Hi people! 🙂
What is a single least favourite book, that you have finished reading anyways or was required to read?
My answer:
Hm, usually I don’t waste my time on reading books I don’t like and when I can’t get into it for a long time and it doesn’t look like I’m going to become interested in the plot line any time soon, or if something bothers me strongly, I just put it away. I find it a bit hilarious how some people wade through books they don’t like just because they’ve started something and have a sort of mental tradition that they must finish every book they have started no matter what. My Mum is like that, and I sometimes feel for her because I find it the worse when someone takes a long time to read one book like she does because she doesn’t have much time for reading, so instead of quickly starting something new and more interesting, she’s tormenting herself with one, boring book for months. I have to have a really sound reason and determination to read a book I don’t like, or have to feel very strongly forced, but, although I really enjoy reading books I like and read ALL the time, I even cheated with school compulsory readings quite frequently, because I didn’t like most of them. There certainly must be some books that I’ve read whole despite not enjoying them and not liking them at all, but currently I just can’t think of anything.
Oh, I was just going to publish this post when something did came to my mind, lol! That was the first (longer) book that I read whole despite not being interested in it one bit, and it was quite a hilarious and strange thing. When I was just starting school, I think I’d just learned to read fairly fluently and started to enjoy it thoroughly, I once went to the library to get brothers’ Grim Fairytales – my Mum read them to me countless times and made me love all sorts of fairytales and other folklore creations at a very early age as you may already know – because I finally wanted to read them myself and I was absolutely excited about it. I asked the librarian for it and was presented with an extremely, deliciously heavy book, and got back to my room and immediately started to read it. I was very surprised by its content, though, it wasn’t anything like what my Mum read to me. There was no Red Riding Hoods, Rapunzels and the like, but loads of strange, long words and names that were completely unfamiliar to me. I hadn’t read many actual books by then really, and was still learning to navigate them and the whole literary world, so I was thinking, perhaps it was some sort of an introduction, foreword… whatever, and kept on reading, there was no actual table of contents either as far as I remember and I was thinking maybe it was important to read it when reading the whole book, as it happens with some books. I actually don’t know why I kept on reading it so determinedly and diligently, it was completely unlike me, and why I didn’t realise that perhaps something was wrong with it that it’s so very off topic and didn’t notice anything, or at least try to skip the boring pages instead of reading it page after page, and I’ve read quite a fair bit of it I believe, even though I remember literally yawning at it and was growing more and more discouraged, so, I think it was quite silly. Even though I didn’t make the conclusion myself, which, as I said, I find weird a little, but maybe I was just too new to the literary world, someone finally helped me. A volunteer who was working in our boarding school group at the time once went up to me and asked what I was reading, and I told her that brothers Grimm, but it’s not really quite as interesting as I thought and doesn’t really remind me in any way of what my Mum used to read to me. She asked me if she could have a look, and then we were both surprised because the book I was reading was definitely no fairytales! I don’t know the English title of this book if it was translated to English, but it was by Vitus Dröscher and it was about animals, but not quite something that would be fitting for children of my age then. It was quite scientific and geeky and if I remember correctly, it was about some rules and behaviours that different animals have. And I was never an animal/nature geek very much, even when I read magazines for children and there was always a more or less extensive article on how different wild animals live, I usually was happy to skip it. So the mystery was finally resolved! 😀 They had to make a mistake at the library, probably based on the signature of the book or something. I really loved reading though, and it was what I usually did when I didn’t have anything more interesting to do or just in my free time, and I think I didn’t go with that book right away to the library but don’t remember why, perhaps it was the weekend, or perhaps I didn’t have an opportunity or anyone to go with me, or perhaps I was anxious of peopling with people I didn’t know very well, but I think I had that book with me for a while yet and am pretty sure that, even though it felt even more boring now that I knew what it was about and that there wasn’t going to be anything interesting further, I kept on reading it for a few more days when I had nothing better to do and wanted to read something. And since as I said I was a fairly fast reader, I think I may have read it whole, or if not whole, then at least the greater part of it. 😀
You? 🙂
My Inner MishMash 