Any tips on reading a book that you can't grasp?

Don't read it?

I don't know, I only read what I like.



This is why I wish the school system dead. No freedom to learn whatever you want.

 

SparkNotes.com is a good start.

 

Kaiser raises a good point! Sparknotes is good if you don't get it or just really cannot get into something.

I always preferred to at least read MOST of what I was forced to read for school, so I started either listening to audiobooks of the thing or reading it in a funny voice in my head. The more I got into my silly voices the easier it became for me to pretend I was interested in it long enough to read enough to be cool in class!

 

I usually love reading, but The Old Man and the Sea was Atrocious with a capital a. The worst part was I had to do an entire PowerPoint on the thing. My solution? It was so boring, I gave up half ways through, skimmed cliff notes, and talked in circles on my presi, you know, that stuff teachers like to hear. Usually, I hate the thought of faking projects and I do my best to put in genuine work, but this book was horrible.

 

Audio is a good idea but with DC it's 30+ hours...

Since you'll have to read them one way or another (full text or notes) at least you have this lead time to get them over with. It'll make it easier the second time around for notes or whatever since you'll only have to revisit the important parts. There's not a lot to spark interest where there's none to begin with. You got pretty far before giving up, hope you won't have to re-read those 100 pages.

At least ASND and HoD are short.

 

Looking up the audiobooks is a good idea. I am positive that all of those can be found somewhere on Youtube.

I strongly recommend reading those. Sparknotes is worthwhile if you don't have time to do required reading, but each of those works/authors are well regarded and you will be grateful for knowing what people are talking about when these works are referenced in university or whenever.

 

Step 1: Put it down.
Step 2: Do something else.

My two step process is bulletproof.

 

Tips that were really helpful for me were:
-Sparknotes
-Check if there's been adaptations of the books to film or play just so you could get a visual and maybe see it in a different a way.

 

Try and take it in smaller bits. Find something to use as a bookmark, and put the book down when you're starting to feel like you can't focus, take a break, and return to the book later.

 

I agree that audiobooks are helpful. I prefer to read along as I'm listening, so that I know where the texts are in relation to each other, making quoting easier. Taking notes as you go (despite being very bland and laborious) really does help you understand and lock in the information that you're reading, especially if you're someone who forgets small details easily.

Whenever we covered Shakespeare in English class, I would look up summaries and recaps or rewordings of all the acts. And of course, you can find lots of online lessons and videos discussing chapters and content of just about any school-issued reading.

 

There is for David Copperfield, I've seen it once on some random TV-channel.
I found one in imdb that seems to fit the description of the one I saw, but I don't know if that's it.

Link: David Copperfield (TV Movie 2000) - IMDb

 

This one I linked is from 2000 and I don't see Daniel Radcliffe in the imdb page, but the one I saw was with him, yes. I think it might be a mini-series.

 

Yeah, getting distracted from a have-to-read by a want-to-read can be a battle. Like Berru said, try for manageable bits. With DC if you can manage 2 chapters a day you'll be done in a month (well, minus whatever you've read so far).

Plays are always relatively short reads since they're mostly dialogue. Not that you need any more distractions but the novel Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin is mostly dialogue (fun, witty, quip worthy dialogue at that, with lots of double entendres) and it's been called 'Dickensian'.

HoD... I remember having to slog through it. Even though its short it felt like it took forever, like the worst road trip ever, except on a river. There's a couple of straight adaptations of the book, a filmed play from 1958 and a movie version from 1993. Haven't seen either, but I did see a version of the book in Apocalypse Now which is a very loose adaptation of the book. You can pick from the 2.5 hour or 3.25 hour versions.

There's also a radio adaptation by Orson Welles from 1938 which you can find on YouTube here cut up in chunks or you can download the mp3 from here. It's an hour long but all dialogue!

Tons of DC adaptations, I only ever saw the 1935 version.

Don't rely on adaptations too much though, for me they're only fun in seeing how much they leave in or out or what they change.

To note, I could never finish J&H. The two times I tried I just lost the willpower to go on when it hits that final, tell-all letter. No idea why. I loved DC (even if it did go on and on at parts), much more than Oliver Twist. (Oliver never DID anything, everything happened TO him! Bleh.)

 

Your non-prescribed books sound interesting, but as I'm juggling multiple books too (more than three but less than eight) I can't afford to look at any others before finishing a few more.

And I always had to have distraction reads during school because otherwise I would have gone out of my mind.