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Post by HalcyonDaze on Aug 19, 2014 21:11:53 GMT -5
Spinning off from the other thread, a place to note books we gave up on. It could be that it was us, not the book, and we just met at the wrong time. Or it could be that the book was shallow, poorly written or with characters we just didn't like. Or maybe we'd seen the movie first and it was better. For whatever reason, some books just can't be finished Share them here, and have fun defending your favourite if it ends up being on someone's abandoned list.
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Post by Tulipana on Aug 20, 2014 2:23:34 GMT -5
LMAO! The 'I am just not that into this book' thread :-)
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Post by sophie on Aug 20, 2014 10:00:23 GMT -5
For me, it is anything by Joyce carol Oates. I can't seem to finish any book by her, I have started..maybe 8?
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Post by lillielangtry on Aug 20, 2014 12:04:10 GMT -5
That's a lot, sophie!
One that springs to mind for me is Orhan Pamuk's Snow. I really WANT to like this and it sounds like the kind of thing I would like, but I just couldn't get through it.
I really like the sound of his "Museum of Innocence" as well, but then I remember Snow...
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Post by Webs on Aug 20, 2014 14:35:28 GMT -5
I picked up a hard copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell because it was $1.99. I couldn't read it because I couldn't hold it in my lap nor could I carry it back and forth to work to read on my commute.
Years later I got a Kindle version for $.99. I read about 2/3 through and finally decided to stop because I just couldn't figure out what the hell was going on anymore and I really didn't care.
____________________________________________________________________________________
More recently, I'm trying to figure out how anyone got through all of Wolf Hall without going into a coma. I should have used that to help cure my insomnia.
Booker prize or no, that was a snorefest.
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sadiep
Eating Figjam
Posts: 834
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Post by sadiep on Aug 20, 2014 14:55:20 GMT -5
12 Years a Slave
Wolf Hall
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Post by Tulipana on Aug 20, 2014 15:31:15 GMT -5
Oooh Sadiep... I was just discussing in the other thread whetjer to abandon 12 years a slave or not. I just cannot get into it!!
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sadiep
Eating Figjam
Posts: 834
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Post by sadiep on Aug 20, 2014 16:03:56 GMT -5
I really wanted to like it, Tulip. But I couldn't get into the writing style.
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Post by Liiisa on Aug 20, 2014 19:20:35 GMT -5
Lillie, while I like Pamuk and did finish "Museum of Innocence," I found it exasperating. But it could be that I had had enough of novels about men obsessing over mysterious, alluring women... The whole time I kept thinking "oh get OVER it ffs."
But I digress. Like I said in the oher thread, "Moby-Dick," "Consider Phlebas," and that book about religion and the environmental movement, and the other book about physics and time travel.
Also add "The Bridges of Madison County," which I got about 20 pages into before realizing that it was deeply stupid and predictable; "Finnegan's Wake," which I barely started, and still believe that anyone who says they can understand that book is either tripping or lying; and Anne Rice's "Ramses the Damned" because, again, stupid. I'm sure there are more. (Though I can no longer list Henry James' "The Golden Bowl" because I finally finished it!)
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Post by Tulipana on Aug 21, 2014 1:28:03 GMT -5
Exactly! I mean, as horrible as the story of this man is, it doesn't make him a writer. Whoever thought that publishing the unedited version of his story was a good plan, was wrong.
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Post by lillielangtry on Aug 21, 2014 9:59:08 GMT -5
Argh, Moby Dick!
Dostoyevsky: I did finish Brothers Karamazov, but only because it was for book club. I wish I hadn't bothered, no one else did and I can't get that time back!!
But many people here probably know I am a Hilary Mantel fan, I loved Wolf Hall and wasn't bored in the least.
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Post by Tulipana on Aug 22, 2014 1:33:44 GMT -5
I just gave up on 12 years a slave and started Philomena Lee, already much much better!!
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Post by Liiisa on Aug 22, 2014 5:32:50 GMT -5
I loved Wolf Hall too (though it still irritates me that parts 1 and 2 were given separate Bookers).
People mentioned LOTR in that other thread. When I was 18 I adored LOTR, probably read it at least five times. But as an adult I found it intolerable.
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Post by scicaro on Aug 22, 2014 5:57:04 GMT -5
A girl is a half-formed thing by Eimer McBride.
I think I managed about 3 pages before I gave up because of the weird writing style.
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Post by scrubb on Aug 30, 2014 17:25:31 GMT -5
Nadine Gordimer - A Guest of Honor Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Autumn of the Patriarch
Both books by authors I like a lot, both "good" books, but both felt like such a slog that I just decided to put them down after about 75 pages.
Stendhal - The Red and the Black - I still think I will try to finish it some day, but I put it down about 1/3 of the way through.
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Post by Queen on Sept 8, 2014 13:09:46 GMT -5
The Bone People.
