Recommended reading for a very picky reader?

[zoebartlett]

I began a thread a while back about encouraging my husband to read. I''m happy to report that he now considers himself a reader.

He''s now read The Diary of Anne Frank and The Jungle, and he''s currently reading Uncle Tom''s Cabin. I''m so happy about this because I grew up reading (everyone in my family is an avid reader), and I couldn''t understand how he hated to read so much.

When we went to the library to look for books, I took him to the required reading section for young adults/high schoolers. I think we scored!

So, all of this is great, but I''m not sure what else to suggest. He would much rather watch a movie that was based on a book instead of reading the book itself. Because of that, he has no interest in To Kill a Mockingbird, for example. He saw the movie. There are several other examples of this.

He''s mentioned that he''s only interested in reading "significant" books. He''s not into biographies or fiction. In his words, "what''s the point?"

He''s said that he wants to read books that he KNOWS are good. For some reason, he feels that it''s a waste of time to begin to read something but then end up not liking it. Honestly, I don''t follow his logic.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I''ll do a Google search for high school reading lists, but I thought I''d ask here, too.

 

[AGBF]

Date: 3/25/2010 6:01:00 PM
Author:ZoeBartlett

He's mentioned that he's only interested in reading 'significant' books. He's not into biographies or fiction. In his words, 'what's the point?' He's said that he wants to read books that he KNOWS are good. For some reason, he feels that it's a waste of time to begin to read something but then end up not liking it. Honestly, I don't follow his logic.

Does anyone have any recommendations? I'll do a Google search for high school reading lists, but I thought I'd ask here, too.

Zoe, he reminds me a lot of my daughter, not in his exact list of requirements, but in his having such a specific set of them. I will say at the offset that I probably cannot help, because I have been of very little help to my daughter! She likes biography and stories about real life events ( like a fever epidemic) if she must read for school, but reading is generally a chore. Lately she read some trashy sex books and now is reading some teenage books for fun. These are positive steps. In the old days when I used to try to help her find books for school, I looked for interesting biographies and real life books for her.

I will see if I can think of some "important" books that have not been made into movies! The problem is that the more important the book, the more likely it is to have been made into a film!

Is there a topic that interests him, like volcanoes or sports or sailing? If there were something we knew that he enjoyed doing, we might be able to find some literature about the topic! I remember that my brother (then a non-reader) read Ball Four by some baseball player when he was little. (Now he reads lots of stuff.)

Tell me more about your husband. I like a challenge!

PS-You could see if your husband wants to read An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 by Jim Murphy, the book my daughter liked, while we're looking for other books .


Deb/AGBF

 

[Haven]

Hi, Zoe!

My husband is so similar to yours. We now read together every night for about an hour before we go to sleep, but it''s taken six years to get here, and it''s always a chore to find a new book once he''s finished his last book.

I second Deb''s request for more information about your DH. What does he like to do? What is he interested in? Are there any social injustices that really bother him? My husband just picked up his first novel, and up until now he would only read nonfiction that specifically addressed issues about which he is very passionate. (Proper dog training, research books about health and diet, etc.)

I think it''s so cool that you''re getting your DH to read. I gave my husband a copy of Animal Farm and he flat out refused to read it. I refuse to read To Kill a Mockingbird, though, so I can respect his decision.

 

[zoebartlett]

Thanks so much for your suggestions Deb and Haven! I''ll warn you -- he''s not a man with a ton of hobbies, so I may be grasping at straws in my description of what he likes.

My husband likes to travel, although we haven''t done it as much as we''d love to. He''s not the most experienced traveler but he loves to check out new areas. He also loves to play XBox, specifically NHL hockey. This isn''t much help, but it''s something he loves to do. He loves watching Emeril Lagasse and Alton Brown on the Food Network.

He''s a database developer, and he will be taking a course in SQL Server. He does have an SQL book that he''s using to brush up on his skills, but this isn''t exactly fun reading before bed, you know?

For a while, he was really into fitness and the science of nutrition. He developed a nutrition database for cardiologists and hospital nutritionists to use when he was employed at our former local hospital. He''s since uh, fell off the wagon so to speak, but this is something he is very proud of accomplishing professionally.

Let''s see, he''s interested in learning new things. For a while he actually carried around Asimov''s Brief History of the World in his car. I might have mentioned that before.

