I’ve not finished a lot of books as I’ve gotten older, when I was younger I was much more stubborn about finishing them. Also there was no Internet and we didn’t have cable TV so I had time on my hands. But even so one book I just couldn’t bring myself to finish back then was Great Expectations. It was even required for a class and I just couldn’t do it.
I read roughly the first half, then the Cliff Notes AND the Monarch Notes so I could answer exam questions, and just went with that.
I just started The Idiot two nights ago. I hope I have better luck with it than you, but there are already a million things going on in the first 35 pages. In the past couple of years, I’ve given up on Hugo’s Les Miserables and Dickens’ The Pickwick Papers.
Metro Girl by Janet Evanovich. Actually anything by Evanovich that isn’t part of her Stephanie Plum series I can’t finish.
One thing I recommend if you want to finish a book but can’t is to get the book on tape. I have finished books that way (Such as The Scarlett Letter) that I found too boring to read.
There are a lot of books I’ve started then stopped on, most because they sucked.
The majority were science fiction, because that’s my favorite genre, but there have been a few popularized science books I’ve had to put down as well because the writer was very uninteresting.
Dune is easily one of my favorite books. I’ve probably read it at least half a dozen times.
I have yet to finish Dune Messiah, and I know I’ve started it at least three or four times. I think the furthest I’ve gotten is about halfway through.
This does not bode well for getting through the rest of the series, never mind anything by Kevin J. Anderson & Brian Herbert.
I usually don’t start one unless I’m genuinely interested, and I usually resume it (or restart) to finish it eventually.
But the one that I’ve never picked back up (though I fully intend to) after several failed attempts was The Tin Drum.
Pride and Prejudice.
My boss walked by and saw me reading it and said, “What do ya think?”
I thought for a second, and I realized, “This is the most boring book ever written. Not a single thing has happened in it.” Didn’t bother to finish it.
So long and thanks for all the fish, because I was happy with the trilogy and didn’t want to keep going.
A Confederacy of Dunces most recently. I know it’s a favorite of a lot of people around here, and I don’t know what I was expecting, but I just wasn’t enjoying the brand of humor.
Anna Karenina, but it’s still by my bed. I hope to pick it up again one day!
Actually there are lots of books I don’t finish; I read a lot and if I feel I’m done, I quit and go on to something else.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Der Zauberberg by Thomas Mann (The German version)
Das Prozess by Franz Kafka (once again the German version)
Yet another “me too” for The Silmarillion I think 50 pages is the farthest I’ve ever gotten.
Heinlein’s Number of the Beast. What a pile of crap. After the ten millionth reference to Deety’s nipples and Barsoom, I figured I’d get more enjoyment just reading one of Burrough’s Barsoom books.
Faulkner’s The Bear. I had to read it in high school. I was out of school the day the teacher finished her lecture series and announced that there would be an essay test the following day. So I show up, get blindsided by the test, and I haven’t finished the book. I just blindly regurgitate everything I heard her say in the earlier lectures. I ended up getting my best grade of the year on the one book I didn’t read. Since the test was over, I never bothered to finish the book.
I gave up on Anne Rice midway through one of the later books, I think it was The Vampire Armand. Never picked up another one. I understand she eventually tied the Vampire Chronicles and Mayfair Witch books together, but I didn’t feel like wading through any more 300 page flashbacks from yet another newly introduced character that’s immortal, bi, and depressed just to find out what happened.
I’ve never failed to finish a novel, ever. I’m not sure why at some point I decided to do this, and sometimes it sucks, but I always finish books. One good thing about it is that I enjoy(ed) taking on tough reads, the kind that require a lot of tenacity to get through the difficult parts. If you know there is no way you’re putting the book down when the reading gets tough, it makes things easier.
It’s starting to become a problem now that I don’t read nearly as much as I used to when I was younger and had more time. I’ve been marooned with one or two ball-breakers lately; Pynchon’s ‘Against the Day’ took me an absolute age to finish, including a lengthy lay-off that very very nearly persuaded me to give up on it. That’s made up my mind that I can’t read, or won’t enjoy reading, a proper difficult book on a day to day basis anymore, I need to save them up for holidays where I’ll have bags of reading time.
So, many, many crappy ones, but two where the failure was all mine.
One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez
Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust
I’m deeply ashamed.
1984 and Lord of the Flies. I don’t know why, but I’ve never been able to make it through either one, despite multiple attempts. I will probably give Lord of the Flies another chance soon; it’s been a long time since I tried it. I just took a stab at 1984 within the last year, though, so I think I’m well quit of that one.
Tropic of Cancer, Henry Miller. You love pussy. I get it. Big yawn.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad by some atrocious writer. This was the absolute worst book I’ve ever had the misfortune to crack open in my life. Not only did the entire premise for the book ring incredibly false, the writing, including spelling, grammar and sentence structure, was AWFUL.
El Amor en los Tiempos del Colera (Love in the Times of Cholera) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. It was over-lyrical, really long and just too much for my little high school brain to handle.
The Hobbit. I just couldn’t get into it. Same for Lord of the Rings. My husband’s been telling me for years that this is nothing short of blasphemy, but no matter how many times I try, I can’t read them.
Quite a few already mentioned – War and Peace, Bleak House, Black House, One Hundred Years of Solitude, Jane Eyre (boring as soon as Jane got to Rochester’s house), as well as The Confusion (I need more story), The Historian (because it sucked), A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons, and Mr. X by Peter Straub,
Except for The Historian, I’ll give these books another go someday.
I’ll add another to the list for **The Silmarillion ** also another for Moby Dick.
One that I’m still convincing myself that I’m not done with yet is The Canterbury Tails which has an entertaining style but I can only read about two pages at a time with out my brain hurting.
Gravity’s Rainbow about five times.