Reading is allegedly entertaining but I procrastinate reading novels because there are so many boring as fuck novels...

Not just the internet but people in real life.

Who. Cares.

Just read things that sre interesting to you and that you enjoy. Almost no one starts to cultivate their taste in books by jumping into fucking Plato and Dostoevsky. Even Dickens isn't necessarily the most accesible entry point for someone that has just now decided to start reading. Just read things you like dude Jesus.

Maybe try to stop classifying literature as either good or bad, and try to understand the things you read as markers of the development of human thought.

People aren't recommending you Karamazov and Republic because they'll keep you reading on baited breath. They're recommending those books to you because that's how you learn the history of literature. If you're not interested in that, settle down with some Steven King and Kurt Vonnegut. You don't have to read anything you don't like.

Agree with you 100% on Tale of two Cities. It has taken me a month just to get through the first half. Now I still haven't finished it and I dont know if I still want to.

I'm not a complete book noob. I have read probably about 200 books (stopped counting after 100 so I have no idea). I have tastes. I find the writing in many sci-fi books to be bad. I have enjoyed books where nothing happens or that were simply rich normie problems.

In your post you even did the "you aren't smart enough to understand Dostoevsky or Dickens" shit. See what I mean? Pseuds like you are everywhere. You wouldn't care about these authors if they wrote today

I don't know how you managed to project that sentiment into my post but good luck or whatever dude.

drop a book if you don't want to read it. you're doing nobody any favors by slogging through and hating it. you're not going to suddenly like it and you're not going to get anything out of it

there's also nothing wrong with coming back to something later with a different mindset. i've never read a russian novel the whole way through. i have to digest that shit. it's not like i'll forget everything that happened a few months later.

I dropped Hamlet after barely reading half of it and felt like slamming my head on the wall out of boredom after every line of boring after boring dialogue (Macbeth was cool tho).
Just find books you like and read it.

>it is painful seeing people treat everything old as infallible genius. It's like all old books are covered in a pungent smell of other people's gooey pretension so you can never really avoid suffering when reading.

also why do you care so much for other's opinion?

Dickens used to be important but nobody in the 21st century really gives a fuck about him. Don't read Dickens. There, I just saved reading for you.

Did anybody actually tell you you have to read Great Expectations? I honestly didn't walk away from it with much more than the South Park spoof episode gave me. Not that Dickens is bad, GE is just entry-tier shit

95% of fiction is garbage. Non-fiction is where it's at. History is the greatest drama ever told, and even small things (as if they were in the realm of fiction) are weightier because all the characters are real. Also, the series doesn't end after 5 or 8 or 10 books. There are literally thousands of stories all woven together in a chronicle that becomes more compelling the more you read, the more you know, and thus the more you have to crossreference.

You can't get any more patrician than non-fiction.

Why are you making this thread again? Like I said before, stop giving a fuck about what "pseuds" think and just read what you like. If you get into a book and don't like it at all, stop reading it. If you like a book, keep reading it. What exactly are you trying to gain by reading what you don't like reading? What do you need the credit for?

An hour on my phone since I made this topic while lying in bed and i still can't bear to start reading it. I'm going to watch tennis and read tomorrow or at work (ironically reading GE at work will be the only work I'll do)

If you don't like a book within like fifty pages try a different one.

It's literally that easy OP.

I could tell I was going to really enjoy most of the books in my top ten or twenty within the first page.

>forcing yourself to read books you don't like
Literally the only reason to ever do this is if you're in a literature class or you're a gigantic fucking nerd.

So you like reading, but you don't like the classics. I would suggest that you stop reading the classics then, and continue reading sci fi or whatever you enjoy. You said you enjoyed The Republic so why not continue on with the Greeks? Read some plays or more dialogues.

just read what the fuck you want to read. dont listen to Veeky Forums

>watch tennis
Fuck off, weirdo.

>Forcing yourself to read books you don't like
I do this sometimes. It's weird when reading some books I find them tedious and awful, however when I complete them and later think back to them I have fond and sentimental feelings towards them. I appreciate them in retrospect. It's like remembering an ex, you remember the "good times" and disregard the stream of betrayals and deceit.

Reading isn't for you, try suicide.

Has dickens honestly had any influence on Literature other than inspiring 1,000 remakes of "A Christmas Carol"? The dudes entire lifes work was glorified poverty porn.

When will this "if I dont like it, no-one does, they're just pretending" meme die? Guess what faggot, people actually do like these books

For one, no-one belonging to this group of readers you don't like (but apparently want to infiltrate) actually sits down and reads the canon start to finish because some other pseud told them to, its just that eventually a refined literary taste will gravitate towards books that are considered "canon". These books have been hand-picked generation to generation, and for good reason. If they weren't worth shit and its all a meme like you claim, don't you think that would have been identified at some point in the centuries+ worth of exegesis performed on them? Also many of these books are completely different, if you don't like dickens, stop fucking reading dickens

If reading fundamentally bores you, accept that its simply something you aren't good at. I'm no cook, but rather than try and pass off that master chefs are full of shit, and that baked beans on bread is as good as anything, I assess my abilities and accept that cooking simply isn't among them.

>It's like some sort of epiphany where I stop thinking dualism is viable.

What do you mean by this?