We really like Ken Burns'' documentaries, and we just finished watching his series, "The West." I could try to steer him towards books about westward expansion, the treatment of Native Americans, etc., but I''m not sure if he''d like to actually read these things.

I''ll give it more thought and get back to you. Thank you again!

 

[zoebartlett]

The funny thing is that even though I''ve always loved to read, I tend to stick to pretty fluffy, light reads (some lighter/fluffier than others): Meg Cabot, Sophie Kinsella, Elizabeth Berg, Anita Shreve, Jodi Picoult, Janet Evanovich, Lisa Scottoline, John Grisham, Cynthia Voight''s YA books, and occasionally Nicholas Sparks, to name a few. So I''m "the reader" in our little family of two and I choose many mindless books, I guess you could say. My husband, the guy once known as "the non-reader" is the one who chooses heavy, deep books. Go figure.

 

[zoebartlett]

I''m talking to my husband as I type, so this is in his words:

"I like historical and cultural significant books. I want to find a list of 100 books that people must read in their lifetime. I don’t read purely for the enjoyment of reading. I read because I want to learn things about different subject matters.”

 

[AGBF]

Date: 3/26/2010 7:03:55 PM
Author: ZoeBartlett

I'm talking to my husband as I type, so this is in his words:

'I like historical and cultural significant books. I want to find a list of 100 books that people must read in their lifetime. I don’t read purely for the enjoyment of reading. I read because I want to learn things about different subject matters.”

Zoe,

My husband has an undergraduate (Laurea) degree in classics from the Universita di Genova in Italy and a masters degree in Greek and Latin Classics from Harvard. With his background in philosophy (he relaxes with books by Nietzsche and Spinoza and reads stories by Kaftka to our daughter) he is uniquely qualified to compile such a list. If your husband wants to read the 100 greatest books ever written, I am sure my husband would assemble a list for your husband . I can tell him right now that The Odyssey by Homer will be on the list. He can take a copy out of the library or buy one at at the book store if he prefers .

Deb

 

[Haven]

Deb--I''d be very interested in seeing your husband''s list.

I also wonder what he thinks of Mortimer Adler''s Great Books list--does he disagree with any of the choices?

And, if I may ask one more question: What if he could only put ten books on the list? What would those ten books be?

 

[zoebartlett]

A list would be great, if it''s not too much trouble -- thanks!

 

[AGBF]

Date: 3/28/2010 11:02:09 AM
Author: ZoeBartlett

A list would be great, if it's not too much trouble -- thanks!

A list would be highly presumptuous! I was kidding, of course!

Deb/AGBF

 

[AGBF]

Date: 3/27/2010 12:37:58 PM
Author: Haven

Deb--I'd be very interested in seeing your husband's list.

I also wonder what he thinks of Mortimer Adler's Great Books list--does he disagree with any of the choices?

And, if I may ask one more question: What if he could only put ten books on the list? What would those ten books be?

I do not know what my husband's choices would be, offhand, Haven . It was our anniversay last week and I was hoping to get down to Virginia for it, but that was not to be . The next time we are together maybe we can discuss books! Right now he is doing the taxes .

Deb

 

[Liane]

Jared Diamond''s Guns, Germs and Steel. Critically acclaimed, extremely well-written, informative and enlightening. It is neither fiction nor biography, and it is undeniably "significant" (pretty much any way you define that term, it qualifies), so it seems to fit the criteria listed here.

Oh, and there''s no movie adaptation to spoil it.

 

[dragonfly411]

You could gather a list of Prize winners for him!

But some of my recommendations would be:

Sula
Beloved
The Heart of Darkness
Roots (I''m reading this and it is AMAZING)
Les Miserables
Don Quixote
War and Peace
Tom Sawer
Huckleberry Finn
The Bridge to Terabithia
The Sign of the Beaver
100 Years of Solitude
Love in the Time of Cholera
Living to Tell the Tale ( a bio, but Garcia Marquez is brilliant so)
The Vampire Lestat
Moby Dick
The Black Stallion
She''s Come Undone
Alice in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
Wives and Daughters
Jo''s Boys
Great Expectations


This list could go on forever. Make him a list of the greatest classics, and make him a list of prize winners, and a list of monumental books

Diary of a slave girl
Kaffir boy

Things like that.
He might also like non biographical history books?

 

[monarch64]

Date: 3/26/2010 5:13:27 PM
Author: ZoeBartlett
Thanks so much for your suggestions Deb and Haven! I''ll warn you -- he''s not a man with a ton of hobbies, so I may be grasping at straws in my description of what he likes.

