# Books you wanted to like

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-wanted-to-like/988211>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** books-writing-myths\
**Created:** [August 7, 2023, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-wanted-to-like/988211 "2023-08-07T20:43:56Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 5

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**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-wanted-to-like/988211/81 "2023-08-10T20:41:21Z")

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> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#):
>
> I had heard much and many great things about _Infinite Jest_ and _A Confederacy of Dunces_, but neither appealed to me at all. I stopped reading about a quarter of the way

I’m coming up on a quarter of the way into _A Confederacy of Dunces_, mostly because I got tired of smart literate friends being astounded that I hadn’t read it.

So far, it’s amusing, but I don’t see what the big deal is… I’ll hang in there a while more, though.

(Anyone here who thinks that it’ll get better? Or who thinks that if it hasn’t grabbed me by now it never will? )

.

I felt the same about _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, and put it aside for a decade. Finished high school, went through college and major changes to my world-view, then my first job…  
Found it in a box of forgotten books, opened it to my old bookmark, annnnd… FOUR PAGES after I’d given up, the identity of Phaedrus is revealed, which meant it made much more sense, and I devoured the rest, and eventually became a teacher.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\
**Post date:** [August 10, 2023, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-wanted-to-like/988211/82 "2023-08-10T20:49:52Z")

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> [@digs](#):
>
> I felt the same about _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_, and put it aside for a decade. Finished high school, went through college and major changes to my world-view, then my first job…  
> Found it in a box of forgotten books, opened it to my old bookmark, annnnd… FOUR PAGES after I’d given up, the identity of Phaedrus is revealed, which meant it made much more sense, and I devoured the rest, and eventually became a teacher.

Yeah, I devoured _Zen_ in college, read it two or three times. But I was a lot easier to convince I should read the whole book back a half-century ago.

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