# Books you TRIED to read in 2015 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 6, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296 "2016-01-06T05:06:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/21 "2016-01-07T00:03:35Z")
I read and absolutely adored _Wolf Hall_. So I was really really eager to jump into _Bring Up the Bodies_ ASAP - in fact within two minutes of finishing the first one (I love my Kindle). Got halfway through and then I don’t know what happened. I fizzled out. It’s perhaps because the prose is too damn good: it’s so poetic and dense that reading it was a bit like eating an entire cheesecake to oneself. I really do want to finish it, but maybe I need to wait for a beach vacation or something. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/22 "2016-01-07T00:16:13Z")
I took a swing at Anthony Trollope’s _Barchester Towers_ this year. I enjoyed it for a while, but like a lot of those English social novels most of the characters were somewhat unlikeable, and I wasn’t in the mood. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/23 "2016-01-07T21:12:25Z")
I tried to read “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro . I enjoyed other books by thie author; it was supposed to be a fantasy - but I couldn’t get into it. so slow and boring. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/24 "2016-01-07T21:20:50Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I took a swing at Anthony Trollope’s _Barchester Towers_ this year. I enjoyed it for a while, but like a lot of those English social novels most of the characters were somewhat unlikeable, and I wasn’t in the mood. Trollope never did it for me. He’s a B-lister, and for the length and relative dearth of plot most Victorian novels present, you need an A-lister’s characterization to save it. ---
**Author:** ![koeeoaddi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/koeeoaddi/32/408_2.png) [@koeeoaddi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/koeeoaddi)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/25 "2016-01-07T22:14:21Z")
I wanted to love it. I tried to love it. I _should_ have loved it, but I couldn’t get through [Beatlebone](http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25614241-beatlebone), by Kevin Barry. It was just too damn weird and I couldn’t get past the fact that it was author’s weirdness I was trying to plow through, not John Lennon’s. I may eventually try again out of sheer cussedness (and because I _still_ really want to like this book). ---
**Author:** ![stegon66](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee59a6/32.png) [@stegon66](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stegon66)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/26 "2016-01-07T22:51:28Z")
> [@](#): > > I tried to read “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro . I enjoyed other books by this author; it was supposed to be a fantasy - but I couldn’t get into it. so slow and boring. I liked it. Slowly paced and measured to be sure, but that’s rather typical of Ishiguro. The subject matter was a nice change of pace for him too. ---
**Author:** ![Hopeful\_Crow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/da6949/32.png) [@Hopeful\_Crow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hopeful_Crow)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2016, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/27 "2016-01-07T22:57:54Z")
I, too, didn’t finish _Wicked._ Got about halfway through and just decided that was enough. I just didn’t care enough to finish it. Most of the books I quit reading I don’t bother to remember the titles of. I did read the first two to the Hunger Games books and then decided I didn’t need to bother with the last one. I may still read it at some point but it’s not on my short list of books I want to get to. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/28 "2016-01-08T01:09:17Z")
> [@Hopeful\_Crow](#): > > I, too, didn’t finish _Wicked._ Got about halfway through and just decided that was enough. I just didn’t care enough to finish it. > > Most of the books I quit reading I don’t bother to remember the titles of. I did read the first two to the Hunger Games books and then decided I didn’t need to bother with the last one. I may still read it at some point but it’s not on my short list of books I want to get to. I had to force myself to finish “Mockingjay”. I had the same experience with “Divergent” (liked the first 2/3rds, forced myself to read the rest) and had no desire to read any of the sequels. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/29 "2016-01-08T01:30:17Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I took a swing at Anthony Trollope’s _Barchester Towers_ this year. I enjoyed it for a while, but like a lot of those English social novels most of the characters were somewhat unlikeable, and I wasn’t in the mood. > [@Sattua](#): > > Trollope never did it for me. He’s a B-lister, and for the length and relative dearth of plot most Victorian novels present, you need an A-lister’s characterization to save it. Yeah, I’m not planning to try again. He _did_ have a hilarious line: [QUOTE=Anthony Trollope] Of the Rev. Mr. Slope’s parentage I am not able to say much. I have heard it asserted that he is lineally descended from that eminent physician who assisted at the birth of Mr. T. Shandy, [i.e. Dr. Slop] and that in early years he added an “e” to his name, for the sake of euphony, as other great men have done before him. [/QUOTE] I mean, that’s funny 4th-wall stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Parker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/35a633/32.png) [@Richard\_Parker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Parker)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/30 "2016-01-08T01:35:27Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > I tried to read “The Buried Giant” by Kazuo Ishiguro . I enjoyed other books by thie author; it was supposed to be a fantasy - but I couldn’t get into it. so slow and boring. It really picks up after the first 75 pages, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/31 "2016-01-08T05:14:39Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > I took a swing at Anthony Trollope’s _Barchester Towers_ this year. I enjoyed it for a while, but like a lot of those English social novels most of the characters were somewhat unlikeable, and I wasn’t in the mood. Did you read _The Warden_ first? It’s about half the length and I thought most of the characters were likeable. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2016, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296/32 "2016-01-08T10:19:35Z")
> [@Maserschmidt](#): > > He _did_ have a hilarious line: > I mean, that’s funny 4th-wall stuff. Re this one – the Rev. Mr. Slope and the allusion to Sterne’s _Tristram Shandy_ – very much not to do with 2015; but, long ago, I tried _TS_, and admitted defeat not many pages in. It would appear to me, to be one of those “love it or hate it” works – many people, certainly, love it. An uncle of mine, whose intelligence and taste I respected, considered it pretty well the most original and witty fictional offering ever written. It failed to work that magic on me: I agree with the verdict of a “hater”, who described it – approximately – as “a load of dreary, disjointed nonsense”. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-tried-to-read-in-2015/742296.md?page=1)