Books like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

Warning: if you want to know what The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is about, you won't find out here. But if you want to hear the terrible joke that our Russian teacher told us in 1974, you've come to the right place.Ready? So there's this Viking, and he figures he's got too old for the raping and looting and pillaging. What's he going to do? Well, he decides he's going to go back to school and get a degree in Eng Lit.So he goes back to school and the other people kind of like him, it's cool having a Viking in the class. But he seems more and more unhappy as the term wears on. And one day the guy who sits next to him walks past a bar and there's the Viking slumped miserably over a large collection of empty glasses. He looks like he might start bawling at any minute.His friend is shocked! Ragnar, he says, what's wrong?It's this damn term paper, says Ragnar. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. It's due in tomorrow and I haven't written a word, I don't even know how to start. All I know is raping and looting and pillaging.Look, says his friend, it's not so bad. Just write whatever came into your head when you read it. Doesn't matter if it's a bit weird. The instructor will say you're 'creative', she's a doll.Haven't even read it says Ragnar, and he orders another beer.Now, says his friend firmly, that's enough beer. We're going off to the library and we're going to read The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and you're going to write your term paper and it'll all be fine.So they go off to the library and Ragnar's friend finds The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and they sit down together and the friend reads it all to him very quietly, so as not to disturb the other people studying there. And then he gets out his iPad and he says okay Ragnar, now tell me what came into your head when you heard that. I'll even write it down for you.Nothing came into my head, says Ragnar stubbornly.But something must have come into your head, says the friend. Think, Ragnar, think!I can't, says Ragnar stubbornly. And so he flunked his course and had to go back to raping and looting and pillaging, even though he was too old and hated it nearly as much as he hated writing term papers on Eng Lit.You're probably wondering what the moral of this story is, so I'll tell you. It's (view spoiler)[you can lead a Norse to Walter, but you can't make him think. (hide spoiler)]