The bible
this post was submitted on 08 Oct 2023
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Asklemmy
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I donβt even need to buy them. They just pile up unread. One of them has nice art in it.
I inherited a ton of books from my father, who was a minister & a Jungian psychologist. Lots of old interesting bibles, in a handful of languages. (Plus a Koran, and some Crowley, and of shelf full of Trotsky... ha ha. Lotta books.)
American? I haven't seen a bookstore selling a bible in ages, if ever
The dictionary
lol
The ~~dictionary~~ dikshunary
Do they have those at the lie-berry?
Atlas Shrugged.
It's a massive paperback and looks impressive on a bookshelf but it's a dull narrative. I got about 200 pages in and was like fuck all these people and these stupid trains.
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The Silmarillon - the yellow pages of middle earth
It is literally easier to read the KJV of the Bible than the Silmarillon.
Easy != Fun
I can't name very many people that have finished the whole dictionary
The book gave me a roller coaster of emotions, I never knew what was coming next!
Anything by Ayn Rand. Sheβs a terrible author and most people are more interested in showing that they could have read The Fountainhead than actually reading that unfun, meandering garbage.
Not as relevant as it used to be regarding this question, but...
War and Peace
My Godfather tried to read that to me in it's entirety when I was 4 lol.
I wonder whether it would have been as highly acclaimed had it been published under it's original name War: What is it good for??
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For Christians, there's one called The Bible.
Heya fellow raccoon, raccoon Bible is much better than the one compiled by Roman bishops in 325AD in Nicea e.g. "let there be trash for all" and "give to racoons what belongs to the raccoons" :D
Sometimes I buy physical copies of books I've read digitally.
Sometimes I buy physical books, then listen to them digitally instead
Dictionaries or lexicons. Who reads those from start to finish?
To be honest. I did.
I found another of my kin.
1984
You're missing out. It's one of the few books I've read and I've thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Why exactly would you buy a book and not read it ?
The same reason anyone buys anything that they donβt use, they think theyβll enjoy it but in reality they donβt find time or lose interest.
Looks good on the book shelf. Many people decorate with books. Look at all those old mansions you see in movies, where there is a giant library.
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So other people think you did read it. Perhaps for the binding color in a background. Maybe to impress people while holding it in a cafe. To burn.
I have a pretty decent sized library. My fiction section is about 95% read, but the non-fiction sections are much less. You sometimes buy non-fiction as reference materials, to flip through, etc. Not necessarily to read cover-to-cover. (I'd guess my non-fiction is 25% read.)
Most of friedrich nietzsche's books
The Wheel of Time: Eye of the World
Not for a lack of trying
Are you kidding? This is a great book! I've probably read it about 10 times.
I'm not saying nobody desires to read it, I'm referring to how difficult it is to read because it's so wordy for some people. It's longer than the Deathly Hallows, has hundreds of characters, and the main characters only scratch the surface. Not negative things if you ask me, just these are complaints other people have.
That series took me something like 5-6 years to read, broken in the middle with Game of Thrones. WOT gets extremely dry by book 9 and Robert Jordan is tied up in something like two dozen plot lines with no way out.
I only finished the series because I was overseas with nothing to do except listen to audiobooks on my time off for a year and a half. The last 3-4 books being written by Brandon Sanderson was the best thing that could have happened to the series.
I suspect not many people go and buy religions texts. Most people seem to get them for free or as a gift, so I'll skip that.
Dictionaries and reference books like encyclopædia don't get read much, but that feels like cheating, because that's not really what they are for.
I'd guess something from classic children's literature? I bet a lot of adults have never read Robinson Crusoe but buy it for kids. Or they pass on the copy that someone bought them as kids, that they never read. As a kid I managed to get through some classic literature, but I'd sometimes encounter one that was actually less interesting than just... doing nothing and waiting for time to pass.
As an aside, I don't think there's anything wrong with having books around that you haven't read! It seems most of the value of a library is in the books you haven't read yet. Or refer to, without fully reading, to inspire you as you need. Or even just have because you think they are interesting or contain ideas of value, and hope to get to someday. The books I've actually read just get shoved in boxes somewhere dark and dusty. On my shelves or on display are all the things I haven't gotten to yet!
For some reason, you mentioning Robinson Crusoe makes me want to either reread it again after all these years, or to see if there is a movie adaptation.
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I think no one has read Manufacturing Consent beyond the first chapter.
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If you're Gen X, the entire three fucking ton collection of whatever encyclopedia itanica set out there and fifty time life books about random shit with pictures. Maybe sex by Madonna.
My parents, and those before them loved to appear as if they could ready but only really recognized the logos of gas stations and liquor bottles.
Among my friend group it's House of Leaves.
"Wow, it's such an eerie unsettling journey. I really love it." "you started it last year, did you finish it?" "well ..."
I saw another lemmy user claim they had to take a 17 year break from it.
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Atlas Shrugged
Probably meditations or some popular philosophy book.
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