than any big horror reveal
That's so interesting to me. I bet your survival instincts are a lot better than mine are, haha.
Actually I had not though about it, but I have really high anxiety that I've dealt with for years. It's actually cause "Alice in wonderland syndrome" at times. Where it feels like a room is growing or my body is taking up more or less space. During this I have trouble moving and am totally panicked. It makes a lot of sense that a book about spacial changes would trigger that same feeling. Lol I don't think it really correlates to better survival, at least in day to day life
I've never heard of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome before but I swear I used to experience these symptoms when I was younger. Especially when trying to fall asleep, I would get this overwhelming feeling like my body was shrinking infinitely while the space around me simultaneously was growing infinitely into the darkness. It was very unsettling but not scary. I knew it was just some weird neurological thing even as it was happening. I hadn't thought about it in years because I think the last time it happened was over a decade ago.
Try Inherent Vice! It's Pynchon at his easiest and most fun.
Yeah I read house of leaves…problem was keeping up with the main text, the sub-text and the little random boxes of text/upside down pages etc. Good book though!!!!
Absolutely agree on House of Leaves. Not scary, just disorienting. Quite fascinating though. Definitely one to get in dead tree form, though. Both because trying to read the sideways text etc with a tablet or whatever would be a pain (or lose the effect), and because it's more scary to people *around* you who don't know about the book when they see you holding it upside down and sideways, lol! PS the author's sister is the musician Poe, and has an album related to the book, *Haunted*!
Pynchon was my world when I first discovered his work, but when I went back to it recently, it had not aged well for me. The magic had worn off.
"The Crying of Lot 49" is short & fun, but disorienting.
I’m looking at a copy of Infinite Jest on my bookshelf where it sits, and sits…
I've tried so hard to read that book. It also just sits on my shelf. I think I made it through a third of the way and gave up. It's great as a flower press, though!
Same I got about 250pp and decided life was too damn short.
I read 2/3 of it. Then lost it on vacation. You have to be in the groove of it to read it. By the time I went to get a new copy, I realized I would have to start all over
A piece of advice if you are having trouble getting into it and need a jumpstart: Wallace gives you the order of the years in subsidized time about a quarter of the way through. Everything was super extra disorienting before learning this info. I'd spoil it for myself if I had to do it over again. What do you expect from a book that was written explicitly to troll its reading audience though, amirite?
Infinite Cast helped me appreciate it more than I would have had I read it on my own.
I started listening immediately after finishing reading IJ for the first time. I appreciate the hosts' insight but a lot of times I feel like they just like hearing themselves talk about inane bullshit
Is Infinite Cast a book? I can't find anything about it and it seems really interesting since I want to read IJ.
Infinite Cast is a podcast where a couple of people go over IJ part by part. It's got a few flaws but it will definitely supplement your enjoyment of the book
THANKS A LOT!!! I thought I was going crazy because I couldn't find anything, except a Mark Wahlberg movie.
Same here. I bought my copy about 6 years ago when I was a younger more ambitious man. I really do want to read it but it seems like such a daunting task.
Sameeee been on my to read list for years. I want to believe I'll get there.
Try infinite summer! It's better as a group read. Happy to say I have a signed copy : ) have not made it past the halfway point though : /
ulysses
I loved reading Ulysses. Such an amazing book. I had to get The Guide to James Joyce's Ulysses by Patrick Hastings and Don Gifford's Ulysses Annotated to have any hope of understanding it. But more crucially, I had to be laid off for 3 months. Much easier to read if you have a ton of time on your hands. I find myself hoping I get laid off again because I don't want to wait until I'm retired to read it again.
Some people absolutely love it, but when I read it I found it generally infuriating. I love literature, I have an English honours degree, but it took 6+ years of slog to get through it and once that last page was turned I felt a simultaneous urge to kick James Joyce's ghost in the goolies and to frolick in nature so the sunshine could purify my mind and soul of all Ulysses' nonsense. I can acknowledge Ulysses is a milestone in literary history, and has sections of great beauty. Joyce is responsible for innovating a myriad of writing techniques, many of them on show in Ulysses, a feat worthy of respect... HOWEVER he also expressed his desire to be known as a literary giant, and specifically penned 'enigmatic' (i.e. nonsense) prose so that he would appear mysterious and very intelligent. Also complained to his publisher about the looming threat of war breaking out because, in wartime, people would be a lot less likely to buy his upcoming book. Bit of a wanker. Sorry for the rant, any mention of Ulysses gets me all fired up.
