Classics or "Must reads" that others rave about but you just don't get

Vanity fair - wanted to murder Becky Sharp or failing that give her a slapping

Gone with the Wind - gave up

All of the Katie Price books - had the misfortune to get given them while in hospital with a bug, the nurse seeing I was unable to sleep lent them to me

Will try most books except the real life ones about abused kids

I have tried war and peace but got totally confused as to who was who

The lovely bones could have been better.

I can't believe you don't like Gatsby! It is my favourite book!

I loved Middlemarch and all Kate Atkinson, but agree about the others. I had the same problem with The Great Gatsby, i.e. finding all the characters unlikeable and not particularly interesting/memorable.

Time Travellers Wife I thought was an interesting concept and well written - but I found the characters boring and quite irritating, so really couldn't bring myself to care at all about what happened to them.

Lord of the Rings bored me to tears, and made me realise that I hate made up worlds, things with pointy ears etc. Hated it.

Also was hugely underwhelmed by Wuthering Heights, didn't really get it at all.

Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye were ok, I'm glad I've read them, but I don't get what all the fuss is about.......

Gormenghast (sp?) especially the part about the women locked in a room where they hide under the carpet. I managed to read the whole thing but it left the mental equivalent of a nasty taste. Ugh ugh ugh.

The yellow wallpaper. That's just plain freaky.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles. I wanted to slap her for being so bloody wet and scream at her for thinking that she wasn't good enough for Angel Clare when it was so blatently obvious the he wasn't good enough for her.

Also Hardy was a twat - didn't he spend years treating his wife badly only to hanker after her once she'd died, thereby also treating his second wife badly?

I loved A Suitable Boy, but I admit I didn't reall all of every couplet...

Also loved The Shipping News and Captain Corelli, and LdB's trilogy.

I would never even start a book about Hobbits, they don't interest me at all.

I read Jane Austen over and over again but have struggled with Dickens and Thomas Hardy. I don't understand what people see in Iain Banks either

KT, I finally got through A Suitable Boy after about 3 goes....it was worth it!

ooo and I forgot Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy. I've tried several times because it's my dads favourite book, but I just can't get into it

I agree with A Suitable Boy - I've just given up half way through AGAIN! and Captin Correlli, but I love LOTR (but agree you have to skip the songs :o) I also struggle with Dickens except David Copperfield with I really enjoyed.

I really like We Need to Talk ...
All her other books are shite though.

agree - LOTR, Captain fecking Corelli

didn't even bother trying to read Da Vinci as I knew I would hate it...

I thought I quite enjoyed We Need to Talk about Kevin, but realised afterwards that it gave me a bit of a personality change while I was reading it I was quite horrible for a while....

The Childrens Book by AS Byatt - how did it win a prize?
Wasp Factory by Iain Banks

Agree Lord of the Rings but rated Talk about Kevin.

Hemingway
Pinter

and has someone has so rightly said To the Lighthouse (V. Woolf). Couldn't be bothered to finish it so if it got better, I'd be interested to hear it

Oh, also Her Fearful Symmetry, Audrey Niffenegger (sp?).

Most Ian McEwan but particularly Solar and On Chesil 'When's it going to start?' Beach.
Harry Potter books.
Fitzgerald.
Brideshead Revisited.
Injury Time by Beryl Bainbridge.

Dickens - I have had a bookmark half way through David Copperfield for nine years...

I also absolutely love Catch-22, but I can see why other people don't!

I didn't finish: The Lord of the Rings I still wonder if I should have another go at it.

I did finish but didn't really see the point of: One Day, On Chesil Beach, Da Vinci Code, Jane Eyre.

I loved Wolf Hall and Catch-22 though.

I second We Need to Talk About Kevin

It is utter drivel, I am on page 198 and it has taken MONTHS to get there. I have to keep going and finish it or I will be thrown out of my book group. I thought I had gone a bit soft in the head but I went onto Amazon and read the (few) reviews giving it 1 and 2 stars and it was the most wonderful feeling of kinship - I wasn't alone!

The Twilight books - teenage emo shite
Pratchett - this actually makes me a bit :( as a lot of my friends love his books, but for some reason I just can't get into them
Jane Austen - very dull and long winded

I love Lord of the Rings, Cloud Atlas, and Captain Corelli's Mandolin (although the last was slightly spoiled by watching the terrible film with Penelope Cruz). I can recommend just skipping all the songs in LotR though, can get a bit tedious. In fact I discovered a whole section fairly recently that apparently I just skipped past on the previous 20 times I had read it.

However I cannot read Catch 22, The Catcher in the Rye or anything by Dickens, having tried on many occasions (not quite given up on Dickens since they are all free on the Kindle).

"The Other Hand" by Chris Cleave.
"A week in December" by Sebastian Faulkes
"On Chesil Beach" by Ian McEwan

I have had Lord of The Rings in my bedside cabinet for 7 years, one day I might start reading it again.

Thought Time Traveller's Wife was ick.

Didn't like The Lovely Bones either.

Am sure Jane Austin is tedious. Jane Austen, however, is fab.