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Books you can't finish

FabricLiveBaby! said:
I started readin this book called "sick". I can't remember who wrote it but I bought it in a cheapo book shop in Greenwich. It was about a woman that locked up all her bad thoughs in an imaginary wooden box. Then she goes for a brain scan and has a brain tumour in the size and shape of the box :eek:

QUOTE]


Oooh! I quite like the sound of that :D

I am currently struggling with the last book in the Red Riding quartet - I am sick sick sick SICK of corrupt policemen / Yorkshire Post reporters who all end up dead, or in love with a prostitute or an alcoholic (or all 3) and descriptions of screwdrivers disembowelling abdomens (with or without swan wings).

An inordinate amount of tedious repetition imo.


I realise everyone else just lerrrrves it :(
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FabricLiveBaby! said:
Seriously, it's too bad. I thought it sounded great then started reading :(

If you really want it and live in the London area PM me and I'll drop it through your letter box. Then you can brag about how bad it is.
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sadly I live on the Isle of Skye - but the very idea has made me :D
 
I've read books in one go in the past and I'm struggling desparately with Catch 22 which is reading like the same point told over and over again in slightly different ways.. I don't know whether to be disappointed with myself or the book as it took me so long to even start..

Some book that won a prize by James Kelman about a blind man that I never finished was the first one for a long time.. inexorably dull.
 
badlands said:
Underworld - De Lillo

baseball and books don't mix.
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I thought that the whole opening sequence at the baseball game was one of the most vivid and impressive things I'd ever read (still do) and was so looking forward to the rest of it. Couldn't do it - the book fails really badly shortly afterwards.
 
Scaggs said:
I'm having a problem with Mieville's stuff. I've tried to read Perdido Street Station three or four times but I just can't get past the first few chapters. I even put down his kids book, Un Lun Dun, halfway through and can't be bothered to finish it. It bothers me because people who like him also like stuff I enjoy, but maybe it's the fantasy element which puts me off?

Richard K. Morgan's another author I can't finish. I trawled my way through most of Altered Carbon because I'd seen so much good stuff written about him but in the end I just gave up out of boredom. Market Forces might be a good book but after about 50 pages I couldn't take any more.
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I think with both authors you have to spend some time acclimatising to the worlds they create, you can't just wade in. I like that sort of thing, I even like the massivly-overdetailed descriptive prose in LOTR, but I know it really puts people off.

I really really like both authors BTW. Diffrent strokes innit?
 
TheHoodedClaw said:
I thought that the whole opening sequence at the baseball game was one of the most vivid and impressive things I'd ever read (still do) and was so looking forward to the rest of it. Couldn't do it - the book fails really badly shortly afterwards.
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I couldn't agree more.
 
I got more than halfway through Tolstoy's War and Peace but that was it. He never uses one sentence when he could fill a couple of pages. Never managed more than about half.

His (Tolstoy's) confession on joining the roman catholic faith however I read from start to finish in one sitting. He still never used a couple of words when a page or two could do but it was gripping stuff and I would recommend it to anyone.
 
Another vote here for Gravity's Rainbow. I've made about three attempts and should probably just take it down to the secondhand shop now.
 
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino.

Synopsis - you think you are reading this book. you're not.
 
Crime and Punishment
Tried three times without getting more than half way through.
Ended up loaning the audiobook from the library, it was slightly less hard going but at least I found out how it finished
 
Pynchon's Vineland. Got to ch 11 and gave up. About a year later tried again. Got to ch 11 and gave up, again. No great loss afaia.
 
ajk said:
Another one here. I think it's because I tend to skim read a lot, Pynchon seems to make it impossible for me to do that. I'll give it another go at some point, though.
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why do you skim read? it's utterly pointless. READ EVERY WORD or don't bother.
 
Orang Utan said:
why do you skim read? it's utterly pointless. READ EVERY WORD or don't bother.
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Bobbins! I do it out of habit, it's how I've always read, but it's certainly not the same as "not reading at all". However, some meals were meant to be eaten slowly.

:)
 
Only finished one Murakami book before; After Dark, and that was quite short. I've not finished Kafka on The Shore, although I enjoyed it whilst reading, and i'm still getting into Hard Boiled Wonderland whasitsface.

Oh, never finished "The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test". Tom Wolfe is quite tiresome. Might try again at some point though...

I never finished Hells Angels by H S Thompson, although it was a great read for most of it, just couldn't get into it enough to finish.

Never got anywhere with Chuck Palnahiuk books; Diary especially, I just gave up.

I dunno, i'm pretty crap at finishing lots of books! I was a lazy bastard when reading The Republic for my course; read the bare minimum and summaries. It's not overtly cryptic or anything, it's just.... hmm. Llacks willpower" :D
 
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