Which book are you proud that you read and finished?

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Anirudh Badri
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Which book are you proud that you read and finished?

Post by Anirudh Badri »

There are many books that seem challenging and are hard to read. Which of those books have you actually finished and are proud of yourself for?

For me, it is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I am currently trying to read Ulysses by James Joyce, which would also be a huge milestone for me.
It is what you read when you don’t have to that determines what you will be when you can’t help it.

–Oscar Wilde
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Mallory Whitaker
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Post by Mallory Whitaker »

Ulysses would be quite the accomplishment. I wish you the best of luck with that! I read, The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, by James Joyce and that was hard enough to get through. The hardest books I've read, and am proud to have gotten through, are probably Heart of Darkness and The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad. I find him incredibly difficult to read.
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Post by Jolyon Trevelyan »

I can`t say i have ever felt proud finishing a book.
A mistake is simply another way of doing things
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Post by Helga_ »

Two books come to mind right away: The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Native Son.
"Difficult and challenging", not because I couldn't understand the content. Both of the books are intense reads because it's about the painful history, which is still repeating itself today...I've learned a lot, and done a lot of thinking and researching while and after reading them.


@T/S: Good luck! I'm reading a book about book-loving by a famous book lover (haha) He talked about when he made it a goal to finish Ulysses.
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Post by Atabon Della »

The first book I had to review was not the best. It was pretty difficult for me to read it through but I'm glad i did. The book is Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch.
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Post by AliceofX »

If a book is hard to read then honestly I don't bother. Life is too short to waste with books that are a struggle to get through. That's always been my philosophy, but one book that was hard to read (because of the difficult subject matter) that I did finish was The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. At times it was a struggle, and I certainly can't remember ever feeling this depressed from a book, but it was nevertheless a very rewarding experience reading the book.
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Post by KiMB00P »

I don't read challenging books either. A book that I really like will get read in a few days, but one that is hard and can't hold my attention will take a couple of months before I realize I am getting nowhere.
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Post by Bluecobia »

I would say my organic chemistry text in college was the hardest book I have read.
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Post by jenjayfromSA »

Classics like Mill on the Floss for university courses were hard, but I had to finish them. The toughest was the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I don't know why I felt I had to read it, but I did. It took about three months on and off. I confess I have never dared to try Ulysses. I waded grimly through Portrait of an Artist and I've managed to avoid Tolstoy. I think I would sink.
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Post by Elle Howard »

The Lord of the Rings series by J. R. R. Tolkien. So worth the effort but it took me forever to finish all of them.
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Post by Mary Garrison »

Definitely the Bible, but next hardest to me was Frankenstein. I had to read it for college and I kept having to reread pages because they did not keep my attention. I felt like I was losing the words in my head faster than I was reading them.
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Post by Insightsintobooks729 »

I was proud I finished Moby Dick, it took me awhile but I did.
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Post by SPasciuti »

I think I'm most proud that I read The Count of Monte Cristo. It's an amazing story and the writing is fantastic, but goodness is it long. It took me a month of straight reading to get through the unabridged version.
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Post by jaylperry »

I think I was most proud of finally getting done with Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. The book was emotionally exhausting, but it felt important for me to read it to completion.
“A book, too, can be a star, ‘explosive material, capable of stirring up fresh life endlessly,’ a living fire to lighten the darkness, leading out into the expanding universe.”
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Post by BookishCreature »

I also struggled with Moby Dick, even though I was listening to the audiobook. Sometimes it felt more like a whaling textbook than a story.
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