Which book/books have you really tried hard to read,but failed ?

"Northern Lights" - first one brilliant and compelling, second one less so, third one pretty impenetrable.

McEwan - odd, I loved his early stuff and devoured "The Innocent" when it came out, but have gone off him a bit since then. Found "Atonement" required serious effort.

does that mean you've all finished "reading lolita in tehren?????

I only did because of a book club!!!

can't remember which murakami I have read. Banana yosimoto is better

i own every zadie smith and have only managed white teeth. i WILL read them.!!

Had about 12 goes each at the corrections and catch 22
Another vote for Gravity's Rainbow and Sophies world (both now consigned to charity shop)

would add foucaults Pendulum and Clockwork Orange (really wanted to like cw but hated it, esp the made up language, Droogs or whatever AAArrggghhh)

Staggering Work of Heartbreaking Genius, Dave Eggers and Something about Kevin, Lionel Shriver. Pretty much the only books I've never finished and I've read some shockers. I persecuted myself with the Eggers book for ages before someone said, "you don't HAVE to finish it you know" Ahhh, I'd never felt such liberation.

Am feeling so much better about the TT wife. Thought it was just me as everyone raved about it but didn't get it.

Life Of Pi.. my MIL is the only person I've met who actually finished it..she said you needed to persevere but who has the time.

Oh meowmix you've discarded my favourite bit of foreplay!...the seduction near the beginning of birdsong....am having palpitations just thinking about it...may have top log off!

Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey... another Booker winner but I've yet to meet anyone who's finished it.

Also, The Accidental by Ali Smith. Massively overrated. IMHO.

The shipping news
The lovely bones
Time travellers wife
Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell
War and Peace (much to my dads disgust)
Cold mountain
Anything Stephen King has written since the mid 1990's
Anything by Ian McEwan
Any of that series about the ladies detective agency

However, I LOVED A Suitable boy & Captain Corellis Mandolin.

Secret History. Anything by Margaret Attwood. And I WILL FINISH Wicked by Jilly Cooper which I am hating as I refuse to be beaten by her...

oh yes wheresmysuntan, Kafka The Trial - don't think I understood a word - have never dared try anything else of his as I reallydo hate not finishing books..

Plus another I remember being really annoyed about (was younger & had time to finish even awful books was by Margaret Drabble & set in Cambodia I think..

War & Peace - even got the new translation. I think the problem is that I usually read books in snatched 5 minutes scattered throughout the day, and then maybe 15 min in bed at night. Don't think this reading style suits War & Peace
Shall wait until the children have moved out.

Have to agree with all those who said anything by Dickens - dull dull dull

Captain Corelli
Midnight's Children & Satanic Verses love other Rushdie though
Finished but hated Lovely Bones

War & Peace is one of my all time favourite books, well worth perservering with (but maybe I'm just a Tolstoy/Russian ficton fanatic..)

Surprised at people stuggling with A Suitable Boy, thought it was a great book, loved Wild Swans too

Always thought I'd hate Prtchett - my brother is a huge fan & kept trying to foist them on me - was left with nothing to read one christmas started on Equal Rites (still my favourite) & haven't stopped reading them since!!!

The last Lord of The Rings one.
The Constant Gardener

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Kafka on the Shore
The Secret History

Thought all of these were tedious and couldn't understand why everyone else raving about them.

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Kafka on the Shore
The Secret History

Thought all of these were tedious and couldn't understand why everyone else raving about them.

ormirian - i think that what most people find is that the adaptation is better than the original.

some poeple would never read LOTR or Asimov, but 'get' the film etc.

btw - i love these two!!

The Jasper thingy books where the main character is a dectective travelling through fiction to solve crimes .

Sold one of the books on Amazon - good riddance to a bad read.

Oryx & Crake
Wild Swans
Tess of the D'Urbervilles

at some of the couldn't-finishes on here. Love LOTR, Dickens, Austen, Rushdie, Asimov, AC Clarke (some)....

Moby Dick. Tried but couldn't manage it.

Time Travellers wife - I think I nearly got to the end but decided that life was too short to read something that I actually wanted to chuck out of the window.

Captain Corelli's thingy doo dah. Have got to page 64 about 3 times and then slipped into a coma.

Also Birdsong. Just don't get it.

The Lovely Bones was dull dull dull!

Started War & peace 7 years ago, suprisingly good actually but never have the time to re-start it.

Frankenstein was boring too.

oryx and crake

great expectations
a brief history of time
don quixo (or whatever)

a quite a lot of 'classics' - i start them with good intentions, get bored with the slow pace, difficult language and small print, and then find something else worth reading.