What is the most intellectually challenging book ever?

[LaxMom]

Oh, goodness. I thought of more. I read No Exit (John Paul Sartre) in high school and naturally thought it the coolest thing. Ever. So I read it again. And again. And drew from it (and my wildly incomplete understanding of existentialism) to impress college professors. Heh, heh, heh.

 

...

 

 

And now you've launched Mrs Premise and Mrs Conclusion and the finer points of killing a budgie.

 

{falsetto} I just spent four hours buring the cat!

 

Sorry. Carry on with highbrow literary discussion.

[FaithManor]

Reading the Wickepedia entry on The Eternal Braid...ah..that sounds absolutely delicious. :lol:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del,_Escher,_Bach

 

But Faith...seriously..do you what it's like to read something of that level...er..narrow interest..ah ya...

 

and then what do you do?

 

Who are you gonna talk it over with, compare notes or thoughts?

 

I know for me- it's like standing in the middle of the desert alone with no one to talk to.

 

There's just nothing there to share it with.

So is it just enough to have all this stuff dancing around in your head, unspoken. Isn't it more fun when you share and "click"?

 

What do you think?

 

 

Well, dh and I used to have a brainiac reading group of geeky people like us who think it's fun to read this stuff and then yack about it. I know...we are not normal. I hope I've never pretended that we were.

 

You see, I grew up on this kind of thing. My dad is currently reading a book on Einstein and theories of black holes. We were discussing the calculus tonight. Dad hasn't had to use any calculus since he got out of the Air Force in 1966, so he was feeling a bit rusty. However, I've never studied anything much beyond calc 1 and this book goes beyond that. So we were having to stretch our brains a bit.

 

Right now, I always have a volume of prose around that makes my brain cells work really hard. Not for enjoyment. But, I started doing that when I had the three boys, three years and under and I felt like my mind was oatmeal from dealing with little people. You know...all of those nonsense conversations you have to have with people that can't be reasoned with. I was pretty isolated, didn't get out much, and felt like my brain was going to atrophe and I would end up dumb as a rock before the last one left home. I ADORED my college years and decided that I needed to keep my brain active. It became habit. Now, if I spend too much time reading a quilting magazine or enjoying something light, I feel a little guilty. So, I try to keep a book around that will make me think. Now that I'm homeschooling a high schooler again, that isn't so hard. He is studying Art History and I'm supposed to have these riveting discussions with him. I spend a lot of time hating Mr. Jansen!!!! :D

 

As for GEB, that was recommended reading in college for music composition majors. I was piano performance and not comp. But, I hung out with a bunch of comp majors and was not about to be on a "lower" plane musically than they were. :boxing_smiley: (The boxing hands represent how competitive the department was. One never wanted to be considered the "weak" link.) I've since re-read it because I tutored a bunch of music theory students who were reading it and not fairing so well with their theory professor. Mostly, they just needed to survive the man. It is pointless to have an opinion, much less express one, with such an ego. :tongue_smilie:

 

So, I guess my reasons are just that I must get "high" off the challenge. We'll call it "brain weed". :biggrinjester:

 

Faith

[Jen in PA]

The ones that make my head hurt (in a lovely way, of course) are Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius and A Theory of Justice by Rawls. I own those and work through them frequently, always feeling as if I have missed something. I have never made it through Mrs. Dalloway, and am not totally convinced I should try again.

[Mergath]

A Brief History of Time and any of Ben Jonson's plays.

[Audrey]

Fiction

 

As I Lay Dying (William Faulkner) *

 

 

 

 

* I encountered the Faulkner during my post-baccalaureate studies, when I was trying to decide between counseling psych and English for grad school. To me? Then? It felt difficult. Now? I wouldn't say it's a pleasure, but I do wish I could ask my twenty-something self, "What's the big deal?" I read Motives and Grammar in my first semester of grad school (I picked English), and coupled with all of the linguistics reading, they felt difficult. Again, now? Not so much.

 

.

 

I adore Faulkner. My favourite, though, is Absalom, Absalom followed closely by Light in August. The first grad class I ever taught was on the works of Faulkner. I was a deconstructionist then. It was a glorious semester -- a class taught by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. *sigh* I was so much more cool and self-destructive back then. :lol:

Edited September 28, 2011 by Audrey

[Mrs Mungo]

Anything by Dostoyevsky, mainly because of the number of characters to keep straight.

[Truscifi]

Semiotics. 'Nuff said.