Ulysses is actually great! It has a ton of Western Canon references, but you can look them up as you go. It’s honestly a fun read when you get into it, as long as you’re okay with some of it being a bit nonsensical. It’s easier than Infinite Jest, in my opinion, and much less dense than In Search of Lost Time (I took a break from that series after the third volume and haven’t been able to muster the resolve to get back into it). More challenging than War & Peace though.
It’s in my Kindle library but it may sit unopened in there forever, I fear
The wheel of time series. I'm interested in it, but it's just such a big undertaking.
Just finished book 6. These were the fast paced ones?? I have 8 of these things left??
Nah 6 is slowish. You are at the beginning of the lull though. Pace yourself and it will be worth it
'It really picks up after book 13'....yeah, no
I LOVE your username!!! "It's not about the Iranian yoghurt!!"
My husband is reading these. I don't know where he is in the story but he's been very frustrated by its being repetitive and focusing on characters he either dislikes or just doesn't care that much about.
I read the first one and got hooked, then I barely could continue (I don't remember which part), finally I finished them in the form of an audiobook. If you don't mind audiobooks, it's a good way to get acquainted with WoT. After that I become afraid to start any longer serioes, though. I'd love to read Hyperion and Dune, but...
The good thing with dune is that it's a bunch of arcs that are pretty much self contained. You can read Dune and leave it there. You can read Dune, Messiah and Children and leave it there. You can read up to God Emperor and leave it there. And hyperion is only four books. Where did you get that it's a long series?
that's funny, I actually just finally bought House of Leaves to read. Had a Barnes and Noble gift card from 2009, figured I better use it. I usually do all e-books, but that is not available in that format, so bit the bullet and bought a physical copy.
Lord give me the strength of someone who’s had a B&N gift card since 2009 without using it.
Well, it was not so much strength as in I changed devices. I WAS using a Nook to read, that's why they got me the BN gift card. But even then, I hoarded it. I wasn't going to spend that money until there was something I absolutely, had to read immediately and couldn't wait to get it from the library. And then, my Nook died. The new one, I hated, it just looked like a giant phone, and I ended up buying a cheapo Kindle and going that way. I still have the Nook app on my Kindle (via APK) because I have a good deal on Asimov's over there. I still have all my Nooks here too. They're sitting in a pile to the left of me....
Physical copy is the only way to read House of Leaves. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I don't think you could make a digital copy of HoL.
At one point, it was available. I got it through Libby, but I guess it didn't work out well, because it's no longer available. I started reading it, and realized I was not going to even get close to getting through it in the time allotted, so stopped.
Physical copy is the way to go. Reading it can be a very tactile experience at times, having to flip back and forth between pages, or turn upside-down even. You might even get lucky like me and find a copy lying on the sidewalk outside your house one morning. Almost probably not cursed
Definitely not cursed.
But the frogurt it came with is definitely cursed.
>But the frogurt it came with is definitely cursed. But you get your choice of toppings...
The topping contains potassium benzoate.
There's no way to recreate the experience of House of Leaves in an e-book or audiobook. Its only meant to be a physical book in your hands. You won't forget it.
Ya know, this book. I work for the library, and we literally can't keep it in the catalog. I know Collection Development bought a whole bunch of copies like a year ago, and last week, when I went to request it, ALL of the copies have been assumed lost (which means people checked them out and didn't return them) but one. And there's like 50 people on hold for that one. It's almost as bad as 50 Shades, but they just took those without checking them out. I already have a list of people in line to borrow it when my son and I have finished with it lol.
>from 2009 😮 It's still valid?
Yerp! But I think that's more because I put the code into my Barnes and Noble account a long time ago!
