Colm O'Regan: Classic books and classic failures - my bookshelves tell a tale of naive ambition

"As for Finnegan’s Wake, with an introduction by an eminent scholar that admits the book is “unreadable”, I lasted precisely four pages. Once again I was fooling myself."

Classic books on a shelf - where, much like in Colm O'Regan's house, they might stay in place

Even now they mock me. Sitting on the shelf. Pristine. Their spines are unbroken. The pages, apart from the first few in each, are unleafed. They will likely remain safe from the battering that hits the Inspector Rebus, Terry Pratchett and Ken Follett page-turners that surround them. 

Books that have stains and grains of sand in them. Or wrinkled from the time they went into the bag with the swimming gear and had to be hung out.