When I was a teenager I read the Lord of the Rings trilogy all the way to the middle of the third volume, got bored, and quit. Nobody could believe I never finished it. Then, when the movies were due to come out, I decided to try again. I stuck with all the "over hills and over dales" and found I liked it -- but that was 30-some years later!
When I was in the Peace Corps in Brazil, on a small boat on the Amazon river, I was so depressed by a Joyce Carol Oates book I had started that I threw it overboard. I've been happy to think of it over the years, long since disintegrated or eaten.
"There's no accounting for taste."