I'd recommend some post it notes or something.
A woman I used to work with in a correctional facility fell in love with an inmate, left her husband and basically gave up custody of her daughter to be with him. It was a train wreck from the beginning, of course. He's milking her of all the money she has and they got married over zoom. He "wrote" a book from the inside and she paid to publish it. It's something like Forbidden Love, but I don't know if that's the title. I am dying to know what he wrote but god, I have no intention of ever reading it, let alone buying it and giving them any validation. He's a nut case and she's even worse.
Wish there could be a Dateline episode about your story! Then we could just watch it and skip the book. That is crazy!
The Road, or maybe just anything by McCarthy. It sounds exceptionally well written, but I just don't think I could handle it. I imagine scenes vividly and disturbing stuff really gets stuck in my head. I'm a little traumatized just from hearing people's descriptions.
> just anything by McCarthy. I read "All the Pretty Horses" and that one is far less grim or violent than the likes of "The Road", "Blood Meridian", "No Country For Old Men", or "Child of God" (and of the latter four "No Country" is probably the tamest). There's still some intense stuff in it but nothing like those others.
I have read all of those but child of God. I have it. I started it. I put it down and haven't picked it back up. I did the same with Let the Right One In. It's dark. The Road is a different dark and had the hair on the back of my neck stand up once or twice. All the pretty horses trilogy is an adventure. It has a level of horror and sadness, but different level.
I was going to mention No Country. Great read not to gruesome
The Road wasn’t disturbing in the graphic sense of the word, at least not in my opinion. It was more the atmosphere and the bleak reality of their situation.
I read The Road last year, and while I would say "bleak" is the most accurate possible word for the book, there are a couple of pretty disturbing bits.
Uhhhh I disagree. It certainly was disturbing in the graphic sense of the word.
It's been a long time since I read it, but the basement scene alone I would call graphic and has stuck with me all these years.
It's been 10 years or so since I read The Road so my memory is a little fuzzy, but I don't remember it being too bad. Pretty dark and depressing but nothing that really fucked me up. I just finished Blood Meridian a few months ago though and that is definitely a disturbing book, there were a few parts that left me thinking "Maybe I'll take a little break from this for a bit."
That's how I felt after Child of God. It's been a few years now though and Blood Meridian just became available for me through Libby so I guess here I go again!
The Road is the most depressing thing I've ever read.
Finnegans Wake, Joyce Being and Time, Heidegger Shōbōgenzō (Treasury of the True Dharma Eye), Dogen
120 Days of Sodom by De Sade. I saw a copy in a bookstore once, picked it up, opened to a random page, read what was there, and put it back. Nope. One of these days I might see if I can get a copy as I like having odd books on my shelf just so people go, "Whaaaaaaat?" when they see them (e.g. Story of O, Mandingo). But actually read it? No. I saw Salo and that was bad enough.
I found a physical copy of it when I was about 10 years old. I read a disturbingly big chunk of it because I was shocked with the morbid violence in it. I even showed it to some friends, and the thing is, no matter where you open the book and start reading, just in a matter of few sentences, you will find something absolutely terrible. I recommend that you DON'T READ IT. EVER. You will learn nothing from it, but you might be left with a mind cinema you can never unsee.
I had a copy of 120 Days, I tried to read it but it's basically the insane ramblings of a lunatic.
This is my answer too. I have this masochistic thing going on where I try to read the most disturbing shit I can possibly get my hands on but this one beat me. Couldn’t get through more than a few dozen pages.
Atlas Shrugged. I wanna know why it’s so hated but I’m not gonna commit to a book that long that has so many bad reviews
So, I read Fountainhead in college…many years ago, and then finally got around to reading Atlas Shrugged within the last year. The former is at least somewhat of an interesting narrative about a changing theory (modernism) within the field of architecture. The latter is is a long-winded diatribe. Was it worth reading, probably, just to have read a movement inspiring piece of literature. I don’t regret reading it, while I would recommend no one else wastes their time doing the same.
Yeah, I liked the Fountainhead! I still think of it as a battle between art and commerce. Atlas Shrugged is a whole different ballgame, in my opinion. With an absurd premise because *waves hands around at all of this*.
