Top Ten Tuesday: Top Ten Most Intimidating Books

Top Ten Most Intimidating Books

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, focuses on the top ten most intimidating books, whether it is due to size, content, or the fact that everybody else loved it and you’re just not sure. Here are my top ten most intimidating books: 

• A Game of Thrones or basically just the entire A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin. Here’s why: first of all the length. They are so long. The first book in the series is 864 pages. The third one is 1177 pages. First of all, how on earth do you write a book that long??? It makes me nervous, because I can typically finish a book in a single sitting, maximum two days. And I know these ones are going to take me longer. In addition, I watch the HBO show so I know what’s going on and how brutal it is and how heart-wrenching the stories are. So mostly I’m just afraid to see which one of the characters that I love that Martin will kill off next.

• Anything by Stephen King. While his books sound interesting to me, something about him just scares me off. Maybe it’s the long length of most of his books or maybe it’s the fact that he is such a famous author that I’m terrified I won’t like any of his books and then the book world will disown me. Does anybody have any recommendations for Stephen King books that they loved?

• Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. This book is often credited with being one of the first ever dystopian novels. If you guys read my blog, I’m sure you can tell I’m a huge fan of dystopian, so you would think I would be dying to get my hands on this one. Sigh. But I just can’t bring myself to read it. Maybe it’s because it’s old and old books naturally intimidate me, but somehow I must bring myself to at least give it a chance.

• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I think what initially turned me off to this book was seeing the movie previews when the movie came out. It just didn’t look that interesting to me. And then it was so controversial. People passionately loved it or people vehemently hated it and the book itself sparked much debate. That being said, I’m not sure I’m ready to join said debate.

• War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. At 1392 pages, it’s one of the longest novels ever written. It’s a classic and while I don’t dislike classics, one of this length is just scary to me. I hate not finishing a book and will usually push myself through it no matter how much I’m hating it, so to commit to a book of this length for me is a huge deal.

• Les Misérables by Victor Hugo. Once again, intimidated by its size and its age. It’s not that I worry about the book being old, I don’t mind old books and I’ve read several that I love such as Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, but I guess I just worry that the language is going to be too much and I’m going to get bored with it if there’s no pulse pounding romance or action.

• Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. I tried reading this book once and did not get very far. I just couldn’t get into it and was bored out of my mind. But I really wanted to like it and would still like to read it at some point just because it is such a classic.

• Anything Shakespeare. I have read Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Julius Caesar and Macbeth. I struggled through every single one of them and probably only made it through them because they were required readings for school. While the stories are beautiful, intriguing and violent, by the time I figured what it was that I was actually reading, I had completely lost all patience. I’ve seen a couple different Shakespeare plays which I enjoyed, but picking one up and reading it is a bit much for me.

• Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy. I’ve read this book and also The Mayor of Casterbridge and I hated both of them. I did finish them (more of that required readings), but I struggled through them and can definitely see how they would be intimidating for people to pick up. They were for me and I definitely wouldn’t have read them if I had not been forced to.

• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I would love to read this book. It seems so romantic and wistful. But its sheer size scares me and my fear that I won’t be able to connect with it.

Those are my picks. Any of these on your list? Any you disagree with? Let me know in the comments below!