Oxford is home to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkein, and Lewis Carroll. At one point or another I have had trouble finishing their works, but I eventually did and am so glad I did.

1. White Teeth, by Zadie Smith (I read about half of it before putting it down at the start of a semester in grad school. I still haven’t gotten back to it yet.)
2. Ulysses, by James Joyce (I only made it through a few pages of it before I had to return it to the library.)
3. Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf (I got further into this one than Ulysses, but not much further. But at least I own my copy of this one.)
4. How to Be Good, by Nick Hornby (I hated it from the beginning. Really couldn’t get into it.)
5. How Green Was My Valley, by Richard Llewellyn (I read a surprising amount of this before reaching one of those moments in the text where the main character, whom you’ve come to love, is about to screw up his life. I couldn’t prevent him, so I just stopped reading. I’m not sure I’ll ever go back.)