I tried, I really tried, and I wanted to like it... but I couldn't.
Probably loads of others, they'll come back to me.
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Post by Queen on Sept 8, 2014 13:10:05 GMT -5
Cloud Atlas
again - I really tried....
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Post by SoulCurry on Sept 13, 2014 12:27:18 GMT -5
50 Shades: For obvious reasons. Catch-22: Picked it up six times, only to leave it after a few pages. Why my father loves it so much is totally beyond me. Cloud Atlas: I'm in my stupid place. couldn't fathom what was happening. Left it.
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Post by sprite on Sept 13, 2014 19:15:26 GMT -5
i loved catch-22, but then i didn't expect it to be so funny. i though it was going to be high-brow/david lynch funny, but it was normal dark funny.
i've given up on a couple of amazon freebies. some people can't write. i really wanted to like 'malice in wonderland' but it was soooo obvious. i don't think the author understood any figures of speech like, oh, allusion, metaphor, foreshadowing...
i finally go through 'nobody writes to the colonel' but it was difficult. so, so, so depressing.
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Post by Queen on Sept 18, 2014 15:13:11 GMT -5
Book two of the Millenium Triology.... I was severely irritated at the end of book one, but it was birthday present from parentals... mum loved the books and promised me book 3 when it was released but I told her not to.
It annoyed me that there were so many freaking lists in the books... sandwich ingredients, relatives-in-law, ikea shopping... and it REALLY annoyed me that the hero had sex with pretty much every woman in the book. In fact I think it was reading about one woman and thinking "if he fucks her, I'm done", next page... I threw the book across the room.
I think I told mum it was the IKEA list that did it.
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Post by tzarine on Sept 18, 2014 22:19:23 GMT -5
war & peace
mill on the floss
the only henry james i ever finished was turn of the screw
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Post by lillielangtry on Oct 9, 2014 5:34:39 GMT -5
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Post by littlevixen on Oct 13, 2014 21:29:07 GMT -5
War & Peace LOTR Wolf Hall and.... book 3 of 50 shades of grey
there are others, though they are few and far between. A book has to be particularly un-interesting or badly written for me to put it down.
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Post by HalcyonDaze on Jan 24, 2015 6:20:43 GMT -5
I'm about to return the latest Kathy Lette book to the library unfinished.
It starts as chick lit, but then has a really nasty gang rape case that the ditzy female barrister who is the main character is involved in. And the switch between the two stories is just too much. Yeah sure, I know in real life the lawyers etc would get on with their lives and have coping mechanisms but it doesn't gel well in the book.
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Post by ozziegiraffe on Jan 24, 2015 7:12:26 GMT -5
I have to add Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged to this list. I read the first 6 chapters, but did not think I could continue with 1200+ words in praise of the self-centred rich, with characters who reminded me of Maggie Thatcher and Gina Rynehart.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 24, 2015 18:41:35 GMT -5
I was just reading this old Guardian article " 1000 Books that you must read", and it was a handy reminder of several more books that I couldn't bear to finish and sorry, Guardian, I'm not going to try again: The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster: exasperating The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing: I forget what the problem was, but I hated it Crash by JG Ballard: general unpleasantness Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco: pretentious bullshit A Passage to India by EM Forster: ugh BTW that list is interesting, containing many books that are unreadably exasperating (much of what people have listed in this thread is on that list) but then also a wildly diverse assortment of things that I dearly love (Virginia Woolf, Terry Pratchett?). So I've saved a copy to Evernote so that I can refer to it when I'm stumped for something good to read, but I advise caution.
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Post by scrubb on Jan 25, 2015 0:10:10 GMT -5
Of those that you list, I managed to finish The Golden Notebook, but I can't say I truly enjoyed it. Why do people think that total self-absorption is of interest to readers? And A Passage to India which I remember enjoying, but it was probably 25+ years ago when I was in my early 20s so no idea if I'd like it now.
From that list, I just added 82 books to my "to read" list.
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Post by Liiisa on Jan 26, 2015 17:19:35 GMT -5
Of those that you list, I managed to finish The Golden Notebook, but I can't say I truly enjoyed it. Why do people think that total self-absorption is of interest to readers? Exactly. It's like that new brick-sized thing that people are talking about now by Whatsit Knausgaard, a massive brick about his interior world or whatever... move along, next please. (And 82 - ! lmao scrubb. sorry.)
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Post by scrubb on Jan 26, 2015 18:21:58 GMT -5
I've decided to set myself a "challenge" for 2015 - not to read any crap/filler. I don't mean I'll read nothing but literature and serious non-fiction, but when I do want a lighter read, it's going to be a GOOD mystery or fantasy, or well-regarded YA fiction.
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Post by wombatrois on Jan 28, 2015 2:53:05 GMT -5
An interesting list.
Who would think to group "War and Travel" together?
I have a lot of unfinished books in my house. I must get back to some of them.
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