[Aelwydd]

Institutes of the Christian Religion by John Calvin. In comparison, his writings make Ayn Rand seem downright profound.

 

God.

[LittleIzumi]

The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. :D (And you will actually be willing to read it again when you're done.)

[elegantlion]

Ok Hop on Pop is off the table, but what about the B Book? :D

 

How about Goodnight Moon while sucking down some Mojitos? It seems like a mojito kind of book. :lol:

[Spy Car]

I adore Faulkner. My favourite, though, is Absalom, Absalom followed closely by Light in August.

 

Totally!

 

Absalom, Absalom! is utterly brilliant, and Light in August is awfully good too.

 

Bill

[GWOB]

One Fish, Two Fish....... but don't tackle this unless you're TRULY ready for a mental workout.:D

 

(sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself.)

 

Pshsh! That's nothing. Have you read Fox in Socks after too much Mike's Hard? :willy_nilly:

 

I can read Green Eggs and Ham in 2 min 37 seconds. We can meet at the bar and see who wins the title?

 

How about Goodnight Moon while sucking down some Mojitos? It seems like a mojito kind of book. :lol:

 

 

Ok. I admit my idiocy. I am such a big, fat sissy when it comes to good, quality literature. I thought I was awesome when I finally got through Anna Karenina and liked it. But the highlighted people? Will you please come over? Like, yesterday!

 

I will happily acknowledge my limitations. I am not nearly as brilliant as the rest of you. Moby Dick (sorry Bill) made me want to shoot myself. Middlemarch drove me to drink, and I like Brit Lit. Ayn Rand causes convulsions, except for Atlas Shrugged, which I consider Ayn Rand Lite.

 

I'm working on my stupidity. I did read the first 5 pages of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Then I realiazed there just wasn't enough Captain Morgan in the world.

[chepyl]

I took a class on criticism and theory of the theatre for my master's program. We read a book called Dramatic Theory and Criticism...It is excerpts from many great writers. They compiled all of the writings on the theatre, dramtic arts, and epic poetry. We read Plato, Aristotle, Dumas fil, and many more. There were passages that I had to reread two or three times to really understand what they were saying.

 

Plato's The Republic gave me a hard time in high school, it was a little easier in college, better during my master's studies, but even now; I can still only read a small section at a time before I start just reading words and not READING the content.

 

As I Lay Dying was another one that challenged me in high school. I tried it again last year and could not get through it.

 

The John Jake's Trilogy - North and South, Love and War, and Heaven and Hell are tough because of length. I do LOVE them though!! The tv mini-series versions are fun, too ;)

 

Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy - I can sit and read any other books in the Bible and enjoy them, understand them, and really get something from them - just not these 3! They are tough reads. I much prefer Revelation.

 

Stanislavski's writings.

[Stacia]

Anything by Dostoyevsky, mainly because of the number of characters to keep straight.

 

:iagree:

 

Although there are plenty of books listed in this thread that have made my brain hurt, lol. (And plenty that I imagine would make my brain hurt if I tried them now.) ;)

[Audrey]

Totally!

 

Absalom, Absalom! is utterly brilliant, and Light in August is awfully good too.

 

Bill

 

 

There is so much I could say about that novel! But.... I learned that "there were three things and nothing more: breathing, pleasure, darkness..."

 

Oh! I'm going to have to pull that off the shelves and read it again. There were so many passages in that book that writ themselves indelibly upon me.

[Aubrey]

Sometimes I finish something up, and I swear to God my head is full of bright red sparkler sticks like a Fourth of July night; and I just want to party with all these "whoa" ideas I just rode through....

 

And I look across the room. There sits my beloved with a remote and CNN; and a 8 year old and 1 American Girl doll who's loved to bits....

 

and then I think.."I really need a dog. Maybe a Golden Retriever..they are supposed to be smart dogs..I could talk to the dog about it...when he acts interested in what I'm saying, I'll feed him meaty homemade treats made from Martha Stewart magazine recipes. I'll teach him to bob his head up and down to agree with me.."

 

You know kids & dh's can be trained the same way. Just sayin'... :lol:

[happygrrl]

So many of the books listed are my favorites; at least, they were when I read them! I am a different person now, and I am looking forward to reading some of those again to see if I think differently now.

 

For those who voted "Wake": "A Skeleton Key to Finnegan's Wake" by Joseph Campbell was out of print when I read "Wake" . I had heard about it and had been searching for it for years, meanwhile trying to plumb it on my own. I see now that it has been reprinted. Just a helpful thought for those who feel like diving in!

