Reasons I'm Not as Well-Read as I Pretend to Be

Pilfered from Byzantium's Shores, here are five books I probably should have read and yet have not:

1) The Bible. I was baptized Catholic, but never received any kind of religious upbringing. While I've read from loads of sources that it's really a good book, and to be sure to be even mildly literate, or to understand any of the thousands of Biblical allusions much of literature is fairly teeming with, I should read it, but every bit I've ever heard just bores me to tears.

2) War and Peace. It's the go-to example of "big, long, sophisticated novel" but I've never read it, or any Tolstoy.

3) Ulysses. Being forced to read The Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man in high school scared me off, alas quite possibly for good.

4) Don Quixote. Man of La Mancha is easily one of my favorite musicals; I've directed it and honestly feel that it's just woefully misunderstood. That being said, I've (very ashamedly) never read the source. I've read such good things about this translation that I think I'll give her a go.

5) Catch-22. I really do want to read this one, but am a little afraid it won't live up to the hype.

Until Whenever