Lots of People Have Never Finished “Ulysses”

Test Ticker

MOTHER JONES NEEDS YOUR HELP

Our fiscal year ends today, and we still need upwards of $60,000 in online donations to finish our budget at break-even, or as close as we possibly can. We’ve already cut $1 million in costs. We can't afford to come up short. And there’s more about why this is so urgent here, or in this primer about our nonprofit journalism and finances. Straight up: We can get there, but it's going to take more people who care enough about our journalism to be reading this blurb to pitch in and support it than normal. Please help if you can.

Mother Jones needs your help. Our fiscal year ends today, and we still need $60,000 in online donations to get to break-even, or a lot closer. We’ve already cut $1 million in costs. We can't afford to come up short. Learn more about why this is so urgent in “News Never Pays,” or about our finances and nonprofit operation here, and please support the journalism you get from us if you can right now. We need more help than normal.

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

Via Tyler Cowen, here are the top five most abandoned classic books, as chosen by Goodreads:

Oddly enough, I’ve read all five, and the only one I abandoned was Ulysses.¹ 200 pages was all I could take. Maybe someday I’ll try again with one of those annotated versions that explains the half dozen obscure allusions on every page. If I do, maybe next I’ll take up Bleak House and Foucault’s Pendulum, the only other remaining titles on my list of books that defeated me.² Probably not, though.

¹OK, I never plowed through the whole John Galt radio address in Atlas Shrugged. But come on. That doesn’t count, does it?

²Moby-Dick fell off the list in 2009. The Brothers Karamazov was conquered last year. Three remain!