Name an author that you just can't get into

[JitterbugPerfume]

I'll start

Virginia Woolfe .
I tried to read To The Lighthouse but I just could not finish it.

[Botany]

1. The Bible and it's many authors

[sharp_stick]

3. That's not an author

it's a series of guys with serious mental issues.

[On the Road]

40. You Have to Read the Good Parts!

Try the Book of Judges.

[Coyote_Bandit]

2. Ann Rynd n/t

[JitterbugPerfume]

9. when I was about 12 or 13

my older sister practically forced me to read Atlas Shrugged because she thought it was so cultural.
SHE was a major pain in the ass back then.
It scarred me for life it was so bad!

[Coyote_Bandit]

30. I used to know a couple

that read and re-read and discussed Atlas Shrugged at length. Eventually they were no longer a couple. And I inherited their well marked and commented copy of Atlas Shrugged. Try as I might I could never get past page 40.

That book is still around here somewhere. Next time I come across it I think I will donate it to the local recycler....

[JitterbugPerfume]

35. burn it

It is toxic

[Salviati]

93. Well you know what they say about Rand...

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs"

[MindPilot]

4. Ann Coulter

[JitterbugPerfume]

13. she is a hack

I barely consider her an author. She is more of a propagandiast(sp) ? my spell check isn't working

[Ezlivin]

5. David Foster Wallace

I tried to read "Infinite Jest" three times before abandoning any further efforts. I made it a little farther into the book each time, but never make it into the last couple of hundred pages (it's 1088 pages long).

It seemed like it could be really brilliant, but it was just so damned packed with minutiae that it wore me out.

[amitten]

12. Same.

That book is best used as a doorstop.

[JitterbugPerfume]

15. I couldn't finish it either

[Richardo]

18. His use of unexplained abbreviations infuriated me.

On the other hand, I enjoyed his collection of essays: "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again"

[Hello_Kitty]

6. Ayn Rand. Got through 5 paragraphs of Atlas Shrugged and threw it across the room.

I don't know how anyone managed to slog through it. She sucked.

[non sociopath skin]

82. I did. Found it fascinatingly awful ...

... though I resent the two weeks reading time I spent on it.

Won't be reading any more of her.

The Skin

[LeftishBrit]

86. I haven't tried, but I suspect I'd feel the same!

[sharp_stick]

7. Sue Monk

I'll skip the obvious ones that I'd never bother to read like Coulter and the rest of the noise machine. T

he Secret Life of Bees just bored me to tears. I know it's kind of chick lit and that should have warned me away but I tried a couple of times to get through it and just couldn't make it.

[JitterbugPerfume]

17. I haven't read that one

[Cronus Protagonist]

8. William Rivers Pitt

Can't stand a single thing he writes. He bloviates for 200 words before you even get a hint of a point!

[mitchum]

63. I will join you in that heresy

It always reads like some transcribed oratory from the fucking 19th century

[kestrel91316]

10. Geoffrey Chaucer. And I'm supposedly descended from him.

And STILL can't get interested. I guess it's that Middle English thing.

Shakespeare, too.

[JitterbugPerfume]

19. Chaucer --I can't get past the Middle English thing either

but I love Shakespeare when it is performed . Reading it is a task though.

[sakabatou]

11. Those guys who wrote the "Left Behind" series

[JitterbugPerfume]

21. yuck!

My sister read those. They were on her bedside table --that is how I know!

[drmeow]

14. I agree with you about Woolf

I tried to read A Room of One's Own and also couldn't finish it. What I said about it:

"The author of the introduction to this volume writes, "... A Room of One's Own evinces a tone many readers find whimsically playful, others cloyingly coy or frustratingly evasive." Count me among the "others" and add boring."

[Richardo]

16. Norman Mailer

[JitterbugPerfume]

25. I find Mailer so-so

I much prefer his friend Gore Vidal

[DemoTex]

44. Have you read "Oswald's Tale" (Lee Harvey Oswald)

Or "The Executioner's Song" (Gary Gilmore)? Some of Mailer is difficult, but not those two. Excellent quasi-historical reads.

[Warpy]

20. Tom Clancy

Somebody left a copy of "Patriot Games" and it was a dull shift so I started it. Within the first five pages, the fearless hero had taken on a gang of IRA thugs unarmed and saved part of the royal family from kidnapping or death.