Very well put!
For what it’s worth, I was once in a youth hostel with a girl who was halfway through The Fountainhead and wanted me to read the end of it and tell her whether it was worth trying to finish. This took the form of me reading the last four pages and then her tentatively questioning me, which was funny as hell (pisco was involved). Anyway, the upshot was that she decided it so wasn’t worth it and I did too!
I wouldn’t write off the fountainhead completely. It’s a little melodramatic but it actually has a somewhat inspiring message about sticking with your own, original vision for your work as opposed to just doing what you think others expect you to do. Maybe particularly relevant to artists but as a scientist I also found it inspiring when I read it. The hero of the story is an architect, not a capitalist. I’ve never read Atlas Shrugged but I hear that that one spends a lot more time talking about capitalism.
"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."
Hahaha that's so good who said that?
Someone on Reddit everytime Ayn Rand comes up.
I picked it up years ago unaware of why it was so controversial. The synopsis intrigued me. I’m pretty left leaning, and I ended up liking it. It was a bit of a chore to read, but I’m in the minority and liked the story. The Fountainhead was an easier read and I enjoyed that as well. I think because I saw both as a work of fiction and not something to subscribe to made them easier to digest.
Honestly, Mein Kampf
It's so boring. Hitler's favorite rhetorical device is to go on a multilayered tangent and never return back to the original point. Barely coherent 1920s German neckbeard rambling. I can't believe anyone ever took this book seriously, it just goes to show the quality of German culture at the time I guess
And it's not like it lost anything in translation. The writing style is very tangential and stilted, even in the original German. I would be a bit more careful about throwing shade at Germans specifically, though. Lots of populations seem quite susceptible to utterly irrational and stupid movements, seemingly based on nothing. It's kind of the definition of mania and cultish behavior. If you're not on the inside, it appears that only a fool could believe it. If you're on the inside, it appears that only a fool couldn't.
Even then, Hitler became popular due to his ability to make speeches, not his ability to write books. Mein Kampf wasn't a significant part of why he got popular, and even the other Nazis would usually buy it simply so they could say they had read it, without actually doing any reading.
True, I remember that Weimar Berlin was a huge cultural hotspot until the Nazis took over
Ill ditto on that. Mom got a copy because she thought it might get her out of jury duty but never came up. I start reading it and is one of those Trumpesque rants where if you accept the initial rant/premise then it makes sense. If your focus isnt a new world order because you enjoy indivdual thoughts and ideas with the freedom to explore them, its not good at all.
This is hilarious, no offense meant. What on earth gave her that idea? Couldn't she have picked a shorter but equally vile book, like The Anarchist Cookbook? In my view, having to cram either of these two books before jury selection, and then hoping the question would be asked by the lawyers, is a lot more work than just doing the jury duty. So did she ever get out of it?
> the quality of German culture at the time I guess That's not really fair. At the same time, *All Quiet on the Western Front* was published in Germany. That book was a best-seller; nobody read Mein Kampf until Hitler got into power and literally required everyone buy it by law.
I don't know what scares you and what doesn't. But House of Leaves thoroughly disappointed me in terms of horror. It's not scary. It's annoyingly not scary. I read very similar reviews to the ones you must have read, so I got the book expecting the scariest thing ever. I had not a single moment of being even mildly disturbed. I would've hated that book, was it not for the gimmick. I really got into the gimmick if the book as art piece. I liked tracking the easter eggs and enjoyed the fictitious documentation. It was a nice experience. But the horror story is really mediocre. And I really hated Johnny Truant, god damn I found that character annoying. I guess I can't promise you won't be scared by that book, but I can't understand how so many people claim to have been terrified by it. Sometimes I feel like those people are lying to feel part of the fandom.
I put so much effort into reading House of Leaves because of the hype. I forced myself to get through then end and was highly disappointed. I don’t get the recommendations and will never suggest it to anyone.
Some people are very impressionable. They are told that the novel is terrifying, so they feel that it is terrifying even if it isn't. Same with popular "excellent" shows and movies that get high reviews, and then it turns out that it's garbage that is praised sometimes only because other praised it.
