It's almost impossible for me to readtwo books at once -- I feel that I must be through with the one book before I start the other. But I read fast, so that's me.

I remember (and I think I said this a couple of months ago) being in one of my first lit classes in college, and thinking "Oh, my god -- how do people think like this? I'll never be able to see all of these things!" when I was first introduced to really in-depth analysis of a story. And I can do this, after 2 degrees in English, and like JZ, I dearly love sitting around with a bunch of people who have read a book and getting into a passionate debate about what we have read. (And I'm back in school for my MA in Education, and I have to admit I was looking forward to these kinds of discussions/debates again, and I am sad to say that I haven't really found that in any of my classes.)

I also have taken several literary crit. classes, and found them interesting, but I took them all with a grain of salt. I believe that being able to analyze a book is a useful skill to have, and it certainly provides me, I think, with the ability to translate that logical analysis to other topics...but I don't think it's necessary for all people to approach things that way. And it doesn't translate to other topics. For instance, I am never in the music thread becasue music, while it's enjoyable and fun, isn't anything that I am passionate about. I like hearing it, I like singing, I like playing with other people's guitars and drum...but no passion.

However, while I can, have and will read books that are either canon, or are regarded as "important" just to see what the fuss is all about (and to see whether I agree or disgagree), first and foremost, I read for pleasure. The pleasure of the language, the pleasure of the story...and sometimes, most times, there is the pleaure of learning -- either learning new things, or finding inferences or images or clever plotting. Mostly, I'm read for something that make me go "Oh!"

Now...

I don't like Madame B., either. I haven't read any Dickens, beyond "Carol." I can't get into Joyce. I dislike some of Duras, but I loved "The Lover." I like Wharton, because I'm fasinated by social mores. I hate Hemingway with a passion, although I can recognize why his style was influential and modern. Shakespeare is fun -- I love Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra the best. I pretty much dig all medieval canon. Fun! Reading Byron makes me want to go back in time and slap him, but reading Blake makes me want to go back and get high and listen to him talk.

Maybe lots of people lurk here?

I'm subscribed to this thread, but I usually have very little to add to ongoing discussions on books I've never read or even heard of. I have taken a few books out of the library after hearing their virtues extolled here.

I lurk mostly, due in large part to rarely being caught up in time to participate in discussions about the books I actually recognize, and in small part to, well, the causes of the kerfuffle. The thread is usually a great recc'ing resource, but NSM a talky one, usually.

Has anyone else who is used to multi-booking had that happen to them? Which books?

Yup, and Ulysses. Which I made it about a hundred pages into and was loving dearly despite the fact that it was really making me work for that love, and then I started multibooking with something smaller and less taxing, and then life intervened, and three weeks passed before I picked it up and dove back in, and I couldn't pick up the threads of it AT ALL. I want to read the whole thing, but I've been thwarted ever since by the lack of a large solid block of time without other books or jobcrap to pull me away. Had I been more on the ball, I'd've taken it along on the honeymoon. Now I'm not sure when I'll get back to it. Frustrating.

Also, Tristram Shandy, of which I've only read the first 11 books. I've read those two or three times, though, and I dearly love the grave, stately absurdity of every single line of it, but it's just absurd enough and just old enough that it requires concentrated attention, and both times that I read it some unfortunate event in the world outside the book pulled me away from the tail end of Book 11 just long enough to make me lose my footing in it. That's due for a retry as well.

After that, Doctor Zhivago. Again.

I remember (and I think I said this a couple of months ago) being in one of my first lit classes in college, and thinking "Oh, my god -- how do people think like this?

See, in a thread such as this, I am frequently painfully aware that I have no English Lit studies to my name. But I've always found, the more ways I have of approaching a work, the greater and deeper my potential enjoyment thereof. It can make the difference between being entertained and being overwhelmed.

Of course, I feel much the same way about evolutionary theory.

with the discussion, I thought some people may find this Great Books list and site interesting. It has links to other sites in the left column, including "The Great Books Foundation, whose goal is 'to build communities of readers who explore important ideas through enduring literature.'"

this must smaller list is basically my experience with canon.

But I've always found, the more ways I have of approaching a work, the greater and deeper my potential enjoyment thereof. It can make the difference between being entertained and being overwhelmed

Oh, yes. And I can't tell you how many books I read while in high school or college I have read later in life, and the difference of opinion I have is so much different -- not necessarily because I took lit or crit classes, but because I have lived and looked at people and situations, and been adjusting my knowledge and opinions about things.

I would be the first person to say that what formal training you or may not have receieved concerning books matters not a whit on how much you enjoy them. It may impact HOW you enjoy them, but not the degree of pleasure you receive.

IMO, arguing about the ways to enjoy a book is as pointless as arguing about what sexual position you prefer. Dude, it's still sex! It depends on how well you get off, not how you do it.

I am a big book ho. All Hail Literary Hedonism!

Also, Tristram Shandy, of which I've only read the first 11 books.

I've always wanted to read that. It looked so inventively clever and self-referentially hilarious for a book that old.

Lyra, I need direction for a recommendation. Kazuo Ishiguro's Remains of the Day and anything by Lorrie Moore are my knee-jerk recs.

I WORSHIP Lorrie Moore. Tried Remains of the Day in high school and didn't like it, but maybe I would now.

I'm drawing a blank on describing what I want to read, except "fiction" and "not too boring." I like Charlotte Bronte, Haruki Murakami, Barbara Gowdy and Shirley Jackson, if that helps at all.

I can't believe people have been talking Dickens and no one mentioned "David Copperfield." It's got a sweeping story, a great portrait of a marriage which is still wrong, even though both parties truly love each other, and Mr. Micawber! It's also the most autobiographical of Dickens' books.

I don't have aproblem with mawkish, weak, overly noble, sentimental protagonists in older books. Sure, I see that they would be simps if they were around now, but they're NOT. If they're well-written, I don't mind them following outdated, even painful, social mores. I like trying to wrap my mind around world views so radically different than my own--it's my form of time travel. The very core values of Victorian or Jacobean or Elizabethan or Russian society are not my values and books give me a glimpse into that world. I often feel deeply grateful I didn't live back then, but glad for the insight.

I usually have two or three books going, plus the poetry books in the bathroom. When I'm multi-booking, it's usually a non-fiction or two, a new fiction, and maybe an old "comfort book," either fiction or non.

Right now I'm reading a book on the Canadian maritimes, a Tanya Huff vampire mystery (old comfort book), and I'm between new fics. I have a couple new fiction works from the library that I'll probably start this weekend. The bathroom poetry is a collection of Walt Whitman's stuff at the moment. "Song of Myself" sure does go on. I see what the fuss is about, but the last two poetry books were sonnet collections. Still, I'm looking forward to "Out of the Cradle, Endlessly Rocking," which is one of my favorites.

Occasionally I'll stumble on one of those books I just can't put down, and the multi-booking gets sidelined for a while. The Lovely Bones was like that.