Reading should be enjoyable.
It’s a great way to pass time on the train, during a lunch break, or right before you turn off the light at night. But sometimes a book can betray you. Instead of spinning a wonderful yarn about Frodo and his pals disposing of a ring or finding out why he’s just not that into you, a book can be dense, obtuse, and difficult to read. These “hard” books can have polyglot, polysyllabic, poly-insert-the-blank words that turn reading from a pleasure to a chore.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t challenge yourself. Great literature isn’t always easily digestible but can be very rewarding. Over the summer, I slogged my way through Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. It was tough. Not only were the character names challenging (Raskolnikov, Razumikhin, and Svidrigailov anyone?), the subject matter was pretty dark. But I persevered and grinded through C&P, and proudly finished it.
In figuring out Dostoevsky’s message on the mental anguish and moral dilemmas of crime in 19th-century Russia, it occurred to me this book would be easier to digest if I could optimize my brain health with USANA® CopaPrime+™. Formulated with USANA’s proprietary nootropic formula of American ginseng, bacopa monneiri, and coffee fruit extract, CopaPrime+ helps maintain health brain function.*
CopaPrime+ supplies powerful levels of antioxidants to help with cognition, the gathering and processing of information—two things you need if you’re going to read a 150-year-old Russian novel. Plus, CopaPrime+ helps maintain healthy brain bridges, or neural pathways, to help store and recall information. Something I could have used to tell the difference between Raskolnikov and Razumikhim 300 pages into the book.*
Essentially, CopaPrime+ helps support alertness, mental clarity, and focus while supplying the antioxidants for key neuroprotective properties. Everything you need if you’re thinking of stepping up from the dime-store novels to books found on the Booker Prize list.*
This got me to thinking. If I can finish Crime and Punishment without CopaPrime+, what other “difficult” books can I read (and understand) if I took USANA’s newest Cognitive Support Complex? I looked up what experts generally consider to be the toughest books ever written, grabbed my library card, and got cracking.*
CopaPrime+ Reading List
Moby-Dick, or, the Whale (1851)
By Herman Melville
“I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.”
It’s about a boat, a whale, and an examination of obsession. Captain Ahab seeks revenge against the giant white sperm whale who bit off his leg. Narrated by Ishmael (“Call me Ishmael”), the crew of the Pequod go to the ends of the world to kill the whale. But as you discover in the last harrowing chapters, all actions have consequences.
CopaPrime+ Reading Score: 3
By Joseph Heller
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t after you.”
An examination of the absurdity of war set on the backdrop of World War II. Antihero Captain John Yossarian faces the Catch-22, a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem, while trying to avoid flying bombing raids over Europe. Funny, sadistic, sad, and insightful, Heller’s masterpiece is riddled with nightmares for those who just want to go home.
CopaPrime+ Reading Score: 5
By David Foster Wallace
“The truth will set you free. But not until it is finished with you.”
You better like endnotes if you’re going to tackle Wallace’s seminal work. Set in a near-dystopic world, Infinite Jest is composed of four interwoven narratives with 388 lengthy endnotes. Meta-modernist with elements of hysterical realism, the story taunts you without end and never fully resolves as Wallace examines addiction, death, and separation through the metaphysical act of playing tennis.
CopaPrime+ Reading Score: 6
Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West (1985)
By Cormac McCarthy
“Your heart’s desire is to be told some mystery. The mystery is that there is no mystery.”
A bloody examination of the eradication of Apaches in Mexico, Blood Meridian asks and answers what happens when you attempt to tame a wild country through violence. Terse and haunting, McCarthy explores the inevitable consequences of malice on those who seek destruction. Told through the eyes of a 14-year-old boy, Blood Meridian leaves you ravaged and shaking your head.
CopaPrime+ Reading Score: 7
By James Joyce
“A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery.”
Told in the course of a single day, Joyce’s masterpiece focuses on the ramifications of wandering. Set in Dublin, Stephen Dedalus, Leopold, and Molly Bloom’s intertwined stories indulge the reader with their unique perspectives of life in search of meaning. Joyce’s stream-of-consciousness style is lyrical and demanding, but the payoff for this hefty tome is intense. Prepare to travel to the Kingdom of Hypnos down into the tiny blot of unconsciousness.
CopaPrime+ Reading Score: 10
Further Reading
This is just a limited selection of books worth your time and effort. Joyce’s final novel, Finnegans Wake, is a noodle scratcher with a CopaPrime+ Reading Score of 17. And Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow needs a pallet of CopaPrime+ to get through the first chapter. Most of William Faulkner (The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying) is pretty challenging, and Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse is both intellectually and psychologically difficult to get through.
But you don’t have to finish the second floor of the New York Public Library to experience the benefits of CopaPrime+. Packed with powerful antioxidants and nutrition to support cognitive functions, it’s the perfect supplement to keep you sharp and mentally engaged.
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There are countless benefits of reading. It helps reduce stress, expands your vocabulary, improves analytical thinking skills, increases vocabulary, and helps your writing skills. Plus, there is the satisfaction of challenging yourself by stepping out of your comfort zone.
