Books you've left unfinished.

[Andy in Sig]

Further to the walked out on films thread, it occurs to me that very occasionally I think a book is so crap that I don't stick it out to the end.

The most obvious example for me was the Thomas Covenant rubbish. I managed two and a half books of the first trilogy and thought "Why am I persisting with this turgid ill written crap" and consigned it with pleasure to the dustbin.

Having enjoyed Le Carre's Smiley novels, I suffered all the way through the over stylised Little Drummer Girl, didn't heed the warning and only got half way through the next one.

 

[longers]

The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood. Far too depressing for me to be enjoyable.

The Bible. I tried but gave up on that one too.

 

[simon l& and a half]

Being Dead, by Jim Crace. It's just too appalling, in the sense that the story is so exquisitely painful to read. I'm a Crace fan, and this might be his best book, but it's not for the faint-hearted.

 

[simon l& and a half]

The Tin Drum. I really wanted to enjoy this and failed. Just too intricate and dense. And given that I lapped up Finnegan's Wake that's quite something.

 

[Dayvo]

Read all but the last 50 pages of 'The World According to Garp' by John Irving. Bloody purgary.

I've read all of Herman Hesse's books and thoroughly enjoyed them, except for 'The Glass Bead Game'! I've tried many times, but I just can't get into it; it's far too intelligent for me!

'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking. Not a chance!

'Lord Jim' by Jospeh Conrad; he goes into so much detail, even about the most mundane of activities.

'Middlemarch' by George Elliot. There was a one in six chance of it coming up in English A-level. I didn't bother/couldn't read it; and it came up!

 

[Foghat]

The Mitrokhin Archive has been on hold for about five years.

A highly detailed but dry history of KGB shenanigans and international espionage, written by a defecting KGB official. Potentially a fascinating subject, but in this instance not a great deal more than an endless list of names, codenames, codewords and dates; not very engagingly written and quite heavy going unless one specialises in this area.

 

[Aperitif]

Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart.
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth

No particular reason - I just couldn't 'get a grip' of them

Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres, Longitude by Dava Sobel - all passed under my reading radar...

 

[Flying_Monkey]

I try never to give up on a book once I've started. Just once I gave up on something because it was just dull - an sf novel by Linda Nagata, called Vast. If you haven't heard of it, don't bother...

 

[Chuffy]

I rarely have the patience to finish a book that I dislike. I wasted enough of my life being forced to read appalling bilge (Austen, Hardy, Eliot, the Brontes et al) that I'd rather bail out than grind on with some turgid old cobblers. The most recent example was one of the Harry Potter books. Thought I'd give them a try, just in case I was wrong about them. Nope. 20 pages of the most poorly written crap later I gave up. Having said that, I finished the Da Vinci Code and that was pretty damn bad.

 

[Abitrary]

Having enjoyed Le Carre's Smiley novels, I suffered all the way through the over stylised Little Drummer Girl, didn't heed the warning and only got half way through the next one.

Same here! Except only made it through a chapter of little drummer girl.

The worst is when someone lends you something and says 'you've got to read this...' whilst slobbering, as someone did with The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry. I've never seen such a chasm between different facets of someones talent, and lasted about 2 chapters.

 

[marinyork]

The Da Vinci Code. It was supposed to be a page turner even if not well written, it wasn't even that for me.

 

[Chuffy]

The Da Vinci Code. It was supposed to be a page turner even if not well written, it wasn't even that for me.

The problem is that I knew a lot of the stuff that he nicked it was based on, so it was fun spotting references and seeing how he crowbarred everything in. The writing was dreadful though.

 

[bobg]

I rarely have the patience to finish a book that I dislike. I wasted enough of my life being forced to read appalling bilge (Austen, Hardy, Eliot, the Brontes et al)

I had to call Mrs BG into to see that, you just listed all of her favourite authors except Zola ... did you forget that one???

 

[Odyssey]

War of the Worlds.

I generally find that it has to be an exceptionally good book to keep me reading until the end.

 

[surfgurl]

Charles Dickens - 'Hard Times.' It was the set A level text. I got half way through and then skipped to the end. I got through the exam by reading York notes.
If any of you used to teach me. I'm sorry.