The Book You Just Can't Finish

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

I don't know about you, but I assume that most everyone has one or two books that they've tried over and over to get into, but they just can't ever finish the book. You want to read it, and you almost know that you'd enjoy it, but for some reason or another, you never get past part way through, and you set it down and then come back to it later, try to start it up again and it just sits there on the shelf like this evil eye that is always watching you...............always watching you, with his thought always trying to find it............it wants to be found..............(**Cough) Sorry.

Anyways, what book is it for you?

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. I've tried, time and time again but I can never get into this book, I want to finish it, b/c I hear such great things, but I have never been able to get past the first 40 pages. Ah well. Cheers.

[Loredoctor]

The Nightland.

It's badly written. Things got worse when the stupid flying tree turned up.

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

I'm not talking just bad books though, I'm talking it's a decent read, or at least you know it can be a decent read, its just that everytime you get into it, you never finish it. A book that you want to finish, but never do, that you'll continually try to get into. Any books like that.

[aTOMiC]

The Left Hand of Darkenss and Dragonflight. Perhaps I will attack them again so that I can withdraw from this discussion with a clear conscience.

[CovenantJr]

Fiz, you have precisely described in alarming detail my experinces with the Lord of the Rings

[FizbansTalking_Hat]

Now that is just amazing. I posted this thread because I have seen it at a few other forums I frequent, so I've seen many answers to this particular quesiton.

James Joyce, Charles Dickens, Shakespeare, but NEVER have I see anyone mention Lord of Rings, or being unable to get through that. Not trying to poke fun or start stuff, just never seen that. Ah well, maybe one of these days, until then, you always have hte movies. Cheers.

[___]

So far, I've completed everything I've started. But dAN had a bad experience trying to read one of the Katheryn Kurtz books because it was part 7 or something....

[Worm of Despite]

In 2002, when I first began reading Lord Foul's Bane, I stopped at about the part where Covenant was about to meet Foamfollower for the first time. Don't know why. Something about it, at the time, bored me, so I stopped reading it for about three months. Then I picked it back up and was totally engrossed.

Recently, I stopped reading War and Peace, and I stopped reading Holy Blood, Holy Grail. I'll eventually pick back up on those later, though.

I don't think I'll ever pick back up on Foundation, though. I like Asimov's writing and his style, but somewhere along the line the actual plot itself bored me. The plot has some great ideas, don't get me wrong, but, personally, it just didn't stick with me as a whole. In a completely unrelated spiel, I find it interesting that Asimov's favorite books to write weren't science fiction books but mystery novels/whodunits.

[danlo]

The only two books, well one is a novella, in my Sci-Fi/Fantasy library that I want to finish are The River of Blue Fire (the second book in Tad William's Otherland series) and Daughter of Regals. I've complained about Daughter in the "Other Works of SRD" forum before--I get somewhere between a third to halfway done and then it just loses me--I've tried it twice, but maybe the third time is the charm...I have been encouraged by other Watchers to give it one last go.

I don't know what it is about River of Blue Fire. Maybe Michael Whelan's cover is so beautiful that I just take it out to stare at it! Williams does throw so much info at you that the Otherland series needs to be taken in measured doses..maybe that's it...

[MsMary]

The Color of Magic, by Terry Pratchett. I don't know why. It's not that it's a bad book. My kids both read it and went on to race through many other Pratchett books. I just can't seem to finish it, for some reason.

I decided to drop it and try Small Gods, instead. I am making my way through it very slowly, but that's only because I've been carrying it around with me and reading snippets of it while I am waiting for something else to happen.

[matrixman]

I began reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon in earnest a couple of years ago, but my enthusiasm waned after the first few chapters. I think I became a bit exasperated by all the Christianity vs. Paganism debate that informed much of the characters' dialogue. After putting the book down for a little while, I restarted but soon stopped again. I wish the story would just get moving. I may yet come back to the book. Or not.

[Byrn]

I have the Same Issue with Mists. The last time I tried to read it was nearly 10 years ago. The thing is, I'm a huge Arthur freak. I've read the books by Stewart and Lawhead and the Once and Future King. I've even read Le Morte De Artur. I just can't get into Mists of Avalon.

[[Syl]]

Joyce, Dickens, Faulkner, and %90 of Stephen King.

[danlo]

I was forced to read Dickens and Joyce in HS...Dubliners almost made me puke! Fortunately The Great Gatsby (which wasn't half bad) was all the Faulkner I had to brave...

[aliantha]

I had to start The Brothers Karamazov three times, I think, before I could get past the first 40-50 pages. All those nicknames for the same people! I just couldn't keep 'em straight in my head.

There was a book awhile back by Anita Brookner, I think, that I got for free -- started it, was disgusted by the banality of the first chapter, quit reading, and gave the book away.

There's a book I bailed out on just recently -- something about Stonehenge and other ancient structures in the UK, by a professor at Oxford, I think. He went into excruciating detail about the lines of sight and right angles and angles of inclination, etc., of each site, and how it was clear (to him at least!) that the structures' location was deliberate, so that a viewer could stand in specific locations and see particular stars rise over the structure. So okay, that's a cool fact. I got it. I'm convinced Why don't you just give me a chart, then, and we can skip the rest of the book?

[dlbpharmd]

Here's another vote for LOTR and The Hobbitt. Tolkien drives me absolutely insane with detail! I've tried to read Hobbit twice and FOTR once and I just can't do it. Love the movies though.

I also read alot of military history...I couldn't get through We Were Soldiers Once...and Young by Hal Moore. But the movie is one of my favorite war movies of all time.

It took me several tries to get through Dune by Frank Herbert. Now that I have read it through once, I can't re-read it.

[Worm of Despite]

Yeah, I hardly ever re-read something. Only book I've ever re-read is Catcher in the Rye. I read Lord of the Rings when I was 16 or so. Feels so long ago. I need to re-read it. I missed so much in the first read.

And yeah, Lord of the Rings took some getting used to, but I found finishing it well worth the effort. And if you think Lord of the Ring is heavy, don't touch the Simarillion with a ten foot elf!

I’ve read all six Dune books, and I must say that For Whom the Bell Tolls is very similar in pace with Lord of the Rings and Dune. I seem to like those kind of plodding books, I guess.

[[Syl]]

Fortunately The Great Gatsby (which wasn't half bad) was all the Faulkner I had to brave...

That might have something to do with the fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote it.

[The Leper Fairy]

Ruby in the Smoke (or something like that, maybe?) by Phillip Pulman (I think?) I know it'd be good because it's by him... but I just can't do it.

And CovJr, I totally agree with you about LotR... I ended up just skipping around to bits with Frodo in them.

[CovenantJr]

%90 of Stephen King.

Yes.