Anonymous asked:

Are there any book classics that you do not like or have not read? (We’are reading Moby Dick in high school and I don’t like it!)

Oh, there were SO MANY. 

Because as much as I loved reading, I did not always love reading what my teachers or our school system wanted me to read. 

(The infinite loathing I feel for COLD SASSY TREE is well-documented in the journals of fourteen-year-old me.)

But there were also quite a few gems in there. Like THE GREAT GATSBY, which was beautiful and sad and taught me that all the best books have gobs of sex and booze in them.

And the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Lord Byron, which also has a lot of sex and booze in it. 

(Byron, anyway. Dickinson, not so much. But what she lacked in sex and booze she made up for in death and headaches. So that’s something.)

Even Shakespeare, whose work I couldn’t fully appreciate until I was well into my twenties, was a worthy experience, because it taught me how important it is to not just write a story, but to perform it with words.

So OK, maybe MOBY DICK blows. Personally, I agree with you there. But you can learn something from it regardless.

Like, for instance, the importance of trying new things, even if they turn out to be not for you.