Books I'll Never Read Again

[lunababymoonchild]

This article popped up on my FaceBook page through The Folio Society and I thought that it might be good to discuss it. It has happened to me. I re-read John Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps, which I read in school. Our teacher said we were capable of it, the head of department didn't, she was right and we all thought that it was amazing. Reading it as an adult it did not come across as that marvellous and I was disappointed. Are there others?
 

Books I'll never read again

[Madeleine]

1984 is one, now of course I can see how prescient it was at the time I read it, early 80s, now of course it would probably seem dated as Orwell's ideas have moved on even further now!  But the main reason is that it bored all of us stiff and we nicknamed it 1980bore🙄

[Hayley]

That’s an interesting one! I don’t think there’s any book I’ve avoided reading again because I loved it, as the article suggests. I don’t re-read books that I enjoyed because they had some sort of mystery or shock twist - because I image it would majorly ruin the fun knowing the ending in advance, but other than that I think I would re-read anything! 
 

7 hours ago, Madeleine said:

we nicknamed it 1980bore

I loved 1984 and I only recently realised that nearly everyone on this forum hates it 🥲😂

[poppy]

I think it can sometimes be a mistake to reread books that have made a big impact on you when young. 

I loved A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle and A Traveller In Time by Alison Uttley as a child. Memories of the latter particularly evoked feelings of otherworldliness and even associated smells.

Although I enjoyed both as an adult, they certainly didn't make me feel the same way, and I was disappointed. I don't think it will put me off rereads though.

One book I'll never read again that I found horrifying at school is Lord of the Flies. I'll be giving 1984 a miss too 😁

[lunababymoonchild]

I won't read Of Mice and Men ever again because it horrified me as a child but that's understandable. I haven't read another book - that I recall - that I read as a child and re-read as an adult that I was disappointed in.
 

I did read Alice in Wonderland as an adult and was disappointed in that but I didn't read it as a child (I knew the poetry because I have a book with just the poetry in it).

Edited August 26, 2023 by lunababymoonchild

[Madeleine]

We studied Lord of the Flies at school, I agree it's pretty strong for teenagers, though maybe nowadays it might not have such an impact on more worldly youngsters.  I wonder if it comes with "trigger warnings" now.

[KEV67]

On 8/25/2023 at 1:34 PM, Madeleine said:

1984 is one, now of course I can see how prescient it was at the time I read it, early 80s, now of course it would probably seem dated as Orwell's ideas have moved on even further now!  But the main reason is that it bored all of us stiff and we nicknamed it 1980bore🙄

I started reading 1984 as a 15 or 16-year-old. We had read Animal Farm in class. I got about three-quarters through and I could not see how Winston Smith could win. There were not enough pages for him to escape and lead the counter-revolution. I should have read Fahrenheit 451 instead. When I was about 40 I read it again and I thought it was genius. By then I had read most of his other fiction, non-fiction and essays.

[KEV67]

I am not sure I would read Watership Down again. It was one of my favourite books as a boy and aspects of it are great. For instance the rabbits' religion. The ending is one of the best I have ever read. I tried reading it once as an adult and it suddenly seemed very dated. It was as if all the characters were voiced by actors in a British WW2 film. I image John Mills would play Hazel. Trevor Howard would be there, maybe he would be Bigwig. The does would speak like Miss Moneypenny. I am no male feminist or white knight but it suddenly seemed embarrassingly sexist. It was not an entire surprise when I learned Richard Adams had been a soldier during WW2.

[France]

10 hours ago, poppy said:

One book I'll never read again that I found horrifying at school is Lord of the Flies. I'll be giving 1984 a miss too 😁

I agree with you totally about Lord of the Flies. It's the only book which was proposed for one of my book groups (the one that had quite a few challenging books) that several members said flatly that they not only refused to read it again but wouldn't come to the meeting either as they didn't even want to hear it discussed.

 

[France]

I wouldn't read War and Peace again and not because it's so long! I read it when I should have been revising for my mock O levels and was completely blown away by it, Natasha was the first heroine I really fell in love with, I'm still indignant about Tolstoy turning her into a nappy obsessed wifie at the end which shows how little he knew about women! I'd be afraid it wouldn't have that impact (and I couldn't hack the Masonic stuff again).

 

Likewise I wouldn't re-read Margaret Irwin's novels again which kept me entirely enthralled for 3 weeks in hospital in Galway when I was 14. My mother would bring me a new one every day and I fell totally romantically in love with Prince Rupert and The marquis of Montrose and learnt a lot about the Civil War well. I have a horrid feeling I might find them overblown these days.

[lunababymoonchild]

There are just some things that should be left in the past. 

[poppy]

10 hours ago, France said:

I agree with you totally about Lord of the Flies. It's the only book which was proposed for one of my book groups (the one that had quite a few challenging books) that several members said flatly that they not only refused to read it again but wouldn't come to the meeting either as they didn't even want to hear it discussed.

 

 

I understand the themes it's exploring but I've always found bullying and cruelty very distressing and this book has it in abundance. 

 

7 hours ago, lunababymoonchild said:

There are just some things that should be left in the past. 

 

On the other hand, there are books I didn't read when young that I really wish I had, because I love them so much. The Wind In the Willows and Anne of Green Gables are a couple I can think of.  It would have been interesting to compare my reaction then and now.