It went across the lounge propelled by curses.

I have also never been able to get past page four of any romance novel.

[JitterbugPerfume]

22. Does Tom Clancy even write his own stuff?

he seems to follow a predictible formula

I loved romance novels when I was very young

[tularetom]

23. I'll second that. Also Stephen King and John Grisham

excellent cures for insomnia IMO.

[RebelOne]

50. No way!! Two of the best authors ever in my opinion. n/t

[Dulcinea]

76. Tom Clancy bores me to tears.

All those long explanations of how the submarine works or whatever...whoTF cares? Tell me what people are doing!

[DURHAM D]

24. Anne Rice. n/t

[JitterbugPerfume]

26. I liked Interview With a Vampire

but some of her later stuff was really crap

[Sequoia]

58. And, The Vampire Lestat

Queen of the Damned, but after that no. Especially not now.

[Umbral]

27. Jane Austen

There is a copy of Sense and Sensibility - battered, torn, and sepia toned, sitting on my desk; it remains there half-read and unloved, like a spinster wooed lightly in cool springtime but discarded when the summer sun shown her true visage plain.

[JitterbugPerfume]

29. she literally puts me to sleep

I can't even watch her stuff on Masterpiece Theater , and I love Masterpiece Theater!

[Richardo]

31. We're in good company - Mark Twain couldn't stand her either

:hi:

[JitterbugPerfume]

33. Mark Twain rocks!

:hi:

[litlady]

53. I Love Jane Austen! Read all her books, watched all the adaptations! nt

[Sal Minella]

38. And now, Dear Writer, may I praise your judgment, genteel wit, and ear for pretentiousness.

[Captain Hilts]

67. S&S isn't a good one to start on. Try Persuasion. nt

[JitterbugPerfume]

28. I find James Joyce impossible to get into

[litlady]

54. I agree here - have only finished two of his books.

I can't read Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. A Portrait of the Artist... and Dubliners were okay.

[Captain Hilts]

68. Same here. nt

[deepthought42]

91. After having to read Ulysses for a class...

I agree. UG.

[provis99]

32. Scooter Libby.

I never could get past the scatological and pedophilia/bestiality scenesin "The Apprentice".

[JitterbugPerfume]

34. he is a pornographer

from what I hear he is a

disgusting sexually repressed Republican!

[juno jones]

36. John Barth

My english major roomate had a couple of his books around the apartment years ago. I was bored one day and picked one up... I put it back down about 4 pages later and went to the bookstore. They were required reading for some class she was takiing at the time. I probably would have used cliff's notes or flunked because it was, to me unreadable.

F. Scott Fitzgerald bores the crap out of me, but I've been able to plow thru when needed.

[JitterbugPerfume]

37. J Barth is a new one to me

and F Scott Fitzgerald leaves me cold . So does Hemingway

[mitchum]

64. Pretentious postmodern junk; it is absolute shit

and that's coming from an english major

[leftyladyfrommo]

71. I just read some Barth short stories.

Strange writing style. But his endings were incredible. Talk about a twist that you don't see coming.

[applegrove]

39. Stephen King. I hate horror.

[JitterbugPerfume]

41. ~~~

:hi: :hide: :scared:

[azmouse]

42. Henry James

He bored me to tears.

[JitterbugPerfume]

43. a real snooze!

[DemoTex]

45. James A. Michener ("Caravans" excepted).

Although "Caravans" was stilted and pushed in it's own problematic style. Michener represents, to me, publishing quantity in place of literary quality.

[JitterbugPerfume]

46. I have never read Mitchner

which I guess is unusual for someone (ahem) my age

[Richardo]

47. I read 'The Source' and enjoyed it a lot

But not enough that I've read anything else by him.

[Dulcinea]

77. I love Michener's novels.

But I like historical fiction, and he always had good female characters.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

80. I wish he didn't feel compelled to beginning every book with primordial slime.

At least that's how it seems. Hundreds of pages of volcanoes, earth's heaving crust, etc. before humans finally enter.

[Onceuponalife]

48. Philip Roth

I'm still wondering how American Pastoral won the Pulitzer. I'll try again with The Plot Against America, though.

Also Connie Willis. Couldn't get through the first page of Doomsday Book without trying to tear my eyes out.