[veggiegal]

Of those I've read personally? It's a toss-up between two from Emmanuel Kant: The Metaphysics of Morals and The Critique of Pure Reason. Or maybe Being and Time by Heidegger. Doing a couple of philosophy degrees has made most other reading I do now, even of complex novels, seem like a walk in the park. :tongue_smilie:

[Aubrey]

I nominate Being and Time (Sein und Zeit) by Martin Heidegger.

 

Bill

 

I got this far into the thread before I experienced cardiac arrest.

 

I have not made it thr Ulysses, although I did buy it jr year in college because I loved the cover so much. :lol:

 

I did my senior thesis on The Sound & the Fury, though, so I feel certain that I could theoretically crack Ulysses one day. It still sits on my shelf & taunts me.

 

But Heidegger. :svengo:

 

Not up to the Heidegger level, but still books that make me groan:

 

Heart of Darkness

Anything by Nietchze, although the only one I'm sure I read (for an entire semester, I was so determined to understand it) was...shoot. History & the Historical Something or Other...

[Blueridge]

[Here I am to disclose that I am not a troll, rather the dd18 of Blueridge!]

Anything by Dickens is actually pretty hefty, if you take the time to truly read into it. Word by Freud, Descartes, Sartre, Kant, and others in that same vein are fairly challenging. "Total Truth" by Nancy Pearcey was meaty enough to tickle the brain...and "Alice in Wonderland" is actually somewhat of a ride when you consider the historical connotations and catch some of the political views thrown in! :001_smile:

Thanks for stopping by! :D I think I'll have to stick with Green Eggs and Ham...

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Any titles come to mind?

 

I'm trying to muck through some harder texts right now; and in some sick way it's fun to read hard stuff.:D

 

I keep trying to self-prove my brain has not up and gone to the Bahamas.

 

F. A. Hayek's Road to Serfdom.

 

This was a book that I could only read a couple pages at a time. Then I had to set it aside for a few hours to let it perk in my brain. Took me months to get through it.

 

But I enjoyed every minute of it.

 

FWIW, I did read Thomas Sowell's Basic Economics (both 1st and 3rd edition) before tackling Hayek. Basic Economics is good too, but not on quite the level as Hayek.

[Bang!Zoom!]

There are so many good books mentioned here. :::sniff::: I want to read them all...

 

I used to read a lot of really developed political science books; the kind which were actual science, not theories (though I loved those too)-and it was a field that I always kept up on.

 

One day, while I was traveling, I stopped by to visit family with my fella in tow. He'd never met any of them. We gathered up at a restaurant and sat at a long table, maybe 20 or so of us.

 

Across the table from me sat my nephew who has a Ph'd in Political Science, and we got to talking. At some point in the conversation about some book his wife nudged him with her elbow, he looked to the left and right, and the entire table was silent and staring at us. I guess we got a bit carried away.

 

Once in a great while, I'll be near someone that can really enjoy talking in depth about something; and it's always a long walk home if my fella is with me.

 

"I don't know who you are when you get like that.."

 

He doesn't mean it in a mean way, but just that...well, you know..

 

But the weirdest thing is, I think that particular "space" in my life-the one that reads and thinks, discovers, uncovers,learns and connects....is my most authentic self. That is the real me.

 

And believe me, there's been no reading of

 

"Hop on Pop" in this house for a very long time.....:lol:

[mommymilkies]

I am definitely adding some of these to my booklist!

 

For me, A Brief History of Time was very hard. I tried using it for light bedtime reading and it knocked out my insomnia like nothing else ever has!

[seraphina]

This thread makes me feel like my reading level has gone drastically through the years. In my youth I definitely read higher level books (many on these lists) and now I find that most of the books I read are in the young adults section. Part of that is because I want to read what my kids are reading and part of it is that I have less time to devote to reading. I still have a ton of books, my husband who has never been much of a reader looks and them and says things like "I have never heard of these authors." I really need to amp up my reading level.

[angela in ohio]

The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment - It wsn't meant to be a book... it's a series of writings and sermons, and he repeats himself, but never exactly. That's one of the only books I've had to reallllyyy slooowwww down for.

 

My Great Books professor in college was German, and he liked to hurt us. I read a lot of hard stuff then, but my brain was young and nimble. :001_smile:

[Bang!Zoom!]

Angela, you ever seen the TED talk, "Ten minutes with a nimble mind?" - something like that..just a sec, I'll find a link...here: (have fun)

 

:lol:

 

This is one of my favorites in TED. Very unique.

