Put me down for Gravity’s Rainbow, too. Halfway through the first page, I coudl tell that it and I weren’t going to get along.
But the first book I didn’t finish was Friday, by Heinlein during his Senile Period. What a liberating feeling to put it down and decide that I was never going to pick it up again! 
It was definitely good for the first third I got through. I think I am staying up too late with TDS/Colbert and not getting to reading the way I should. This is why I can never trust myself with library books; they’re inevitably late as I wait to get really engrossed and power through the book, and sometimes that takes too long.
Back in the early 1970s, I bought a paperback by a science fiction author whose work I had enjoyed before. And let me also say that science fiction runs in my veins, it is my #1 favorite genre.
The book was “Beyond Apollo” by Barry Malzberg. It was praised to high heaven, won, I think, the John Campbell award, and so on.
I got through about 50 pages. It was, to this date, the only book I ever tossed into the trash can.
Others have mentioned Stranger In A Strange Land. As a major fan of Heinlein I’ll say I like parts of it, but as a whole I’m lukewarm.
But there is one small part that is among my favorite scenes in all his work. That’s the scene where Jubal is teaching Ben Caxton how to look at art, especially his description of the symbolism in Rodin’s statues.
As for books I couldn’t finish, Moby Dick is one. And I would have tossed The Pearl, by Steinbeck, if it hadn’t been part of a required school assignment. I hated that story so much I still haven’t read anything else by Steinbeck.
I tried, I really tried with A Tale of Two Cities. It started out so well. I"t was the best of times; it was the worst of times. [yadda yadda yadda]" Sadly, I found from the first two pages it was only the worst of times trying to finish that book. I got about 50 pages into it on several different occasions over the span of a couple of years. Finally, I accepted that I was never going to make my way through it, and I gave up.
I’ve accepted my inner Dickens-disliker, and I’m okay with it now. I did finish The Mystery of Edwin Drood, but I think that’s only because* it*was unfinished.
I highly suggest slogging through another 25 pages of “The Dragonbone Chair”. It is a good book and a good series. He is a pretty good writer. The only complaint I have is that he does get long winded sometimes. If I am in the right mood that can be cool but sometimes I like a little quicker read.
Slee
I actually couldn’t put that one down–I thought it was one of his better ones. 
(The Dark Side of the Sun, now…)
For me, it’s War and Peace. 800 pages and absolutely nothing happens, ever.
That’s okay, A Tale of Two Cities is minor Dickens. Try Oliver Twist, it’s “dense.” 
The only books I recall really wanting to read and giving up on are The Satanic Verses and American Psycho.
I tried to read Exit to Eden in one of those awkward situations where a SO says you simply must read it. I just couldn’t. Fecking boring, and writing at a Harlequin level. Eesh.
That’s my absolute favorite of his books. But one of the very few books I’ve ever started and failed to finish was the first book in his early trilogy - The something-or-other Tapestry. I was never able to sink into it because every other page jolted me into thinking, “Hey, that’s like Tolkein”.
I’m perversely proud to say I read all ten volumes of L. Ron Hubbard’s Mission Earth dungheap. Actually, as I’ve said before, calling it a dungheap is a horribly uncalled for insult of all the fine upstanding dungheaps out there working to provide us with useful, nutritious fertilizer. If dungheaps could excrete, the stuff that came up would be repulsed by Mission Earth. But I made it all the way through, largely motivated by self-hatred and the desire to prove to myself that, yes, it’s THAT bad from the first page to the last.
Me too.
I also like to read the scribblings of random schizophrenics, though.
“Oh my god, the villain’s name is Hisssssst! John D. Rockecenter’s eeeevil conspiracy. Hee hee hee!”
I actually liked a lot of the intrigue/adventure/business machination parts of AS, but I couldn’t make it through the radio speech. I started reading it, got about two pages in, looked ahead to see it ran on for-fucking-ever and skipped it. Since I wasn’t reading it for the Objectivist philosophy lessons (I read it because it only cost me $5 from a book club and I wanted to see if it was as swoony as The Fountainhead) I didn’t really miss it.
I forced myself to finish the first Wheel of Time book because it was a gift from my brother and he’d bugged me for a couple years after he gave it to me to see if I’d read it. But I was bitter and resentful about the time I spent slogging through it and told him in no uncertain terms that I hated it. I felt kinda bad because apparently he really enjoys the series, but I knew it was either speak up or get another fucking volume of it every Christmas for the next ten years.
One that I just couldn’t get through was Susan Faludi’s Stiffed. I’d read the other one of hers about How Bad Things Are For Women (Backlash?) and got the companion piece to find out How Bad Things Are For Men but I just couldn’t stand it. So boring! It’s still sitting at the bottom of a pile of books next to my bed, where it’s been for something like four years.
Give it a shot - Mr. singular and I loved it, and have both read it twice. However ,we both collect butterflies (or did in our healthier days) and are amateur naturalists, and he is a knifemaker, so we have a personal investment in the book a little stronger than many others might. But my other friends that have read it (and share none of those interests) enjoyed it immensely. I just love her writing.
