Which Books Have You Started But Never Finished

[Canary42]

I'm currently reading No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (Mark Hodkinson's memoirs of a working class reader) and the author mentions reading Thomas Hardy's works successfully, but being unable to get through Thackeray's Vanity Fair .

I've been there with both those experiences. It got me to thinking of the few other books Which I've never been able to stick through to the end. These are :-

◊ War and Peace (but managed Anna Karenina) - also managed Dostoevsky's
Crime & Punishment

◊ Vanity Fair

◊ Far From the Madding Crowd (but managed Jude the Obscure)

◊ Middlemarch (but managed Scenes of Clerical Life)

I've added books in brackets which I've coped with, in order to show it's not necessarily the author/genre causing my reader's block.

So, let's be hearing similar "blocks", i.e. books you started but never reached the end. Hopefully it will be an interesting and entertaining thread on Aber's literary tastes.

P.S. 50 Shades of Grey was another, but that's understandable it was so appallingly written.

[naomi24]

I found The Tattooist of Auschwitz very disappointing, LCG. Such a wonderful opportunity for an author completely wasted.

[zebo]

The Hobbit, and that applies to the book The Hobbit and all of the Tolkein films, my best if 15 minutes into Lord of the Rings. My late OH was a great Hobbit fan, many many years before the general popularity through the films.
The Blind Assassin, Margaret Atwood, I'll no doubt give it another try soon.

[LadyCG]

It was appallingly written, Naomi.

Have you read The Choice by Edith Eger?

[naomi24]

You’re lucky you didn’t reach the end of it! She practically ran through it so much so that I got the impression she was just fed up writing it!

No, I haven’t read that, LCG. I’ll look it up.

[Canary42]

/// I just can't relate to or care about the characters.///

That can make a lot of difference of course.

One of the reasons I like Hardy, some of his characters are beyond belief but you end up loving, hating, or pitying them. Poor tragic Tess for example and her strait-laced Angel, the hapless Jude with his son murdering his siblings "because we are too menny [sic]", The Mayor of Casterbridge selling his wife, and so on. A lot of Hardy's characters are pretty bleak, but they still fascinate.

[tiggerblue10]

The Celestine Prophecy. Someone at work kept going on about it and how good it was but I got bored halfway through.

[naomi24]

It bored me too, tigger. I think you were supposed to feel spiritually inspired and uplifted by that one - but it didn’t work for me.

[maggiebee]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Just couldn't get into it at all.

[LadyCG]

I read that too, Tiggs. What a load of old pony. Whimsical but not what I'd call literature.

[Spicerack]

Janet & Jhon.

Not quite that bad. Once I start reading something, I feel like I have to finish it.
Failed with the Satanic Verses and another time this lady gave me 'the best book ever'. 'You'll love it' she beamed. It was by best seller Danielle Steele? and it was dire. I tried so hard to plough through it so as not to hurt her feelings but my willpower failed me.
That was about 30yrs ago and I'm ashamed to say I avoided her then and ever since. (and Ms Steele)

[naomi24]

The Satanic Verses beat me too, spicerack - chronic! And I never was into Danielle Steele type stuff.

Have you tried Khaled Hosseini’s books? Very good.

[tiggerblue10]

I've read 3 books more than once: Silence of the Lambs, Da Vinci Code and Elizabeth The Queen (Tudor) by Alison Weir.

[DTCwordfan]

Loved the Glass Bead Game, one of my favourites of all time.

As to the non-read, Chris Patten's 'East & West' - one word to sum it up, 'Yawn'.

[Canary42]

I'm really enjoying this thread, I hope it continues. I like the way tastes differ so much. For example I am another Catch-22 enthusiast but we've seen for and against on here.

I also found [i] Life of Pi [i[ incredibly difficult but did manage to get through it.

[Stargazer]

The Count of Monte
Christo.

[DTCwordfan]

The only thing that would lift you spiritually, naomi, would be a cracking good malt scotch of a lovely G&T - perhaps a T&T, something that those in Exxon don't drink. Remember the E.Valdez, the captain apparently said, "A tanker on the rocks not a Tanqueray on the rocks, you ******* idiot.'

[DTCwordfan]

'or a lovely' not 'of a lovely'.....

[Patsy33]

If you like a laugh and like the character Alan Patridge, then the book, 'We Need To Talk About Alan' is very funny.

[naomi24]

‘The Catcher in the Rye’ is one that escaped me in my student days so I caught up with it in the past few years. Most curiously written! I think of it as a Marmite book. You either love it or hate it - and I loved it.

[Patsy33]

^^^^
Partridge!