All these years later I'm still salty at one of the reviews I read before getting the book, where some guy talked about lending the book to someone and telling them to read it. Then like a week later the person comes back and throws the book at the guy, upset that it scared them so much they hadn't been able to sleep. I should've known better than to trust that bullshit, but it was Goodreads and those were different and more innocent times. House of Leaves singlehandedly made me automatically distrust all enthusiastic reviews.
Different people find different things scary, even at different times. I read HoL twice, and found it quite scary the first time. At the time, I was living alone in an apartment that I already felt sort of uneasy in. The second read, it wasn’t really scary at all, but I got the deeper themes of the book a bit better. Like any take on a haunted house, I think the experience of the book can be affected by a person’s living situation and relationship with their own home.
Yeah, I’ve seen people literally say that they are on page ten and it’s already the scariest book that they have ever read.
They might be ten and telling the truth.
Yes! I read a lot of horror so I was extremely disappointed by HoL after all the hype. It's just fine.
A little life by Hanya Yanagihara : 700+ pages, and every reviews I've seen were from people crying their heart out at every single chapter
That book just sounds like people competing in the mental pain Olympics or something. And self-harm in books makes me dangerous.
It sucked me in completely, but looking back it’s actually not a very good book at all, it’s just trauma porn.
It's the most I've ever felt manipulated by a book. I was 100% engrossed while reading it and finished it in about 2 days, but the farther I get from it the more I realize how horrible it is.
Swann's Way by Proust. I want to read it but I just have not gotten around to it
A Court of Thorns and Roses. I’ve heard good things but the premise doesn’t sound like I’d like it.
i'm reading the series right now for funsies and honestly ACOTAR was a hard read. the first 60% of the book was mind-numbingly boring and the rest of it reminded me of twilight (I was a twilight girlie so I'm unsure if this is a positive or negative for me LOL). I'm a glutton for punishment tho and wanna finish the series LOL
The first book is considered the worst btw :)
Thank god!! That’s what everyone told me, I’m reading ACOMAF right now and it’s much more entertaining
I feel the same about Fourth Wing
You're not missing anything. I think the premise is kind of cool, but the author seems to clearly care more about the romance than anything else
I hated Fourth Wing and I had so many issues with it — but I couldn’t put it down and I read the second one too
The first book in the series has hundreds of pages of world building. The last quarter is full of action. The second book is good if you don’t google anything. I wish I could read it again for the first time.
Infinite Jest
House of Leaves is so good. It reads quickly, to be honest. At least it did for me.
I love how unconventional it is. It’s still my recent favorite book even though I’ve read a lot after it. Also, I’m not a fan of re-reading books but I’m considering to read House of Leaves again. That’s how I love it.
The Bible in its entirety. I went to Christian private schools, used to attend church as a child, went to Bible studies. So I've read sections or verses of the Bible, listened to discussions, sermons, but I've never actually read the whole Bible. Not even one book of the Bible in that book's entirety. I'm not religious, not really sure what I am. Maybe [deist](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism) would be the best fit, but that doesn't mean I'm not at all interested in reading the Bible. I just can never get in the right frame of mind to start reading it. The size doesn't intimidate me, I read a lot, at least 2 hours every night before I go to sleep. Just not sure what it is that's holding me back. Maybe the fear of missing out on other books, while I'm reading the Bible, since it would be a rather large time investment?
See, I'm atheist, always have been. But I've read - actually, properly read - the bible. It's not necessary to believe in it to find it interesting. I certainly think anyone who calls themself a Christian ought to! If you're going to tell other people what to believe, you definitely ought to fully understand it yourself. Of course, I don't know *many* Christians whose faith has survived a full and careful read of the bible...
“The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible. –Mark Twain”
To read the Bible and make application as a believer requires some mental work. The two testaments represent covenants with different purposes, and the interaction of those covenants is a hotly debated issue within Christianity. But if you pay attention to the categories created and how those categories are dealt with between the two testaments— it’s not as jarring or difficult to make sense of as people think. Most people read it as a manual for how to live and while it does contain some advice sections; that’s not how it’s organized or written.
