The Top 5 Most Unreadable Books On My Bookshelf

I am a picky monster when it comes to the shows I watch, the music I listen to, and especially the books I read. This doesn’t mean that I have extremely high standards (Let’s be real, I’ve watched every single episode of The Biggest Loser, and I’ve read the entire Twilight saga twice), but I do have particular standards. Which, in a few ways, can be even more annoying.

What this means is that there is an awful lot of books that are sitting around my house unfinished. And, chances are, they never will be.  Because even though they are well written, many of them critically acclaimed, there is just something that makes them unreadable. Books like…

1. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

The American public has very strong opinions of Richard Dawkins, usually “That man is an affront to God, and I absolutely cannot stand him,” or “That man is an affront to God, and I absolutely worship the ground he walks on.” Since I am an atheist, it is generally assumed that my opinion aligns with the latter. This really isn’t the case. I’ll just say that he’s a highly intelligent and extremely eloquent man with some irritating flaws.

My opinion of The God Delusion is very similar to my opinion of its author. It’s a highly intelligent and extremely eloquent book with some irritating flaws (mainly his preaching to the choir). Ultimately, its flaws outweigh its charm, rendering me unable to get past the fourth chapter.

2. The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I honestly like the book. I love Tolkien. I love Middle-earth. Lord of the Rings changed my life.  The fact that I cannot, for the life of me, get through a complete reading of The Hobbit is one of the most ridiculous facts of my life.

I will not try to argue that The Hobbit is, in any way, a bad book. This is really just a matter of personal tastes. I don’t find any of the main characters to be relatable to me. I know that when one reads Tolkien you need to expect a lot of black and white morality, but it’s a little too heavy for my tastes. Mix that with the fact that it’s a tale for a younger audience, and you have a great book that cannot hold my interest in the slightest. I wonder how much my opinion would differ if I had tried to read this book when I was still a child.

3. The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama

Lazy blogger is lazy. I can take my very simplistic opinion of Richard Dawkins and easily apply it to Barack Obama. But in this case I find Obama’s flaws to be more irritating by a factor of ten. I will admit that my vote for him in the last election was a vote for the lesser evil. (I don’t think his victory came about from approval of his policies so much as disapproval of Mitt Romney’s douche-baggery.)

The first time I attempted a reading of The Audacity of Hope was in the middle of his first campaign for the presidency. I was fully swept up in the mania surrounding him, and soaked up the first few chapters with glee. But as the book wore on it became startlingly apparent that he was using a lot of nice words and phrases, but he wasn’t imparting anything wise or useful. I quickly got bored and discarded the book.

4. Any book ever written by Jane Austen

I am the least romantic person I know. I’d rather gouge out an eye then pay money to see a romcom. I will only read romance novels for the sex scenes. And I think Jane Austen novels are boring as hell.

Suck it.

5.  A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

The movie adaptation of A Clockwork Orange is probably on my top ten list of favorite movies ever. It’s creepy, compelling, and Malcolm McDowell was a total babe back in his day. (Like totes hawt, omg!) If you haven’t watched it yet, stop reading this and get yourself to the closest source of Netflix instant stream.  Scoot along now.

But we aren’t talking about the movie; we’re talking about the book. I’ve made it to about page two.  I found those two pages so ridiculously unreadable that I immediately returned it to my bookshelf to be a display piece.

What was so awful about it? To quote the first paragraph:

 “’What’s it going to be then, eh?’There was me, that is Alex, and my three droogs, that is Pete, Georgie, and Dim. Dim being really dim, and we sat in the Korova Milkbar making up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening, a flip dark chill winter bastard though dry. The Korova Milkbar was a milk-plus mesto, and you may, O my brothers, have forgotten what these mestos were like, things changing so skorry these days and everybody very quick to forget, newspapers not being read much neither.”
 

Wait, what? No. What? No.

One of my first requirements when picking out literature is that I need to be able to understand what the fuck you are talking about.

I’d go on (there are many, many more books I could talk about), but I’m getting bored and I have a sudden hankering to read some cheesy fantasy novel. Feel free mention which books you find unreadable in the comments below. Or just call me an idiot. Whichever. It’s your life.