The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell
It took forever to read this book, because I had to read two different copies of it. Being both confident and an idiot, I picked up The Hero with a Thousand Faces during finals (as well as two other books that went straight back to the library unread). I got about a third of the way through before the end of the semester, neglected to copy down marked passages to my commonplace book, and returned it. I mention the commonplace book because that’s the reason I had to start over from the beginning, rather than having it be an open-ended loose end hanging over my head for two weeks. I even hit up the library before I even got to my house to see if they had a copy. It’s been a trial, but I now finally have the work of comparative mythology under my belt.
The Literary Omnivore 