[justamouse]

Ok. I admit my idiocy. I am such a big, fat sissy when it comes to good, quality literature. I thought I was awesome when I finally got through Anna Karenina and liked it. But the highlighted people? Will you please come over? Like, yesterday!

 

I will happily acknowledge my limitations. I am not nearly as brilliant as the rest of you. Moby Dick (sorry Bill) made me want to shoot myself. Middlemarch drove me to drink, and I like Brit Lit. Ayn Rand causes convulsions, except for Atlas Shrugged, which I consider Ayn Rand Lite.

 

I'm working on my stupidity. I did read the first 5 pages of Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Then I realiazed there just wasn't enough Captain Morgan in the world.

 

 

I had a guy invite me into an affair with Anna Karenina, and I was like, "Yeah, and then I'm supposed to off myself? I think not. You're not worth it." :glare::001_smile:;)

 

I think Captain Morgan goes with Yertle the Turtle. ;-)

Edited September 28, 2011 by justamouse

[justamouse]

The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky. :D (And you will actually be willing to read it again when you're done.)

 

I loved that book. Read in it honors English my senior year of HS, but I had THE BEST teacher. Loved him.

[Catherine]

OK, my nerdy son first read this when he was 12, and it's one of his favorite books. Ack.

[6packofun]

Umberto Eco Foucault's Pendulum

 

This would be my choice, too.

[Bang!Zoom!]

I was first introduced to Eco by the film "In the name of the Rose."

 

That's enough to make your brain go ouch. :)

 

You know what's really surprising? It's kind of ah-hah when references to some of these texts show up in popular culture..say...rock music.

 

I can think of a lot of bands that have done this....one just doesn't associate those novels with that music. It's fun to discover they are connected.

[Jennifer3141]

I have never yet made it through Joyce's Ulysses despite several attempts. Stream-of-somebody-else's-consciousness is awfully tough for me.

 

I want to tackle this one but Amazon has me confused. There are a lot of abridged editions out there. Do you have a version you recommend??

 

(And I'm buying the Cliff Notes. Scholars be darned. lol)

[Sebastian (a lady)]

Wow. I guess I'm not going there in this lifetime. LOL. :)

 

I read Dubliners, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses in college. I'd really like to have those hours back. Ugh. (Not a Joyce fan.)

[rieshy]

The Consolation Of Philosophy, by Boethius- the poetic translation- but one of my kids borrowed my copy and I can't remember the translator. It's one of my very favorite books.

[Kathleen in VA]

I thought of another one. I took German Literature in translation in college and we read Magister Ludi (or The Glass Bead Game) by Herman Hesse. I loved it but I don't think I ever really understood it.:D

[Mrs Mungo]

I want to tackle this one but Amazon has me confused. There are a lot of abridged editions out there. Do you have a version you recommend??

 

(And I'm buying the Cliff Notes. Scholars be darned. lol)

 

Have you read Faulkner? Because if you haven't, then I would strongly suggesting reading him first. :D

 

If you insist upon tackling Ulysses ;), then I would suggest the Dover version, along with this guide.

[Bang!Zoom!]

That link is an awesome forward. Really enjoyed the introduction to The Glass Bead Game.

 

You know those novels that were developed during the occupations...the expat thing..they are all so wonderful. I loved that small clip about how some of the writing was done with the sound of bombs falling in the distance.

 

My mother lived overseas in France at the time; she had some amazing stories about that era and getting by.

[Kathleen in VA]

Saying this will probably make me seem like a rookie, but A Tale of Two Cities has been kicking my behind for several months now. I keep trying to get through it, but it's been tough. Initially, it was all the archaic vocabulary (I had to read the first 4 chapters with a dictionary), and then it was just all the wordiness. I'm finally about 3/4 of the way through, and I'm enjoying it. I just don't know when I'll finish. Hopefully before 2012. ;)

 

I love Dickens - especially his wordiness. I love how the descriptions tell the story - they don't just describe (for example, the wine cask falling and breaking followed by the people drinking it while it flowed in the gaps of the cobblestones, etc. - a foreshadowing of their blood thirstiness.) However, I have discovered that he always begins in the middle of the story and then pieces it all together later - a style I find maddening until the pieces start falling in place - makes me feel stupid. So, yeah, Dickens can be infuriating and tough to get through.

[brehon]

There are so many good books mentioned here. :::sniff::: I want to read them all...

 

I used to read a lot of really developed political science books; the kind which were actual science, not theories (though I loved those too)-and it was a field that I always kept up on.