I’ve not been able to get through an of the Flashman series, although hubby adores them. I just found him to be a right bastard, and didn’t care for the prose. It’s not that I can’t enjoy reading about bastards - I loved Confederacy of Dunces, which I expect to show up in this thread soon, and there’s few main characters more obnoxious and repulsive as Ignatious.
For me it was Heinlein’s Time Enough for Love. I like some of Heinlein’s works, especially the older stuff. But this just went on and on. Then it just seemed to bog down into page after page of cloying sexual banter, who was going to sleep with who, and how he could get into a hot tub with two little girls (sisters) or something. I may have that part confused–it’s been a while. I kept coming back to the book with dread rather than anticipation and I finally asked myself “why bother.” (But it did bother me because it was the first book I ever quit on, whether I liked it or not).
The funny thing is I thought **Stranger in a Strange Land ** was *worse * (a bunch of New Age hippy-dippy crapola), but at least it was short. So I finished it.
I’ll see your The Pearl and raise you a Red Pony.
I read, I think, three of those. Again, they were free for me at the bookstore. Egad. I only read as much as I did out of a sort-of train-wreck-fascination.
I was also given a free copy of Battlefield Earth, (from whence sprang the infamous film). I didn’t bother attempting the actual novel, but Hubbards introduction, in which he details precisely what good science-fiction is, was one of the greatest pieces of unintentional comedy ever written.
Kythereia - I’m reading Dark Side Of The Sun now, for the second time. Not because I thought it was so awesome the first time, but because I realized I couldn’t recall even the vaguest detail. We’ll see if I make it all the way through again…
Draelin When the Jordan books were new, I followed along right up until book 4, reading as they were released. When Book 5 came out, I got an advance reading copy from the publisher about three months before it actually hit shelves. After that other things occupied my time and I didn’t get around to book six until long after it had been out in paperback. IIRC, that was more than a two year gap between installments. Turned out I just didn’t care anymore. I have since made it as far as book three twice, once reading and once on Audio. I think I shall no longer attempt.
thwartme
The Fionavar Tapestry. I usually really like GGK, but I had to force myself to get through this trilogy. I hated the characters. I like his one-shot fantastic alternate versions of European history best though, esp. The Lions of Al-Rassan.
I’ve pretty much given up on Robert Jordan. Although, okay, I admit it, if I ever wandered past the newest one in the library, I’d probably check it out. After eleven years and nine (?) books, I’ve put in a lot of energy towards those goddamned books and I do still have the littlest bit of curiosity to see what happens next.
Draelin, Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is actually very good. I do remember the beginning as being awfully slow, but I recommend giving it another shot.
My dad made me read all of Steinbeck’s short stories before I started high school. (I’ve mentioned before he thought LOTR and The Bastard by John Jakes would be great reading for a 1st grader). Though I didn’t love any of them, I didn’t actively dislike any of them but The Pearl, either. I think Cannery Row was my favorite of the bunch. OTOH, that was around the age when I read things like When Rabbit Howls by Truddi Chase for fun…
There’s something I don’t understand about reading: now in my late 20s, my attention span for “boring” writing has sharply decreased compared to what I was able to endure as a teen and in college. Aren’t grown ups supposed to be able to see the worth of reading something despite its wordy prose much more easily than children are? Not me! I should have tried The Wheel of Time or the **Dalemark Quartet ** as a kid, because I probably would have liked them then. Now I don’t consider it worth the time to unravel the thick, self-indulgent, strands of prose that each scene is wound in. Shakespeare was right: brevity is the soul of wit.
Surprisingly, I haven’t abandoned anything I’ve tried to read this year. Over the past five years or so, however, I’ve chucked about 20-25% of books I’ve attempted. There are too many books that might be better and too little time to read.
Examples of things I couldn’t force myself to read:
Couldn’t stand the first one, got through the second one alright, third was so-so. It really is a cheap LOTR knockoff in a lot of places, but it has its moments. I* loved *Tigana and A Song For Arbonne. 
elfkin, which books do you like reading? Most of the ones you mentioned are on my favourites list.
Well, singular1, here is *A Confederacy of Dunces *. Ignatius’s arrogance was actually the best thing about the book. I couldn’t finish it because the plot was so incoherent.
A couple of years ago I tried to read* Gormenghast* and got bored. I recently gave up on English Passengers but will probably try it again. It was starting to get interesting, but was a couple of weeks overdue.
I actually liked Battlefield Earth, in a pulp sci-fi kind of way. I read it (twice) in high school when I used to read a lot of science fiction, long before I knew anything about Scientology or Hubbard’s connection with the cult.
In fact, I liked it enough to try that ten-book series Hubbard wrote (I can’t even remember the title now). Those I gave up on. Got halfway through the first book and never had the slightest inclination to finish it. It was horrible.