A Conversation for Ask h2g2

What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 1

The Groob

I was reading 'Wouldnt it be nice' the biography of Brian Wilson. Good book. Very interesting. I just didn't finish it.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 2

Ged42

I keep trying to read the Silmarilion by JRR Tolkien, but i just can't understand the text half the time. I love Tolkien's books, but i can't get my head round what he's writing about in this particular one. smiley - book


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 3

Clive the flying ostrich: Amateur Polymath | Chief Heretic.

"Perdido Street Station" by China MiƩville - 'cos essayage took priority, however I have left it a a strategic point in the book where the plot, as it were, is just about to get going.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 4

Mol - on the new tablet

What a good question ... Northern Lights by Philip Pullman, BUT the only reason I stopped was because it's clearly going to be a cracking read, and I took it out of the library to take with me on holiday, and my holiday doesn't start for another 192 hours, so I have to save it. So I'm not sure that counts. Travels with a Donkey by R L Stevenson, though, keeps coming with me on holiday and I keep never finishing it.

Mol


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 5

Sho - employed again!

Ged, I too have started the Silmarillion more times than I've finished it (more times than I care to remember)

but having discussed it a lot here, I'm giving another go. Apparently it's worth it.

The last book I didn't finish... That would be... hmmmm actually, it's also the Silmarillion
smiley - smiley


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 6

Agapanthus

War and Peace. I've never even got to the bit where the war starts. I feel I'm somehow letting the side down as this is THE Novel, but good Lord it's dull. Perhaps I've just got an exceedingly poor translation. Can anyone recommend a well-written translation?


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 7

Shagrath (Join the Metal Appreciators' Society @ A2556489)

Haven't decided to finish reading The Return Of The King yet; started it about a year ago. Maybe I'll finish it for the fourth time; would it be worth it though?


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 8

Cheerful Dragon

I usually finish books out of natural-born cussedness, but it can take me more than one go to manage it. I took two goes to get through Madame Bovary - that woman is just plain weird. The last book I can remember not finishing was Les Miserables. I will read that one day.

As for War and Peace, I've read that all the way through at least 6 times. I guess having a good translation helps. My copy was translated by Louis and Aylmer Maude. I understand the translation used in the old 'Everyman' series of classics wasn't very good, so avoid that one. Oh, and don't think of it as 'THE novel'. Think of it as a 19th century soap - it *can* make it easier to get through.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 9

Clive the flying ostrich: Amateur Polymath | Chief Heretic.

Taking my cue directly from Snoppy in a "Peanuts" strip by Charles Schultz, I undertook to read "War and Peace" one word a day, until I had finished, gutting it of all sense and meaning, but laying claim nevertheless to have read the thing.

However, one fateful day about two thirds of a sentence in, I accidently read a whole sub-cluse by mistake and decided there and then to end this fruitless endevour.

So Add the other 1470 pages, several paragraphs and the remaining two-thirds of the first sentence of War and Peace to my list of incomplete reads...


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 10

Blackberry Cat , if one wishes to remain an individual in the midst of the teeming multitudes, one must make oneself grotesque

I hate leaving a book unfinished
Last 1 was Lace by Shirley Conran
It was so bad I decided I'd rather be bored staring out of a coach window than continue reading it


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 11

Famous_Fi

Holy Fools by Joanne Harris

I loved her other books, Blackberry Wine, Five Quarters of the Orange and my favourite Chocolat but I just couldn't get into Holy Fools at all. Kinda puts me off buying her latest, Jigs and Reels in case it's more of the same. I so hate being defeated by a book smiley - grr


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 12

riotact : like a phoenix from the ashes

"oberman" by senancour. probably the only book i've put up without finishing in 20 years (i'm stubborn that way, i even finished "la jalousie"!) but it was just too, too dull.

in another sense i've not done with proust. i've read it "cover to cover" twice, but at some point in my autumn years i'll start a third reading and just keep at it until i die. the way proust wrote it.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 13

Ivan the Terribly Average

Over the last few years, I've abandoned most of the usual suspects before the end. 'Ulysses', 'War and Peace', Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'... The last of these has remarkable soporific properties. smiley - zzz

Sorry, I fell asleep just thinking about it. smiley - yawn

The last book I abandoned was Umberto Eco's 'Island of the Day Before'. I simply could *not* get into it. I'd read all of his books before that one - even 'Foucault's Pendulum', which I thought was very good indeed, if a bit too self-consciously clever - but 'Island' defeated me. I'm reluctant to try 'Baudolino' now; I'm waiting until I see it on the remainders shelf, which I reckon will happen soon.

smiley - redwineIvan.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 14

The Groob

Woody Allen: I've been on a speed reading course and I've just read War And Peace.....it's about Russia.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 15

Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences

An X-Files book called Goblins. It was just utter shxte, made no sense, and completely failed to engage me. i actually threw it on the fire instead of taking it to a charity shop, as I didn't want to be responsible for inflicting it on anyone else.

smiley - ale


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 16

Jimbob - Got a Favourite Band? Tell Us All About It at A2464355


Good thread, this one. smiley - smiley

There are a couple of books I've failed to finish, that I can remember. smiley - erm

I got two thirds of the way through John Belushi's Biography, can't recall the title now. It was well done, it just got too depressing as he self destructed. smiley - sadface

I got a fair distance through Captian Corelli's Mandolin as well but got bored with it. I liked the earlier parts, but tired of the later stages of German brutality. smiley - erm Might yet finish that one off.

It took me a decade to finish Lord of the Rings - I needed to be more patient with it than I was when I started! smiley - biggrin


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 17

Cheerful Dragon

Ivan, I also struggled with Eco's "Island of the Day Before", but I stuck at it and did finish it. It will be a while before I read it again, though.

There is another book I currently haven't finished. It's a hefty book on psychology. It's so long and involved (and involving!) that I'm treating it as a 'work in progress' rather than something to read quickly.


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 18

azahar

Moby Dick (but don't tell Blues Shark!)


smiley - run

az


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 19

QueenBronners - Ferret Fanatic

I'm continualy beaten by Titus Alone - Mervyn Peake and the Silmarillion - Tolkien (of course!)

I love the other books by these authors but I just can't get through those particular books!

I normally persevere with bad or boring books and it really irks me that I can't keep slogging through these two.

That's it - I'm not starting anything else until I get through them.

/Topic Drift - Is there a H2G2 reading club where we could read a book and then discuss it?/

QB


What was the last book you didn't finish reading?

Post 20

azahar

I have also never been able to read the Silmarillion, though I have read the LOTR trilogy at least seven or eight times. As for Island of the Day Before, I couldn't even get past the first two pages in the book shop.


az


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