 

One day, while I was traveling, I stopped by to visit family with my fella in tow. He'd never met any of them. We gathered up at a restaurant and sat at a long table, maybe 20 or so of us.

 

Across the table from me sat my nephew who has a Ph'd in Political Science, and we got to talking. At some point in the conversation about some book his wife nudged him with her elbow, he looked to the left and right, and the entire table was silent and staring at us. I guess we got a bit carried away.

 

Well, at least they were still sitting with you at the table. Several years ago a group of friends and I were out to eat and, like your family, were seated at along table. One of my favourite intellectual sparring partners (now as well as then) and I began debating some obscure point of history/theology in the medieval Church. At some point we looked up to see the rest of our friends had actually left our table and were sitting at another table across the restaurant.

 

<snip>

 

But the weirdest thing is, I think that particular "space" in my life-the one that reads and thinks, discovers, uncovers,learns and connects....is my most authentic self. That is the real me.

 

I completely understand this and I feel the same way as you. This thread has turned into a wonderfully long and diverse library list for me. Maybe I'll ask my aforementioned friend if he'll consider reading some of these books with me and then have discussions...properly lubricated, of course.

[brehon]

I was first introduced to Eco by the film "In the name of the Rose."

 

That's enough to make your brain go ouch. :)

 

You know what's really surprising? It's kind of ah-hah when references to some of these texts show up in popular culture..say...rock music.

 

I can think of a lot of bands that have done this....one just doesn't associate those novels with that music. It's fun to discover they are connected.

 

I first read Name of the Rose in high school. I bought a Latin/English dictionary and translated all of the Latin phrases, paragraphs, etc in the margins. It was my first exposure to Latin (except for church). Years later I reread the book and was amazed to find that most of my translations were fairly accurate, especially for someone who'd had no prior formal Latin experience.

 

Oh, and I think the movie is one of the few that truly does justice to the book. Plus, Sean Connery -- what's not to like?

[TravelingChris]

I didn't like the one Faulkner story I read in college but did like AS I Lay Dying when I read it last year. Didn't find it that hard, and I also liked Heart of Darkness and didn't find it challenging either. I do like Joyce but have never even tried to read Finnegan's Wake. For me, challenging is philosophy (what my son was majoring in) and the physics and math books my husband reads. DH has read all the sciency books mentioned here -Godel, Escher and Bach, The Making of the Atom Bomb, etc, etc, and doesn't find them hard. He did find Faulkner challenging as well as the Heart of Darkness.

 

I guess I can't think of regular fiction that is challenging either because I haven't read it or because fiction is so much easier for me to read than philosophy or physics. I do read a lot of non fiction but not in those fields.

[justamouse]

Saying this will probably make me seem like a rookie, but A Tale of Two Cities has been kicking my behind for several months now. I keep trying to get through it, but it's been tough. Initially, it was all the archaic vocabulary (I had to read the first 4 chapters with a dictionary), and then it was just all the wordiness. I'm finally about 3/4 of the way through, and I'm enjoying it. I just don't know when I'll finish. Hopefully before 2012. ;)

 

 

Yep, that's life before Strunk and White. Think of how it would have been all peeled back had they gotten a hold of it.

 

Think of it as a steampunk, but without the punk.

Edited September 28, 2011 by justamouse

[Bang!Zoom!]

I completely understand this and I feel the same way as you. This thread has turned into a wonderfully long and diverse library list for me. Maybe I'll ask my aforementioned friend if he'll consider reading some of these books with me and then have discussions...properly lubricated, of course.

 

Nothing like closing up the bar with your favorite ISP (Intellectual Sparring Partner).

 

I just did this recently at an open house for the grand opening of this place. Boy did we (this lady & I) have a blast. We covered stuff like Papua New Guinea & tribalism to cheese-making and Western development of the Pacific Indians.

 

I think I just read in the book "How to Read a Book" a passage about the historical roots of the word: "sophomore" - how it literally means...ya - it's cool, you've read a lot, but did you really dig deep?

 

Something about the standing qualities of being broadly read vs. actually being well-read.

 

I threw a bunch of stars in the margin of that passage; that's my code to go back and argue about it; something there sparked me and either didn't set right or I felt I needed to wait a bit for it to gel to really get the answer the way it was intended to be read.

 

I think it was in one of SWB's books I saw it recommended, it was probably in the WTM- I think I'm on my third reading of it, and still find treasures in it all over the place. It's a cool book.

