What's Your Dirty Little Reading Secret?

Natalie composed a very interesting list while avoiding grading. I'm avoiding grading by posting it here. I'm not sure I can come up with 10, though three of them are certainly located to your right on my Goodreads queue. Anybody else care to confess? 

Ten Dirty Little Secrets: Reading

I’m supposed to be grading papers. Instead I was perusing the internets and came across this little list: The Book Lady’s Blog: What are Your Dirty Little Reading Secrets. Of course I had to make my own list.

I’ve never read Moby Dick. While this may result in a big “who cares” from anyone who doesn’t know my credentials, start poking around and find out that I have a PhD in English and specialize in American Lit and “ooooooooh.” Meanwhile, I don’t quite care and think I may never read the novel.

I confuse William Gaddis and William Gibson. And haven’t read either.

I’ll put a book down if it’s not interesting and leave it for a long time. Like years. I have little to no guilt about this although I will keep the unfinished books separate from the books I have read in their entirety.

I HATE long chapters. I also hate incredibly short chapters. I want a chapter to be 20-50 pages long. And I want it clearly marked so I have a stopping point.

I’ve never read any of the Harry Potter books. I have seen all of the movies. I’m just not that into YA fiction. Sorry.

I love J.D. Salinger but am nonplussed about Catcher in the Rye. I read all of his work—seriously ALL of it—before Catcher and only got around to Catcher when I was in my mid-twenties. I didn’t share the same angst so I didn’t really connect to the book. Related: I named one of my girl cats Zooey. And I totally rock an original cover art Catcher t-shirt like a hipster.

I cannot read Cormac McCarthy. I’ve tried several times but his words are my Kryptonite.

I will read a book out of spite to prove a point. I read The 351 Books of Irma Arcuri just to count the sex acts because it was said the book had “just enough” blow jobs. I read A Visit from the Goon Squad just so I could argue that the Pulitzer was not deserved and know what I was talking about.

I avoid books with a lot of hype. It took the movie coming out for me to read The Hunger Games (see also: I don’t really read a lot of YA). I’ll also put off reading books that anyone suggests because he/she L.O.V.E.S. it. Who wants to read someone’s life-long favorite book and come back with “eh.”

I have a bookcase full of books I intend to read. This little hoarder tendency started when I was writing the dissertation and wanted desperately to read something other than what I had to write about. I had no time to read other things but I had time to browse the hard cover section.