Book List of Shame

Titles I Never Finished Reading

I believe in the general theory that one should finish what one starts. However in my real, practical life, that’s a different story, as evidenced by a plethora of uncompleted crafting projects, poems started and never seen through to their final form, and books began but never finished. Today I shall provide you with a glimpse into some of these of unfinished titles, as well my justifications for putting them down early:

Being Mortal by Atul Gawande, MD

This is a wise, gripping, and far-reaching book about modern society’s relationship with aging and death, and the very real consequences that stem from our refusal to accept the natural process of both. These are extremely complex issues made even more so by the persistent and overreaching medicalization of aging and how it robs the elderly of basic human dignity and choice. I’m sure that by the end, Gawande takes an optimistic turn and offers some solutions to all of this, but I only got about halfway through the book before I became so existentially sad I couldn’t finish reading it. Maybe I’ll get the gumption to pick it up again in the future, but it won’t be anytime soon.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

I complained about this book in a previous post, but at the time, I thought I could get past the atrocious degeneracy of its characters because the writing was so beautiful. It turns out I can’t. The beautiful language just isn’t enough to carry me through this one. I don’t care about any of the characters, and contrary to popular opinion, I don’t think that Daisy is some tragic pre-feminist figure. I think she’s a brat. I’ve never been able to figure how this book became such a literary darling, until a bit of shallow research informed me that it was an initial failure. Years after it came out, The Council on Books in Wartime distributed free copies en mass to soldiers serving overseas during World War 2, thus exploding its popularity.

This Book Someone Sent Me Which I Can’t Remember the Title of

My apologies; despite my absolute best efforts and all of the Googling in the world, I cannot find nor remember the title of this book at the time of getting this post up. It was mailed to me at my home address and I brought it to work and starting reading it, but it was all too much and too loud. Then it dawned on me that I was struggling with the writing style because it was written by a composer, who writes as though he is conducing a symphony. It’s not a self-help book exactly, more of a business philosophy book or a “different way of thinking about conventional models” book. It’s very didactic and has a lesson at the end of each chapter, and it’s all a bit overbearing. The author doesn’t want you skimming through it, either. He expects a commitment. It will probably sit on my work bookshelf unopened until I retire.

1984 by George Orwell

I got halfway through this one before I realized I don’t need to read this book. I’m living it.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

I am chronically worried about the architects, and I do really want to finish this darn book for once and for all since I find the story captivating, but it’s a huge mental commitment, and I am probably going to have to take the “few bits at at time” approach to this one. One way or another, I intend to finish it one day.

Investing for Dummies

I bought this book some years ago when I was trying to up my financial literacy and maybe make a tidy profit on the stock market with some clever stock picks, but for all its wisdom, I never got past the first few chapters and have come to accept that being a Wall Street tycoon is not in the cards for me.

So there you have it, my book list of shame, which is by no means complete. On this Labor Day, I shan’t be laboring to finish anything but some fetch quests in my latest farming sim. I hope you have a day of rest today if you are so blessed.

--Kristen McHenry