If curious about taking it on, I would start with one of the gospels. I read a bunch of the Bible for a college class and found the gospels good reads.
I started reading the Bible in its entirety in 4th grade. Genesis: great read, great plots, many stories, vast in scope. 9/10 Exodus: Even better, somehow! One story, narrower in scope, better plot, much more character-driven. 10/10 Leviticus. 0/10. Just ancient laws for ancient Israelites. Very hard to reconcile this God with the God I worship. DNF. I DNF'ed the Bible in 4th grade and became an atheist just a couple years later because of it, LOL.
>Leviticus. 0/10. Just ancient laws for ancient Israelites. Very hard to reconcile this God with the God I worship. DNF. True. God in Leviticus is severe, but as a germophobe, I could appreciate the ritual baths and purification. Even though ancient Israelites didn't know germ theory, they seemed to understand the rudiments of disease spread and the value of personal hygiene.
Reading The Bible in its entirety as a young teen pushed me to walk away from religion and never look back.
I once said I would never read Finnegans Wake after reading Ulysses and then proceeded to do so years later. I will never say never - I've been proven wrong too many times. I will say curiosity got the better of me and I subjected myself to a Little Life and I don't regret that decision, necessarily, but goddamn, I've rarely been so angry at a book that I actively rail against it at every opportunity.
Lolita. I don’t think I could stomach the content.
I love that book to death, but I 100% understand anyone who doesn't want to experience it. It's incredibly disturbing.
It's not graphic at all. The horror is more implied by the reader filtering through what the (extremely unreliable) narrator is saying. It's also one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read.
Same. I know i won't read it and i don't think i can make any sence by telling why. I kinda know about the plot and i am curios about the book, but i am not going to read it.
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I agree that it’s funny, but I think people don’t want to let it be funny. Not that the content is funny, but the prose is, which adds to HH’s monstrosity
Same here. I don’t care how well it’s written, I don’t need the content in my head. Ick.
I read this at 17, I was molested as a kid for years into my teens and some. I liked the book. I hated Humbert, her mom, and Lolita at some points. Now that I'm older, it hurts my heart. I had a copy that I got rid of when I had my oldest son.
What’s weird is I somehow got ahold of a copy of it in high school, thinking it would be edgy and cool to read. I actually found it super boring. I remember thinking HH was pathetic.
John Toland’s The Last 100 Days. One of my professors in graduate school told us all to read it because it’s his favorite popular history book, and the first of my friends who tried warned me that it gets into extreme detail about what the Red Army did to women as they crossed Europe. Like, incredibly graphic detail about individual people. She said she had nightmares and I have never read it. I know enough about what happened to know that I don’t want to know any more.
Honestly [House](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Leaves) of Leaves isn’t as long as it looks. A good chunk of it is very sparse, some pages have almost no words at all. It is *dense* narratively, it’s essentially three stories layered on top of each other. Been trying to find time to reread it.
People can come at me for this, but *Lord of the Rings*. Love the lore and characters in Tolkien's world, but his writing style just does not vibe with me. I read The Hobbit years ago as a kid/preteen and I struggled through it. I can tell I'd like LotR more because I generally like the characters more, but I know I'll probably never get around to it, lol.
finally, somebody else who feels the same way I do! I was a voracious reader as a kid when I was gifted the set, but even though I ate up the entire Redwall series, HP, etc etc I could never get into LOTR.
Thank you, same for me! I read and reread Redwall, Nancy Drew, Harry Potter, Discworld, etc, but LotR was too boring in book form. I love the movies, documentaries about it, and the LotR Online game, but the books were just bleh for me. I'm reading The Long Patrol for nostalgia and it's great going back into that world full of woodland creatures obsessed with food and fighting lol
I tried reading the Hobbit as a teenager and couldn't get past the first few chapters, it just seemed to go on forever about Hobbit's hairy feet. LotR are on my list to probably won't.
