'You've Never Read Captain Corelli's Mandolin?!'

It's 'You've Never Read....?!' week on Books with Bunny, and I have some lovely guest bloggers coming later in the week sharing the books that they have never read.  As book bloggers, people seem to think we have read every classic, every bestseller, every current chart smash, when of course in reality there isn't the time (and sometimes the inclination) to do this.  Like anyone who reads, we have to be choosy, infact possibly moreso as we are so aware of the array of books that are released. 

I'm kicking off 'You've Never Read....?!' week with one of the books I haven't read.  Actually, I have tried, numerous times, to read Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres but I just cannot get into it.

I wanted to love it.  It was in the BBC Big Read list and my best friend raves about it.  Another very close friend asked me to do a reading at her wedding, which was a massive honour, and- you've guessed it- it was from Captain Corelli's Mandolin!*

I love a good love story and had been promised that this was right up there with the best of them, but I just couldn't get past all the war talk.  I really don't like books about wars, unless they are more about the people rather than the politics.  The characters in Captain Corelli's Mandolin seem to be caricatures and held no appeal to me. 

I've never seen the film either, despite it being a box office hit. 

This one just isn't for me.

*This is the reading that I did at Helen and Ashley's wedding in 2009.  It is completely beautiful and rereading it now makes me think perhaps I should try this book again.  But then I remember the pea in the ear and the monotony of the war and history talk and I think I probably won't.

Love is a temporary madness,
it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides.
And when it subsides you have to make a decision.
You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together
that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is.Love is not breathlessness,
it is not excitement,
it is not the promulgation of eternal passion.That is just being "in love" which any fool can do.Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away,
and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Those that truly love, have roots that grow towards each other underground,
and when all the pretty blossom have fallen from their branches,
they find that they are one tree and not two.