[MrCoffee]

49. My first thought was Tom Robbins, *before* I saw the OP's name

MrsCoffee adores Tom Robbins, me, not so much.

[JitterbugPerfume]

51. ```

:hi: :rofl:

's ok! Actually he is a bit strange

[litlady]

52. Hemingway ...

Tried to like him as a literature major in college but just couldn't. No matter how many times I was told Sun Also Rises is a classic, I could barely get through it. Don't like his short stories either. Had to do Farewell to Arms for my written exam (graduate degree) and fell asleep many times.

Only thing I like about him are the cats.

[JitterbugPerfume]

55. I could never finish any of his books either

but I agree about the cats.

[HamdenRice]

57. I adore Hemingway

but for his short stories. I think he's the greatest short story writer of the last century. His stories are exemplars of technical perfection.

[YankeyMCC]

56. John Updike

I tried twice, just couldn't get into his story telling.

[Idealism]

59. Stuart Woods.

Simpleton.

[leftyladyfrommo]

73. His books aren't very good but they are NYT best sellers.

I e-mailed him about something once and his reply was something only a real jerk would have sent.

[pscot]

60. Isabel Allende

I tried very hard with House of the Spirits. I got almost half way through. Then one day I put it down and never went back to it.

[XemaSab]

95. Read Zorro

It's a great book. :D

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

61. 2: William Faulkner and Samuel Beckett

And I tried, I really tried.

[mitchum]

62. Pynchon

[gratefultobelib]

65. Shakespeare

[Sheepshank]

66. Tried twice

to get passed the first 20% of Rushdie's Satanic Verses....hated every single word.
Chaucer's a tough read.
Don't generally do too well with Hemmingway either.

[BlueIris]

69. Augusten Burroughs. See also: David Sedaris.

Blech.

[leftyladyfrommo]

72. I thin David Sedaris is hysterical. n/t

[Forkboy]

70. Tolstoy. No lie, I've tried War and Peace 3 or 4 times now and just can't do it.

Usually though, if I don't like an author they only get one chance. I'm harsh like that. :)

[mentalsolstice]

74. Lynne Cheney

I've never picked up a book of hers, but I just know in my heart I couldn't read past page one. :puke:

[Captain Hilts]

89. Not even her sapphic literature about the Old West???

[Mad_Dem_X]

75. Danielle Steel.

I've read two of her books (or tried to), and they were just so dull and repetitive I said, Never again.

[Dulcinea]

78. John Irving.

I couldn't finish "The World According to Garp." Depressing, & he badly needs an editor. Too wordy.

[spindrifter]

79. Jane Austen.

I've tried to read several of her books and cannot stand them.

[non sociopath skin]

81. I'll go with that.

Managed to get through "Orlando" but can't get anywheres with the others.

The Skin

[madaboutharry]

83. Ann Rice

I read to the end only one book of hers: The Witching Hour. I thought it was fantastic.

I have not been able to finish one other book of hers, no matter how hard I tried. She loses me after about 100 pages.

[TheCentepedeShoes]

84. Dick Francis

I read A LOT of mysteries and someone a long while back suggested him
Tried a couple but just could not get into them

[LeftishBrit]

85. D.H. Lawrence

Joseph Conrad; though admittedly I've only tried two of his books.

[Moondog]

87. Charles Dickens.

[proteus_lives]

88. Anne Rice.

I like vampire novels but her writing is just blech.

[Captain Hilts]

90. Annie Proulx. I really disliked The Shipping News. Read the whole thing.

It just didn't work for me.

[saltpoint]

92. George Eliot. I slipped into a coma a half dozen pages into SILAS MARNER.

Didn't wake up until the Beatles.

[XemaSab]

96. I've never been able to get more than halfway through Middlemarch

The worst part? I'm named after ol' Dorothea. :banghead:

[Broken_Hero]

94. Robert Jordan, Dean Koontz

hmm, thats about it...I've tried to read Jordans Wheel of Time a few times, the first book(can't recall the name), I read the first 100 pages 3 times, and could never get past the 100th page...I'd put the book back on the shelf, and try again a few months later, I'd hit page 100 again, and just quit....

I did the same thing with Koontz, but I'd usually give up around page 70 or so. I hardly ever give up on a book, but I've given up on one Jordan book, and three of Koontz's.