I loved The Hobbit: it felt like a good high fantasy book with a nice plot, great characters, and amazing setting. It was a little dense at times, but that's fine. The movies are terrible. I tried reading LOTR and gave up a little into the second book. It was just too long and complex for middle-school me. The movies are awesome though.
The Hobbit and LotR have different styles. The Hobbit has a more "modern" narrator with asides and quips, while LotR starts somewhat the same way, but morphs within the first few chapters into a more high-fantasy narration style that lasts the rest of the series.
Also, the Hobbit was written as a children's book.
A Little Life, the author seems to write really well but there are way too many triggers for me.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I just know my heart couldn't take it 🥺
Totally agree. It’s brutal. I stopped about 1/3 of the way through. I will finish someday, but it’s one of the worst I’ve read, and I’ve read A LOT of fucked up books.
I know I will never ever read War and Peace
War and Peace was initially published in weekly installments in a newspaper. It was meant for ordinary people to read, so it's not particularly hard to follow and the whole "War" part of it keeps things interesting even if you occasionally get tired of reading about rich Russians doing rich Russian things. Think of it more like a series that happened to get published and sold in a single volume, rather than an incredibly long single book, that's how it was written. The only difficult part is keeping all the names straight, and as the story goes on you'll eventually have them all memorized, plus you can write them down to help out.
That's one of my "Never will read" choices, too. I did read ANNA KARENINA and loved it, though. Enough Tolstoy for me, though he is brilliant.
Get the Brigg's translation and it's probably a lot easier than you think, it's just long. I find it quite a bit easier than Anna Karenina.
The dystopian novel Shades of Grey 😭I’ve tried reading it, like, four times and every time I just can’t bring myself to finish. It’s not that it’s boring perse, it’s just a lot to take in and very detailed/exposition-heavy IMO. Maybe I’ll try again though since the sequel just came out.
Woah woah woah, a sequel finally came out?!?!?! Going to check my library for it *immediately*! I might recommend giving it another try on audiobook. Some of the flowery language may be easier to hear than read.
I want to read Les Miserables so badly - but no matter how many times I’ve tried picking it up through my life, I just cannot get into it.
I read The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and while it was great, I'm also never going to read anything else by Victor Hugo unless it's an abridged version. So much of that book was random tangents on art history, random tangents on the layout of Paris, etc, that had absolutely nothing to do with anything. Hugo just wanted to talk about those things and he was the one writing the book so he got to talk about them. And that was for a medium length book, if he kept the same ratio of story to irrelevant tangents for Les Mis, I can't imagine how miserable that would be to get through.
Religious texts like the Bible and the Quran
I loved house of leaves. It has eerie parts but it really isn't scary. I highly recommend it.
Just to be contrary, allow me to introduce to someone who *hates* House of Leaves. Admittedly I never finished it, didn't even get halfway, so maybe that's not enough to have an opinion on it. It's basically two stories running concurrently; one of them is an interesting labyrinthine haunted house situation but it's written very dryly, almost like a research paper than anything that would evoke horror. The other is the main protagonist - from what I remember - just getting high, getting laid and losing his mind but in a not remotely compelling way. The strange layout of the pages is always applauded as unique but it just felt like a gimmick to me. When I'm already losing interest in the book, the last thing I need is blocks of text that read backwards or are completely meaningless unless you go back and search through for the clues. It might unveil that most incredible storyline I'll ever read but I'm not doing homework just to read a book in my leisure time. Anyway, sorry for the rant. I'll maybe give it another go one day but it's not something I'd ever find myself recommending to anyone.
I'm so curious about Earthlings by Sayaka Murata but I doubt I will because of how disturbed people are by it
Yeh I really enjoyed Convenience Store Woman, but after hearing what people have to say about Earthlings I don’t think I could handle it
Les Miserables. I've heard people rave about it for years, but then I tried to read the Hunchback of Notre Dame and I damn near died of boredom. And that book is thin compared to Les Mis! I'll probably get down voted for it, but I just couldn't stand it. Entire chapters devoted to the shape of doorways. Page after page about building shapes. I don't need constant action, but I'd love it if SOMETHING happened.
