Books Started But Never Finished Reading

[Xyzse]

So yes, I made a simple six word story as my thread title. I actually like "Books Started but Never Finished" better, which is a five word story in itself.

Any how, I'll fess up to some books that I started but never finished.

Infinite Jest - David Foster Wallace: I never finished this because of the drug references and that type of culture. After reading a little over a hundred pages, I just got tired of it as I can't seem to relate.

Kalevala - Old Finnish Folktale: I seriously wanted to read this, especially since I got so in to this movie called Jade Warrior, which connected Asia/Old China to Finland. It is compiled by Elias Lonrot from Finnish and Karelian oral folklore. It confused the hell out of me because of the names of the characters. Imagine names like Vainamoinen, Lemminkainen and others with names like that. It is in verse format, and trying to remember names forced me to read each verse, over and over again. So I would read one verse, and then another, then back to the first verse to the second just to read the third. After 80 something pages of having to read over and over again just to understand what is going on, some new cheeseburger fiction came along which I finished in about 2 hours, and I never got back to this.

Ulysses - James Joyce: I got up to ten pages before losing focus and never picking it back up. Ok, I did, a few times, but didn't go any further.

[bluedigger]

1. War and Peace, the Bible...

[Xyzse]

4. I actually finished those two

Oddly enough.

[bluedigger]

7. Sure you did, you with your fancy end of the alphabet moniker, you.

[Xyzse]

8. LOL...

Bible I read out of sheer contrariness. I also wanted to shut up a Priest.

War and Peace, I read because I thought I was supposed to.

[Wounded Bear]

2. Ulysses is on my list, too....

Most of Ayn Rand's works are on my list. I'm pretty sure I finished one of her shorter works, but Atlas? Nope. I tried several of her books.

[Xyzse]

5. Never read anything from her

Just didn't see the point.

[mokawanis]

3. Infinite Jest

Could not finish that one. I like Wallace's writing but that book just didn't work for me. I gave up after reading 150 pages or so.

Another one - Angela's Ashes. Got so fucking bored with it I quit somewhere around page 50.

[Xyzse]

6. That's how I felt with Infinite Jest

I don't believe I've read Angela's Ashes.

[First Speaker]

9. Moby Dick...

...snooze. And Proust, and Cervantes...oh, and let's not forget *The Brothers Karamazov*...much as we might want to...

[Xyzse]

17. Proust and Cervantes, I've never read

I may have to try them. As for Moby Dick, I don't think the children's version counts, so I failed that one.

[RudynJack]

25. Every 5 years or so I get a bug that

I have to finally read Moby Dick. I get about 4 sentences in (which is half of a normal book) and give up.

[Aristus]

10. Perennial toughy: Gravity's Rainbow.

It was a murderous slog, and I only got about halfway through it.

In the mass-market popular fiction category: Empire Of The Eagle, by Andre Norton and Susan Shwartz. I got it because I'm a nut on Ancient Rome, and thought it would be a breeze. But I've started it three times now, and have never gotten further than halfway through it.

[winter is coming]

11. Ringworld.

For me, Niven's writing tends to be very engaging for 60 pages, then very boring for 60 pages. I quit reading with 30 pages left to go because I just couldn't plod through another "slow" section.

Also, whatever library book I've got now. Don't remember the title, but I won't be finishing it. It's not bad, it's just that no one in the book seems alive/real.

[mimi85]

12. Fifty Shades of Grey

Ok, confession time. I thought a good horizontal mambo read might be fun and my husband would be appreciative, cough, cough. Worst writing EVER! Didn't make it half way through Volume 1. Turns out the story was lifted almost word for word from some online fan fiction about Twilight, the teeny bopper vampire flicks.

I still am astounded that the book became so popular. It must say something about sex in America these days, but I have no clue what that might be.

[Xyzse]

18. But, IT WAS a teeny bopper fanfic of Twilight

The author was the writer of those fan fics and just placed it in to book form.

It is an awful book that I breezed through since my female best friend asked me to read it.

[mainer]

26. Ditto. Worst writing ever.

There's some really well-written erotic fiction out there. Why did this one hit it big? No idea.

[olddots]

13. The Man Who Dreamed Of Tomorrow

a conceptual biography of Wilhelm Reich it cost me 30 bucks so I'm going to finish some day but it's almost as tough as Ulysses

[tanyev]

14. Atlas Shrugged--the Cliff Notes

[avebury]

15. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The first one that comes to mind. I know there are others.

[sharp_stick]

16. House of Leaves

by Mark Danielewski.

I was told that it was an incredibly scary story put together on the internet and made even greater by time.

I slogged about half way through it and thought it worked better as a sleep aid than novel.

I rarely quit reading books but I didn't like any of the characters and really couldn't care less about what happened to them.

[Chan790]

19. I'm befuddled.

I never read Kalevala but Ulysses and Infinite Jest are favorites.

My three books I've never finished are:

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust. I love Proust. I love his style. I love his snarky commentary that goes over most people's heads. I do not love his verboseness...his master-work is a shade under 3000 pages and that's only because he dropped dead. He'd have written another 1000 pages easily if he'd lived.

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. The problem here is simple. I don't own it, I check it out of the library. I get a good chunk in, then I have to return it...it's on wait-list because I live someplace people actually read books...when I get it back, I've forgotten so much that I have to start over. I've even kept notebooks and still had to start over. It's confusing like your issues with Kalevala...too many names, plots to keep straight.

Harry Potter (Any of them.) by J.K. Rowling. I respect Rowling deeply as a writer, both for the struggle she had to go through before success and for cultivating a talent that did not initially come to her easily. I know she's a good writer. I love that she gets kids to read. All that said: I hate her books. I hate her characters. I love her imagination. I hate how she applies it. I find her plot-arc trite. I'd love to see what she could do if she set out to write a non-children's literary novel. I find her worldview intriguing.

[Xyzse]

20. Nice, I just couldn't get past it for some reason.

I may have to try In Search of Lost Time.

Kalevala just has confusing names and many times just refers to people as what they are. So it becomes "Blacksmith's Daughter", Daughter of Something or another.

I'll probably try Ulysses again, once I finish studying for a new license. There is no reason for me not to be able to finish it.

[Captain Stern]

21. Absalom. Absalom!

Ulysses

The Da Vinci Code (probably because I'd already read Holy Blood, Holy Grail)

Robert Jordan's "The Wheel Of Time" (not really just one book, but a series) I'll usually finish a series, even if it starts going downhill...but this one got so bad it lost me.

The Koran (of course, I was reading and English translation. My understanding is that to really appreciate it, you have to read it in Arabic)

[Xyzse]

22. I've heard of Absalom but never tackled it

Wheel of Time series I finished. I had to give the author some respect. His last book released before his death, he was pretty much delirious with his meds, and I am impressed with what he was able to pull off. He wrote so much before he died in regards to notes for his final book was turned in to three and finished by another author.

I can only wish G.R.R. Martin was more like Robert Jordan who focused himself.

[Captain Stern]

23. Plenty of respect for Jordan here,

I appreciate what he was going through, but I think it was the 8th and 9th books that finished me off. I understand the series finished well, so I'll probably go ahead and start it over, and finish it.

I'd told myself that I wouldn't start Martin's 'A Song of Fire & Ice' until the whole series was finished. But of course, after watching the TV series, I had to go ahead and read the books......so now I guess I'll wait years for book six.

[Xyzse]

27. Song of Fire & Ice ticks me off

I don't even want to read it any more, but I probably will.
I actually like the show more than the books at this point.

[hobbit709]

24. Anything by Ayn Rand.

[Xyzse]

28. Definitely not even going to try that one.