Books you have given up on...

Algarveaddick

I have just struggled through 190 pages of Clive Cusslers "Flood Tide", I wanted to finish it, but seeing I still had over 300 pages to go, I couldn't face it.

Just not my kind of thing, I find fight sequences dull in films, in print they are even worse. The writing is fine, and the plot good, but he has managed to stretch ten relevant chapters over ninteen chapters. I did not really care about the hero, and parts of it were even more far fetched than James Bond - I am sure it will make a good adventure film.

In the past I have given up on "A Million Little Pieces" by James Frey - recommended by a friend, but I didn't get it at all, and "Watership Down" as a kid - boring!

Apart from the Bible, what books or authors have people had to give up on?

Friend Or Defoe

i-Robot. I think I made it to chapter 2 before returning it to the library and was quite shocked when it was released as a film a few years afterwards.

WSS

Shantaram. Got into it loads then have left probably about 400 pages for the past two years!

cafctom

A Week In December. I must have re-read the first 100 pages or so about three times in the past two and a half years.

C.Walsh'sLoveChild

Catch 22

SE7toSG3

"A Consise guide to Crystal Palaces identity - updated 2013 edition" by Nigel someone, every time I try they change their badge/colours/nickname and witty songs.

Seriously I have given up on no end of "faction" books about the Great War, Birdsong that sort of thing, despite the reviews I just cant read them if it didnt actually happen.

addick1965

I struggled with Catch 22 as well....Catcher in the Rye was our book of choice in my English Lit class....hated it!!!

DaveMehmet

Escort - Never managed to get more than half a dozen pages in.

cafcdave123

Where’s Wally

Bermuda_red

cafctom said:

A Week In December. I must have re-read the first 100 pages or so about three times in the past two and a half years.

Try again, it's a good book!

LawrieAbrahams

I don't often give up on a book but a couple that I did and then went back to a few years later turned out to be two of my all time favourites - Ulysses and Midnight's Children.

I gave up completely on Voss by Patrick White - just very dull, and Finnegans Wake is unreadable.

Henry Irving

addick1965 said:

I struggled with Catch 22 as well....Catcher in the Rye was our book of choice in my English Lit class....hated it!!!

Agree especially about Catcher. Wanted to stop at page two, struggled on to page five and stopped.

Baldybonce

DaveMehmet said:

Escort - Never managed to get more than half a dozen pages in.

Practice, practice, practice.
When you have one arm like Popeye you'll be ready to move on to something far more sophisticated like Knave.

redcarter

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

Goonerhater

Solsinichen---Cancer Ward

it aint a blast

LawrieAbrahams

Goonerhater said:

Solsinichen---Cancer Ward

it aint a blast

Didn't you guess that from the title?

Goonerhater

was part of a course

cafcfan

In terms of highly regarded authors, rather than usual suspects for holiday reading, by far the worst book I have ever tried to read, was The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch.
Unbelievably, this pile of pretentious poo won the Booker prize. Some twenty years later Murdoch died suffering from Alzheimers. I'd suggest this book indicted some early symptoms of her unfortunate illness.
I did manfully struggle through Jean-Paul Sartre's trilogy, The Roads To Freedom, but I finished it so doesn't count for these purposes!

man_at_milletts

I struggled manfully through The Trial - Franz Kafka. Was bloody hard work.
Will try Letters to Father sometime.

Plumstead_Micky

The Rainbow by D H Lawrence is a struggle!

Jints

WSS said:

Shantaram. Got into it loads then have left probably about 400 pages for the past two years!

You did better than me, I gave up after 200 pages because I hated it and the author so much.

JohnnyJoeyDeeDee

Cloud Atlas and Captain Corelli

ME14addick

redcarter said:

Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall

I gave up on this too - very heavy going.

lordromford

C.Walsh'sLoveChild said:

Catch 22

I get why people give up on Catch-22. I nearly did, but persevered and after struggling through about a third of it, I thought it was brilliant.

I gave up on American Psycho.
It was the endless descriptions of what people were wearing that did for me.
I know it's supposed to be demonstrating how obsessed he is with details and fashion etc, but it's just tedious and the story wasn't good enough to save it IMO.

LawrieAbrahams

lordromford said:

C.Walsh'sLoveChild said:

Catch 22

I get why people give up on Catch-22. I nearly did, but persevered and after struggling through about a third of it, I thought it was brilliant.

I gave up on American Psycho.
It was the endless descriptions of what people were wearing that did for me.
I know it's supposed to be demonstrating how obsessed he is with details and fashion etc, but it's just tedious and the story wasn't good enough to save it IMO.

I did finish American Psycho but thought it was garbage. I heard good reviews of one his later novels, Lunar Park, but that was even worse.

mart77

Ulysses by James Joyce. May give it another go in the summer.

lordromford

mart77 said:

Ulysses by James Joyce. May give it another go in the summer.

I'm inclined to believe that anyone who finishes Ulysses on their first attempt has OCD.
:-D

golfaddick

War & Peace..........no joking. I bought it in a 2nd hand shop years ago but never got past the first few pages.

Stig

Another vote for Catch 22. Also The Epicurus Reader; fantastic forward but the actual text was so dry and inpenetrable.

Greenie

The Battle for Moscow - about how close the goosesteppers got to defeating Russia in WW2. The first half of the book is very good, the second half is so political, its taken me 6 months to get 50 pages further.

suzisausage

There's something about Kevin.

dull.