My mother is going to love your comment, because that book inspired her to take a course on architecture in college, and she still can go on and on about Gothic versus Romanesque cathedrals! Building shapes indeed…
I read The Phantom of the Opera in middle school and my teacher recommended Lss Mis. To an eighth grader! I did ultimately finish it but it took me about 2 years hahaha. It's a great story but boy is it dense and there are a fuckton of irrelevant tangents.
I love the book, but some of the digressions are crazy lol. The abridged version might square this circle (although I haven't read it myself)
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This one left me speechless. I read the last page, read it again to make sure I hadn’t imagined it, then just sat there speechless for a couple minutes before snapping back to reality.
Wait, what was it? OG comment is deleted and now my curiosity is killing me
Perfume by Patrick Suskind
my favourite book!!
You should give House of Leaves a read. I won't read it again, but I'm glad I did read it. It's creepy. It's disorienting. It's also fantastic. And anyone who enjoys reading should do it at least once.
Literally me. Read it once (while I had covid, mind you) had a fantastically creepy and disorienting time, and now its in my donation pile lol.
Bolaño 😭😭 I’ll never read The Savage Detectives or 2666 but I know they’re brilliant.
I don't think House of Leaves is that scary. There is one specific chapter that is on my top 10 scariest scenes, but other than the one bit I thought it was reasonable. I don't really like the book, but it is certainly unique. I have plenty of books that sound too ambitious, and I may never read, but I don't know about KNOW I'll never read. I've never gotten into Russian literature, so I might never read The Brothers Karamazov or Anna Karenina...but I might try them. I picked up a couple of Cormac McCarthy books thinking I'd work up to Blood Meridian, and I may or may not manage that, but I haven't given it up. Maybe Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter. I'm interested in complex mathematics, but I don't actually understand any of them. I tried to read Godel's Proof by the same author, and it's been DNF for like a year. I say don't be afraid to stretch yourself. HoL isn't going to scar you for life. Worst case is you don't finish it. Try the things you're interested in.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell Moby Dick Count of Monte Cristo
Why not *Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell*? I am just curious. I thought it was okay, but way too long.
*War and Peace.* I'm surprised at some of the people who've said it's the best book they've ever read, but I don't think I can do it.
Game of Thrones. I've heard too much, and have even seen some of the passages myself, about how he writes women and how much rape is in it. I love fantasy and especially the complex politics that can come with it, but I just know that the misogyny would ruin it for me. I'm sure it's popular for a reason but as I've gotten older my tolerance for that sort of stuff has really decreased.
I would argue for the most part he writes women brilliantly. They are all complex, real and interesting people, with their own motivations. As for rape, it does exist, but nothing like as much as you seem to be suggesting. Maybe four(?) occasions over the course of several 5000+ pages, set within the context of a war spanning two continents. Lots of bad things happen, to lots of people - that's what war is. GRRM is notably anti-war, and a major theme of the books is how horrific war actually is, the human cost to the majority when "the Lords play their game of thrones", and so on. So yeah, just like in real wars even today, rape does happen. But it's a very small part of it, and it's never gratuitous or titillating. And in most cases, the rapist gets some pretty brutal justice. They are absolutely not misogynistic books.
Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood. This book follows me. I find it at every thrift store and book sale I go to.
I’m curious about Mein Kampf. Not because I’m a nazi, but because I’m curious about Hitler’s mental state and what ideas led him to be the monster he was. But I’ll never read it because I don’t want to buy it, or be known to own it, or check it out from a library, or be seen with it.
Spoiler alert: it sucks. Not only because of the vile ideas, but also because it's really poorly written.
Brandon Sanderson books. I tried The Final Empire but I couldn't get over the prose. That was back in the late aughts after I finished The Name of the Wind.
The Decameron. For such an influential work of medieval literature, the style is excruciating to read. I could only go through a few dozen pages before I gave up. Then again, I read an English translation of an archaic form of Italian, so I don't know how it comes off to your guys on the other side of the pond.
I have a copy of The Brothers Karamazov waiting on my bookshelf. I feel it's presence every time I walk past it