Books People Can't Finish

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

My knowledge of her work is all second hand.

She does seem to appeal primarily to American readers. I don't recall ever even seeing one of her books in the bookshop here in the UK.

[pagansoul]

I read the HOBBIT in high school. Just before the movies came out I read all 3 LOTR books with no trouble at all but when I attempted to read the Harry Potter books I didn't get pass chapter 3 of the first book. I have all of them waiting in my 'to be read' and have seen all the movies. I assume I will get back to book 1 some day and on to the next.

[Anthem]

Interesting. Of those 5 least finished books I have read Catch-22, LOTR, Moby Dick, and Atlas Shrugged to completion. (My ratings would be: 5, 10, 8, 7, in listed order!)

A book that I can't seem to finish is Brave Story by Miyuki Miyabe. I just can't seem to do it. And it took me like a year to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (but the actual Pride and Prejudice was a decent read and I finished it in usual times).

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I always finish books. Maybe not immediately, I might pick them up later and continue, but I will always finish them.

I finished 1984 about 23 years after I started... does that count?

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

I tried one of the Harry Potter books but stories about wizards and magic are just a turn-off for me, so while they might be very good, well-written books, they just aren't to my taste.

They are not.

Particularly as she gets toward the end and seemed to have rushed into publication, her writing gets worse, though for a fantasy fan, the premise and the story in and of itself is enjoyable.




When I first read Hobbit, I absolutely devoured it... I was a child, then. After reading LotR, however, I can't really enjoy Hobbit anymore-- I want to read it in the same style as the later books, not as a YA novel.

[Katsunami]

After thinking about it some more, I did hit a snag with Lord of the Rings when picking it up the first time in 1999.

I was playing city-building games such as Caesar and Simcity (and adventures before that), but one of my fellow students suggested I'd try Baldur's Gate. My first RPG ever. I loved it, and it got me hooked on the Forgotten Realms and Fantasy forever.

He also told me:
"It (Dungeons and Dragons/Forgotten Realms) is based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings."
- "Uh. What? Who?"

He freaked out and told me I should read it NOW! because it was SO! EPIC!. Thus, I started reading... and thought it epic indeed. Epic Slowness. Is SOMETHING going to happen?! WTF!! I put the book away until the next day.

When I picked it up again, I skipped forward, and landed in the middle of the Weathertop fight, and somewhat further read of the flight toward the bridge of Khazad-dum.

Damn. That WAS epic. So I restarted the book, and read the entire trilogy back to back, then read the appendices, and The Silmarillion. Now, almost 15 years later, I'm still re-reading

[sakura-panda]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Thank you. I know that standards of literacy are falling, but I was rather hoping that a book publisher would know that there are two "N"s in the word "Millennium".

I apparently have no idea how to spell it and I listened to the books, so don't have the visual memory of it. I should have checked. Sorry.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by sakura-panda

I apparently have no idea how to spell it and I listened to the books, so don't have the visual memory of it. I should have checked. Sorry.

It's a word that an AWFUL lot of people spell wrongly. I have no idea why. So don't feel too bad about it . Eg Google has 32 million hits on the correct spelling of the word with 2 "N"s, and 16 million on the wrong spelling with 1 "N".

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by pagansoul

...but when I attempted to read the Harry Potter books I didn't get pass chapter 3 of the first book. I have all of them waiting in my 'to be read' and have seen all the movies. I assume I will get back to book 1 some day and on to the next.

Originally Posted by soulfuldog

I tried one of the Harry Potter books but stories about wizards and magic are just a turn-off for me, so while they might be very good, well-written books, they just aren't to my taste.

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

They are not.

Particularly as she gets toward the end and seemed to have rushed into publication, her writing gets worse, though for a fantasy fan, the premise and the story in and of itself is enjoyable.

The Harry Potter books are fantastic! You guys should really give them another go.

[LovesMacs]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

All the hatred for Ayn Rand makes me even more curious to read her work; someone who inspires such vehement opinions must be doing something right.

I enjoyed reading Atlas Shrugged quite a lot, because I found it thought-provoking and liked the author's very visual descriptions.

The book isn't a perfect work by any means. Without spoiling the plot, it becomes all too obvious which characters the author despises and which ones she admires. The protagonists are invariably described as handsome/beautiful, strong, intelligent, etc. while the antagonists are all weak, cowardly and so on. Despite the flaws in characterization, I found the story and premise compelling enough to keep reading...and I should mention that my politics are rather different from Rand's.

I encourage you to try reading Atlas Shrugged, at the very least just to find out what the fuss is all about.

[Dngrsone]

Originally Posted by Gazella

The Harry Potter books are fantastic! You guys should really give them another go.

I've given them a go at least three times. Read the whole series all the way through. The writing doesn't get better, I get annoyed at simple grammatical errors ten pages in...

Don't get me wrong: I liked the story, I just wish she'd had a couple extra proof-readers between her word-processor and the book dispenser.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

The writing doesn't get better, I get annoyed at simple grammatical errors ten pages in...

I'm normally a nit-picker for errors in spelling and grammar, but nothing struck me as wrong in that department with the HP books. Can you give an example?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm really surprised that so many people abandon LOTR. It's one of my most read books. I re-read it every few years, and always get something new from the experience. Wonderful, wonderful book.

