Read a book?

I realise that, to many, the idea of reading a book doesn't sound like much of a challenge but, if you know me, you'll know that I'm not a big book reader.

I was a voracious reader as a child, and would often get through several books in a week - fiction and non-fiction - I loved books so much, whilst at Secondary School, I was a student librarian and, while my mates dreamt of careers as astronauts and footballers, I seriously wanted to be a librarian.

As an adult I've found I don't have the patience for fiction. If there were no distractions and I could read a book from beginning to end in one go it might be different, but, for some reason, when I put a book down I find I forget what's happened, who's who and, at times, what the book is about! I guess it's one of the reasons why I love movies.

I find reading non-fiction much easier. I think it's a very male thing. I like facts and want to know what happened. I don't want to be under the control of some author who might suddenly twist the plot at a whim and totally baffle me.

So, for me now, as a 40-something bloke, reading a book from cover to cover is a challenge and, therefore, it is something that is worthy of inclusion in my list of 50 things to do before my 50th birthday.

But I don't think it should just be any book. If I am going to read a book it should be a significant book, not simply some random airport trash.

A twitter friend suggested Gone with the Wind - Margaret Mitchell's epic love sort set against the background of the American Civil War. It has always been one of my absolutely favourite movies and I've never read the book, so it is a very good suggestion.

I guess the classic "big book" is Tolstoy's War and Peace - a book for which the word epic seems to have been invented and one which I have toyed with trying at various times but never got beyond the first couple of pages before realising it was a challenge too far!

But, of course, there are other epic books and series of books, many of them aimed at the teenage/young adult market:

• I read the complete Lord of the Rings trilogy as a teenager and, to be honest, I'm not sure I could be bothered to return to Tolkien's overly nonsensical and pretentious prose.

• I tried to read the first of the seven Harry Potter books over a decade ago but, really, it was just poorly written tosh, clearly designed as a rough sketch for a movie or TV mini-series, and since the movies (well, the last three or four which became quite good after the appalling first couple) why would anybody bother with the books?

• I saw The Hunger Games movie.... again, why bother with the books?

• I've heard good things about the Twilight saga, but I'm not a pubescent girl so not sure I'm really the target audience (though Mark Kermode, a film reviewer I admire, does say lots of positives about the Twilight movies).

• I recently saw the first movie in the Beautiful Creatures quadrilogy, which is based on the books by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl , and thoroughly enjoyed the movie so maybe the books would be good - though I am rather sceptical about a book that is written by two people...

• And as for the Narnia Chronicles and all the OTT Christian symbolism that C.S. Lewis shovels on.... ARGH!

As an atheist the sacred texts of the world's religions would be a particular challenge - and all the major religions have a big book to make their point, present their world view and justify their particular set of laws and rules and why people should look up and give money to their own variety of priest!

I read The Bible from cover to cover when I was a teenager - I'm not sure why, maybe it was a slightly autistic thing to want to do but I did it. I guess I could do it again, but then, having completed it I had to agree with Randolph Churchill who was challenged to read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and when he won the bet, declared: "God, isn't God a shit?!"

It might be interesting to read The Koran (Qur'an) though it is, of course, based on a similar lack of facts as The Bible and could be frustrating - after all, if I'm going to read a large tome of fiction why not make it something fun?

The Book of Mormon seems like absolute lunacy to consider - a work of blatant fiction that has conned many a mind and set up a nice little earner for the Church of the Latter Day Saints - and then there are texts like the Mahabharata and the Rig Veda....

Something that does appeal is the Diary of Samuel Pepys - not just the highlights but the full decade of writings. Pepys is a truly fascinating figure and I set some of the most famous sections into a piece for junior choir and orchestra back in the early 1990s.

Oh, I don't know! Reading a book seems like such a good idea. Has anyone got any other suggestions?