Franzen hated Salinger, Moby-Dick

Jonathan Franzen admits he could never got more than 50 pages into "Moby-Dick". Source: Supplied

US AUTHOR Jonathan Franzen has revealed the books he most loves and loathes, hating on some of the world's most celebrated stories.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the writer behind The Corrections admits to lying about having read Herman Melville’s classic, Moby-Dick. Despite "multiple attempts" at tacking the dense novel, he says he never made it past page 50.

Franzen also takes a swipe at J.D. Salinger, the popular author who penned Catcher in the Rye.

"Salinger’s fiction seems to me a slender reed on which to hang the weight of world-changing genius that’s currently being ascribed to him," Franzen says.

On a more positive note, he says Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, and Franz Kafka’s The Trial are two books that helped cement him as a writer.

"What the two have in common is main characters who are at once sympathetic and morally dubious," he says.

Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End was the best book Franzen read for school, and he says he has re-read many times The Lord of the Rings, The Great Gatsby and Desperate Characters.

He also reveals a childhood love for “anything talking or thinking animals”, including A.A. Milne, the Narnia novels, Doctor Doolittle, Wind in the Willows and the Peanuts comic strip.

"This seems a little strange now, given that I was afraid of dogs and that my parents didn’t let me have any pets except for hamsters and turtles, which I didn’t love, and which were always dying on me."

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Confessions of a hipster bookworm

Hipsters reveal their deepest, darkest secrets about books, Picture: Thinkstock Source: ThinkStock

THERE'S nothing better than snuggling up with a good book and Australia's hipsters have revealed their darkest book-reading secrets ranging from the quirky to the truly bizarre.

Whether it's book sniffing, arriving at school pick-up early just to have a read or hiding Shakespeare in the fridge to avoid looking pretentious, trendsetting bookworms have some strange habits.

The confessions have been revealed in QBD The Bookshop's Book Hipster Campaign.

Here are some of the best: (and tell us yours in the comments below below)

1. When my boyfriend's gone to sleep I use the light from his Kindle to read my paperback.

2. I take a book to the park, take a photo of myself reading it, and upload it to instagram as #mysundayisbetterthanyours

3. I've played hide and go seek with the kids just to get away to read a book for a while with no interruptions.

4. I will always claim my favorite book is either Crime and Punishment or Atlas Shrugged. The truth is, Harry Potter changed my life.

5. I don't need glasses. I only wear them when I read in public.

6. I volunteer to go early to get the kids from the movies so I can sit in the car with a coffee and my book.

Enjoy a good book from the library and also have perfectly coiffed hair? You may be a hipster.

7. As a kid I ran my own book lending business in order to buy new books from profits. Worked great 'til school shut me down.

8. I've read my kids' collection of Harry Potter books more times than they have!

9. Paranoid about looking pretentious, turned fridge into secret bookcase, filled with Shakespeare volumes. Now tell unit inspectors, "it's full of V.B". V.B or not V.B?...

10. I hide my book bags inside other shopping bags so when I come home my parents don't know I have bought new books.

11. When my friends invite me to the movies or shopping, I spontaneously become 'sick' - little do they know I'm at home indulging in a good read.

12. I'm so obsessed with Fifty Shades of Grey that no matter what I eat or don't eat, I always wonder if Christian would approve.

13. Taking the all stations train, so I have more time to read before work.

14. I frequently use random objects as bookmarks. Now I don't know which book I've left the electricity bill in.

15. I set up for study in the morning and then when my partner leaves the house, I quickly grab a book and try to read it before he gets home.

'I will always claim my favorite book is either Crime and Punishment or Atlas Shrugged. The truth is, Harry Potter changed my life.'

16. I read my book at work when I should be working!

17. I was always late for work because I'd be so engrossed in my book that I'd forget to flag down my bus.

18. I pay a babysitter to mind my children while I run errands*. *sit in a cafe/park/car and read my latest book

19. My new house wasn't a home until I built a bookshelf and alphabetically arranged my collection (and reunited Harry Potter 1 through 7).

20. I once apologised to a book when it fell off the shelf at work.

21. When I buy books as birthday/Christmas presents I read them first, very carefully, to not bend the spine.

22. I print off covers of popular novels and wrap them around the books I'm reading to hide the fact that I'm into classics like Utopia.

'I'm so obsessed with Fifty Shades of Grey that no matter what I eat or don't eat, I always wonder if Christian would approve.'

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