Originally Posted by Gazella

I read The Hobbit last year for the first time and loved it. And like you, I would've bought the LOTR because I thought if I enjoyed The Hobbit I would definitely enjoy the LOTR as well. But then I started reading all those reviews from people who have read The Hobbit but were disappointed with the LOTR books as they found them very long and dull. So that's basically holding me back which I know isn't a good enough reason and I should try reading the book. Maybe one day.

Originally Posted by Dngrsone

While we are banging on LotR, I completely failed at trying to read the Silmarillion. Twice.

Originally Posted by Hitch

(Only slightly less annoying than the hundred or so pages wasted on Tom Bombadil, in Fellowship.)

I agree with Harry on this one. LoTR is wonderful. I'd urge anyone who enjoyed The Hobbit to give it a go, but bear in mind that it's not really written in the same style at all.

The Silmarillion is another thing altogether - much more like the LoTR's appendices than a novel. Only for those who really want to read more about the first and second ages.

Tom Bombadil is interesting. I didn't like him at all at first, but over the years he's grown on me a lot, and I now wouldn't be without the bit in the old forest.

Originally Posted by Synamon

Wicked was terrible and I should have abandoned it, but I'd seen the musical and thought it might fill in the blanks.

I agree with this. I saw the musical and liked it. The book was poor in comparison.

[Xanthe]

Ivanhoe and The Iliad are the two that I would love to actually read but get bogged down in every time I attempt them.

I used to belong to a forum back in the day called "The Wall" IIRC, where you would figuratively throw books you couldn't stand at the wall and review them.

There are a lot of books that I can't finish, mainly books with heroines who are too stupid to live (or too annoying to be around) or heroes who are totally scarred by the deaths of their partners for which they blame themselves. Or books about middle-aged women whose husbands have divorced them unexpectedly and now find love with a younger man. Or poor Irish maidservants at the turn of the 20th century who become matriarchs of a dysfunctional clan. Or mysteries in which whodunit is telegraphed by easy process of elimination. Or books in which a whole chapter is devoted to a sex scene for no plot-driven purpose (I'm looking at you, Laurell K. Hamilton). Or "important" books that are supposed to make me reflect upon the human condition by portraying lives of people that I wouldn't like if I knew them in real life. Or books that are so excessively footnoted to the point that the author has managed to destroy any interest that I might have had in the topic because the rhythm of the books is constantly broken up by them.

[simplyparticular]

Big involved books or series don't scare me. I've got plenty under my belt, although I am less likely to jump in than I was earlier because my reading time doesn't support long chunks, which is what I prefer for these kind of works.

Catch-22 - haven't tried this one. Not sure why.

Atlas Shrugged - tried to read this and The Fountainhead as either were a requirement for a university honors application essay. I didn't end up applying to that university.

Ulysses - I've read excerpts for academic work. And read Portrait of an Artist as Young Man for high school. I didn't hate them, but didn't love them enough to read the whole Ulysses.

The Lord of the Rings - I tried to read the first title both before and after I saw the movie. I did finally make it through TTT on the second try, but was not motivated enough to continue onward. I did read The Hobbit over the holidays last year and enjoyed it, but I'm waiting for the movies to finish before I watch them. I haven't ruled out trying TLOR again, but it's not anywhere near a priority.

The Casual Vacancy - haven't read it yet, but it's on my TBR pile for when I can focus a decent amount of time on it.

Fifty Shades of Grey - I read it when it was still fan fiction, and read what is probably book 1 and most of book 2. I didn't care enough about the characters to finish, and still don't really understand how it made it so big, when there are plenty of more talented erotica authors out there.

Eat Pray Love - slogged through Eat and Pray, but couldn't stomach anymore of the author's navel-gazing by the third section. Overall, I've discovered a real disconnect with blogger's books, so they are off my list.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - read the first book. Although many say the trilogy was written to expose horrible treatment of women, my personal view is that it was written or translated in a way that glorifies that treatment for entertainment, rather than serving as an expose. It's also hideously unrealistic for Lisbeth to be as amazing as she is after the sheer overwhelming amount of abuse she has suffered, and serves as a lousy example victim for non-abused people to reference. I refuse to purchase or read the next two books.

Wicked - read it, and the sequel and a few early Maguire books, well before the musical. I enjoyed the fractured fairy tale genre at the time, but I'm not sure if I got over the genre, or if I got bored of his formula.

[DrNefario]

The one book I can think of that has so far defeated me is Don Quixote, another mammoth classic. I bought it in around 1994, when I was buying a lot of generously-proportioned cheap classics to try to feed my reading habit cheaply. That's also when I bought and read War and Peace, The Three Musketeers, and some of the Sherlock Holmes books, all as Wordsworth Classics for £1 each. I just couldn't get started on Don Quixote, though. I don't really even know why. I think it was the size of it, coupled with the narrative tone. I didn't think I could face a whole book in that style.

I kept hold of the paperback until very recently, when I finally donated it to charity. If I ever decide to make another attempt, I'm sure I can get a free ebook version.