5 Books That I Might Never Have Time To Read
There are a bunch of books that I’d theoretically like to read, but I just don’t have the time. I’m 58 years old, and this might sound morbid, but I don’t know how much time I have left. I could have another 30 years of reading. Or I could have five minutes. I don’t know. I might not want to know ahead of time either (but that’s for another blog post).
It’s a little risky writing about books that I know I’ll never read when I have my own book The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy that most people don’t have the time (or money or inclination) to read. Even so, I must continue.
5 BOOKS THAT I MIGHT NEVER HAVE TIME TO READ
- Texas by James Michener
I’d like to read Texas by James Michener because I live in Texas. James Michener has written a lot of books, and they’re supposed to be great, but most of them are really, really long. For such long books, they have simple titles.
Texas.
Hawaii.
Chesapeake.
Alaska.
Poland.
Space.
The Novel
There are too many James Michener books for me to read all of them, but if I get to any of them, it will probably be Texas. But I’ll probably never get to it.
2. The Man in Rome series by Colleen McCullough
Here is another book that is around 1,000 pages long. I don’t mind 1,000 page books because if it’s good, you really get your money’s worth, but in this case The First Man in Rome is the first book in a six(?) book series of other 1,000 page books. Even if I finish The First Man in Rome, I have five more books to read. It’s almost like reading A Game of Thrones, except The First Man in Rome books are already done and I don’t think the author ever resented her fans. I’m not sure I can commit to six 1,000 page books, though.
I think I’ll just watch Rome again.
3. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
I’d like to read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Even better, I’d like to be able to say with pride that I’ve read War and Peace. But it’s not going to happen. I’ve tried. I can’t keep up with the Russian names. The Russian names give me a headache. I could never live in Russia. It wouldn’t be the cold or the rampant alcoholism or the tyrannical government that would bother me. It would be the long Russian names. Plus, I don’t speak Russian. And I probably don’t have time to learn it.
4. Noble House by James Clavell
I started reading Noble House in my junior year in high school but had to stop because my English teacher assigned us a bunch of novels to read. I said that I’d come back to Noble House later, but I never did. I think I got hooked on a bunch of Stephen King books at the end of my junior year. In eighth grade I had read Shogun by James Clavell (right before the television miniseries was broadcast), so all of my ill-read classmates were impressed with the size of the novel and that I had read it before the movie.
Yeah, reading Shogun improved my nerd status. Plus, it was a good book.
5. Any Stephen King book written after 1990
The good thing about Stephen King is that once you’ve read a few of his early books, you’ve read most of all of his books. That’s not an insult. Those three or four books he keeps writing are pretty good books. And now there are no Stephen King books that I want to read because I’ve already read a bunch of them.
Once every five years I pick up a new/recent Stephen King book and then after a few pages stop because I’ve read it before (but that’s not quite the same thing as not having time to read it).
BONUS!!!- Every James Patterson book.
I have no desire to read any individual James Patterson book. I’m sure that out of the hundreds of books his name is attached to, one or two of them have to be good. I just think it would be a great accomplishment to have read every single James Patterson book in existence. But that’s not going to be me.
I’m sure there are more books that I won’t have time to read. Basically, it’s every book in existence that I haven’t read by the time I… you know. But these are the first books that come to mind when I think of books that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to get to.
But enough about me! What books are you kind of interested in but know you won’t read?
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A grammar-obsessed English teacher falls in ‘luuuvvv’ but discovers how chaotic and dangerous ‘luuuvvv’ can be.
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Dysfunctional Literacy 
i hope colleen took a page out of james’s naming convention and called the remaining books in her series The Second Man in Rome, The Third Man in Rome, etc. Simple, to
the point.
For me, I have not been able to make it through Infinite Jest. I find DFW’s writing to be some of the best I’ve ever read but that book is so huge and so meta and I just haven’t been able to finish it.
A lot of people who have claimed to have read Infinite Jest probably haven’t actually read it. I can’t prove that, but I’m pretty sure it’s true.
PS: Never read War and Peace…it is on my TBR but I am almost positive I will never get to it.
At first, I thought you were telling me to never read War and Peace. Haha. Then I finished reading your comment; I understand now.
Great post! Sometimes we just have to let go of the idea that we will read books that everyone else seems to have read. I have only read 2 of these – Atlas Shrugged and War and Peace and doubt I will get to the others. If you don’t want to take the time to read Atlas Shrugged, try The Fountainhead also by Ayn Rand. In my opinion, it’s a better book, and shorter (still kind of long, though…)
You’ve read BOTH Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead? I don’t know what to think about that.
At least 15 years ago. I think I could probably re-read The Fountainhead, but I don’t think I’d re-read Atlas Shrugged.
I could never get into War and Peace. Tried and failed many times. Eventually put it to the side, it’s OKAY if a book that is renowned and well-recommended is not your cup of tea. Hard to swallow for me, but there it is. Books are like people, some suit your character and some don’t. There certainly is no obligation to like or learn to like all books.