Three Books I Simply Could Not Read

This year, in honor of - or mourning for, I haven't decided which yet - turning 50, I set a goal to read 50 books by the end of the year. Without really thinking it through, I announced that goal in Relief Society one day and heard an audible gasp from the sisters in the room. Then I heard someone say, "That's like a book a week!" And then I got a little nervous. But it has been a delightful journey, one I'm nearing the end of, and I've learned a few things. One of those things is that if a book is really bad, I don't have to finish it. I used to think I did, once I started a book I had to get through it. I thought I would share a few books that I simply could not finish reading. First - The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett

Actually I did finish this book, but it was the first book I read, so I hadn't learned my "you don't have to finish a bad book" lesson yet. I did not enjoy it and would never recommend it to anyone else. While the story is really good, the time period interesting, the descriptions of the building of cathedrals intriguing, I found the play by play depiction of the raping and pillaging too vivid for me. It was disturbing and left me feeling anxious and uneasy. I wish he had focused more on the story and less on describing every detail of a rape or torture.

Michelle warned me about Anna Karenina, but it is a classic and one of my self set guidelines was to read some of the classics. Not this one. It is a long book, and I made it about half way through, but the characters are boring, they each have about six different Russian names, so it's impossible to keep them straight, and the story is like reading every tiresome detail of someone's daily journal. The book opens with the affair of one of the characters and centers around the affair of two others. I found nothing uplifting in the 1/2 of the book I read. At this point, I don't think I'm going to try and finish it.


I had hoped this book would be similar to "Three Weeks With My Brother", by Nicholas Sparks, which I found delightful, but the little I read of Eat, Pray, Love just made me mad. The author, Elizabeth Gilbert is one of the most selfish people I have ever come across. That she could write a book about her self serving life and have people rave about it was amazing to me. The fact that I actually bought a copy of the book REALLY irks me. I don't know what I'm going to do with the copy I own, but I'm not going to waste my time finishing this book.
Later, when I finish my last few books, I think I'll highlight a few of my favorites. Meanwhile, I'm trying to follow Elder Oaks advice in his talk, "Good, Better, Best" when he said " . . it is good to view wholesome entertainment or to obtain interesting information. But not everything of that sort is worth the portion of our life we give to obtain it. Some things are better, and others are best. When the Lord told us to seek learning, He said, “Seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom”. My attempt is to find those that are best.