[JVA]

 

Saving Leonardo - Nancy Pearcy, a book on worldview expressed through art

 

 

 

Faith

 

I'm so glad to read this! I've been slugging thru this since May....it's EXCELLENT but I need to chew on every page so, the reading is slow.

[kubiac]

Everything by Henry James is HEAVY, man. His writing is beautiful, and not impossible to decode, but every book is still a tremendous psychological and emotional puzzle that you have to continually solve.

[Mommy22alyns]

I know which one SWB found challenging ;) :D

 

Ishmael

 

 

:D I felt that one was challenging too. At least I'm in good company!

[Spy Car]

I didn't like the one Faulkner story I read in college but did like AS I Lay Dying when I read it last year. Didn't find it that hard, and I also liked Heart of Darkness and didn't find it challenging either. I do like Joyce but have never even tried to read Finnegan's Wake. For me, challenging is philosophy (what my son was majoring in) and the physics and math books my husband reads. DH has read all the sciency books mentioned here -Godel, Escher and Bach, The Making of the Atom Bomb, etc, etc, and doesn't find them hard. He did find Faulkner challenging as well as the Heart of Darkness.

 

I guess I can't think of regular fiction that is challenging either because I haven't read it or because fiction is so much easier for me to read than philosophy or physics. I do read a lot of non fiction but not in those fields.

 

 

You must read Absalom, Absalom. It is Faulkner's masterpiece!

 

Here is a taste of the opening lines:

 

FROM a little after two o'clock until almost sundown of the long still hot weary dead September afternoon they sat in what Miss Coldfield still called the office because her father had called it that—a dim hot airless room with the blinds all closed and fastened for forty-three summers because when she was a girl someone had believed that light and moving air carried heat and that dark was always cooler, and which (as the sun shone fuller and fuller on that side of the house) became latticed with yellow slashes full of dust motes which Quentin thought of as being flecks of the dead old dried paint itself blown inward from the scaling blinds as wind might have blown them.

 

There was a wistaria vine blooming for the second time that summer on a wooden trellis before one window, into which sparrows came now and then in random gusts, making a dry vivid dusty sound before going away: and opposite Quentin, Miss Coldfield in the eternal black which she had worn for forty-three years now, whether for sister, father, or nothusband none knew, sitting so bolt upright in the straight hard chair that was so tall for her that her legs hung straight and rigid as if she had iron shinbones' and ankles, clear of the floor with that air of impotent and static rage like children's feet, and talking in that grim haggard amazed Voice until at last listening would renege and hearing-sense self-confound and the long-dead object of her impotent yet indomitable frustration would appear, as though by outraged recapitulation evoked, quiet inattentive and harmless, out of the biding and dreamy and victorious dust.

 

Her voice would not cease, it would just vanish. There would be the dim coffin-smelling gloom sweet and oversweet with the twice-bloomed wistaria against the outer wall by the savage quiet September sun impacted distilled and hyperdistilled, into which came now and then the loud cloudy flutter of the sparrows like a flat limber stick whipped by an idle boy, and the rank smell of female old flesh long embattled in virginity while the wan haggard face watched him above the faint triangle of lace at wrists and throat from the too tall chair in which she resembled a crucified child......

Edited September 28, 2011 by Spy Car

[Julie Smith]

Saying this will probably make me seem like a rookie, but A Tale of Two Cities has been kicking my behind for several months now. I keep trying to get through it, but it's been tough. Initially, it was all the archaic vocabulary (I had to read the first 4 chapters with a dictionary), and then it was just all the wordiness. I'm finally about 3/4 of the way through, and I'm enjoying it. I just don't know when I'll finish. Hopefully before 2012. ;)

 

Thank you for listing one book I have read on this list, that is with the exception of Dr. Suess.

[WishboneDawn]

I first read Name of the Rose in high school. I bought a Latin/English dictionary and translated all of the Latin phrases, paragraphs, etc in the margins. It was my first exposure to Latin (except for church). Years later I reread the book and was amazed to find that most of my translations were fairly accurate, especially for someone who'd had no prior formal Latin experience.

 

Oh, and I think the movie is one of the few that truly does justice to the book. Plus, Sean Connery -- what's not to like?

 

I have that book sitting beside the table ready to read...Between pregnancy and a newborn I don't suspect I'll actually be ready for it for a year or so but it's waiting for me.

[laughing lioness]

Very honestly, The Bible. Understanding the historical, geographic and theological implications not to mention the language continues to cook my grits.