My husband likes to travel, although we haven''t done it as much as we''d love to. He''s not the most experienced traveler but he loves to check out new areas. He also loves to play XBox, specifically NHL hockey. This isn''t much help, but it''s something he loves to do. He loves watching Emeril Lagasse and Alton Brown on the Food Network.

He''s a database developer, and he will be taking a course in SQL Server. He does have an SQL book that he''s using to brush up on his skills, but this isn''t exactly fun reading before bed, you know?

For a while, he was really into fitness and the science of nutrition. He developed a nutrition database for cardiologists and hospital nutritionists to use when he was employed at our former local hospital. He''s since uh, fell off the wagon so to speak, but this is something he is very proud of accomplishing professionally.

Let''s see, he''s interested in learning new things. For a while he actually carried around Asimov''s Brief History of the World in his car. I might have mentioned that before.

We really like Ken Burns'' documentaries, and we just finished watching his series, ''The West.'' I could try to steer him towards books about westward expansion, the treatment of Native Americans, etc., but I''m not sure if he''d like to actually read these things.

I''ll give it more thought and get back to you. Thank you again!

I just saw this thread and that comment, Zoe. I have no idea whether he will take to something like these or not, but James Alexander Thom is a fantastic author of epic historic fiction based on fact. I''ve read nearly all of his books and while they are not non-fiction and therefore maybe not as valuable to your husband as far as his 100 must-reads, they are immensely appealing in every other way. Think about the movies Legends of the Fall and Last of the Mohicans...things like that.

http://www.jamesalexanderthom.com/

 

[zoebartlett]

Thank you, thank you, thank you everyone!! I really appreciate all of your suggestions. I''ll have to show them to my husband later tonight.

 

[AGBF]

Zoe,

I was thinking about this topic while I was off-line the other day. I realized that I would really not trust anyone who thought that he had the ability to make the definitive list of 100 (or 10) most important books that one should read. If he made such a list and had not read all the books on the list, it would certainly reflect poorly on him. After all, what use had he been putting to his time if he could not even spend it reading the most important books that everyone should read?

On the other hand, if he felt that he had already read all the most important books in the world, it would be a show of enormous arrogance and hubris. For who can know what is inside the books (and minds) of authors whom he has not yet read?

I think that it is wise to take suggestions on great books, but never to stop reading!

I did think of one book that I feel is a very important one for understanding the world: Civilization and Its Discontents by Sigmund Freud. I may try to compile my own list as some other readers have done, but it would probably only be a list of "favorites", not of great books. The aforementioned book by Freud is, in my opinion, a great book.

Hugs,
Deb

 

[Brown.Eyed.Girl]

Hmm, if he has an interest in computer science (since he''s a database developer) and wants a non-fiction book, he should try Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter. I read it a few years ago in my intro comp sci class and it''s really interesting, and very well written too.

 

[elrohwen]

Zoe, I recommended these in your last thread, but I wanted to throw them out there again. Try out Richard Preston''s books "Monster of Florence", "Dinosaurs in the Attic", and "Wild Trees". They''re all non-fiction and extremely interesting (first is about a serial killer, second about the creation of the Natural History Museum, and the third about redwood trees). I feel like they''re great "guy books" because guys tend to like learning about new things. DH and I still talk about some of the things we''ve learned from those books. They''re not dry though, and read more like non-fiction.

If he''s interested in "important" books I can probably give you some recommendations as I read a lot of classic literature. I would try some W Somerset Maugham, specifically "Of Human Bondage". Also some American authors like Salinger and Steinbeck might interest him. I can recommend some Dickens as well, but I''m not sure if that would be too difficult for someone who''s not a big reader. They definitely require some concentration.

 

[zoebartlett]

Thanks so much Deb, BEG, and El! I appreciate your suggestions. I''m writing them down and I''ll give them to my husband once he''s finished with his current book. He''s reading Uncle Tom''s Cabin and he really likes it.

 

[dawnabee]

Zoe--It''s hard to pick a type for a person they usually come to it on their own, but it looks like you guys are off to a great start with it! keep it going

I know the favorite book of many guys when I was in high school was The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Another one is Catch 22 by Joseph Heller which was made into a movie though I think but if he hasn''t seen it then he might like it. Also you can try Tale of Two Cities or Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens since he is enjoying Uncle Toms Cabin he should like those

Happy Reading