Bookkaholic Q&A: Bookish Confession

Bookkaholic Q&A is a weekly feature where we all share our answers to a bookish question. Think of it as a conversation over coffee with friends!

“It’s time for a bookish confession. What’s your bookish secret?”

Hannah

Mine is that I just can’t get through Little Women! I’ve tried time and time again, and I never make it more than a couple of chapters. The way they refer to poor, sweet Beth as their pet? I can’t stand it! It’s all too saccharine for me, and I feel like a bad reader for being so put off by a book that so many love.

Lucy

Believe it or not, I have never, ever read Pride and Prejudice. I have been circling it like a cat for years but never actually taken the plunge. No reason why as I’ve read other Austens. Needless to say, it disgusts everyone I confess to, particularly my book group, whose literary opinion of me has no doubt plummeted considerably since.

Will

I’ve read all the Star Wars books…I think that makes me a mega geek and probably highly reduces my literary suaveness to all the readers who saw this. But I did read Moby-Dick, which won’t vindicate me in Mollie’s eyes.

Tara

I must admit that I listen to audiobooks in the shower. I live alone in the basement of a house, so it is very quiet and rather boring. Getting ready in the morning takes me about 45 minutes, so why not make those minutes useful and entertaining? I turn on my audiobook when I wake up and put it on a shelf in the bathroom while I shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, gather my things, and make my lunch. I guess I can’t keep up this habit forever, as I imagine a future spouse might get really annoyed by only hearing random parts of random books in the morning. For now, though, my bookish secret is an eccentricity rather than an annoyance!

Rebecca

With only a small twinge of guilt, I admit that Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie, is my bête noire. I started it in 2006 and abandoned it after 40 pages; four years later I returned to it, forced myself to finish it on the second attempt, and decided it hadn’t been worth it – I don’t remember a thing about the book beyond what you’d find on a back cover description. Who knows – perhaps if I pick up Midnight’s Children a decade from now, it’ll be just the right book for me, and I’ll finally appreciate its fêted magical realist brilliance. For now, though, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that, for me, Rushdie simply isn’t “readable.”

Mollie

Although I teach American literature, I dislike several of the authors considered to be among the “greats.” The author I dislike the most, though, is Herman Melville. I just cannot stand anything he wrote. In an undergraduate class, we were required to read Bartleby, the Scrivener. During a whole class discussion one day, I went on a rant about Bartleby’s unwillingness to do his job by commenting: “I would prefer not to.” Really? He preferred not to? Fire him and move on! (See, I still get worked up about it.) After that class, I became known as the Bartleby-hater. Honestly, I’m rather proud of that title.

So now we want to share our conversation with you! Tell us your bookish confessions!