Books you’ve tried to read but just can’t get on with them

Howard’s End disappointed me. It was just…dull. My favourite authors are mostly early 20th-century Brits (Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, etc), so I had high hopes for E M Forster. I also loved the film version of A Room with a View. Stephen Fry reveres him as well, and I trust Fry’s judgement (like Fry I love Wodehouse, Oscar Wilde, etc).

I didn’t hate it. His prose is smooth and fine, and the characters are likeable enough. It just didn’t grip or hold me. I rarely give up on a classic, but I’m afraid I packed it in on page 120.

Still, I’m going to try A Room with a View.

Time travellers wife
Wolf Hall
Captain Corelli's mandolin

@gingerandsmall I don't expect you to be converted, but the full Eleanor Oliphant story might lead you to retract that "needlessly"

I read a post a week or so ago where someone derided Eleanor Oliphant as "basically a makeover story", and several people recommended it on a "feel-good" reads thread. I can't help thinking that an awful lot of people only read the first few chapters?

Anything by Gabriel garcia marquez

Oh god, Wuthering Heights.

I just couldn't get past the narrative conceit. Just give me a god's-eye narrator Emily ffs.

Wildfell Hall was bad enough and that only had one layer (note that the TV adaptation basically ignored the whole set-up).

I read part of LoTR when I was 11 and only realised 15 years later - listening to the radio adaptation - that I hadn't got to the end. Somewhere in the bleak grey stoniness of the bleak grey stones in the bleak grey stony landscape of bleak grey stony Mordor (MUM! It's about half a page!) I gave up.

I did eventually read Jane Eyre. After 30 years.

Mansfield Park... oh, just sit and read it out loud. Forget the story and don't think about whether you like or are infuriated by Fanny. The prose is A Ma Zing.

Not tried Wolf Hall. I discovered HM in the library in the mid-90s, a book called Fludd which I loved.

Fab, have ordered it from Waterstones. I'm trying to think of who to recommend. If anyone is looking for a new author , Lucretia Grindle is amazing.

Conversations With Friends by Sally Rooney. Loathed all the characters. Loved Normal People though

Another vote for Wolf Hall. Really wanted to get on with it, but I found the style got in the way.

Also another vote for Anna Karenina. I did finish it, but was glad when it was over. Far too much ponderous theorising about theories of agriculture from some tedious old bastard character whose name I forget.

Failed to finish Umbrella. Again, the style was too intrusive, which was a shame as I love Will Self’s other books.

Any Martin Amis after and including The Information. I keep giving him another go in the hope that he’ll write something good again, but after all these years it seems increasingly unlikely…

Another Captain Corelli here....
Also Wolf Hall - but I'm due another try

I usually persevere no matter what - even the drivel - but two above have eluded me so far.

i've just looked it up @Rinkydinkydoodle and it looks great - going to download now!

Me too, hope you like it, it’s daaark.

Oooh thank you @Rinkydinkydoodle i love new writers (to me).

He writes fantasy as well, but his ‘literary’ stuff is amazing. If you’ve not read The Book of Night Women, it’s one of the best novels I’ve read in the last decade, give it a crack, I had to pull it apart it for a course and read it about three times in succession, but would still read it again😛

Thursday Murder Club - I really wanted to like it but it was so unbearably twee.

Elinor Oliohant - hated it.. could not see the appeal

Emma - had to study it in school. Awful nonsense but for some reason most of my class loved it. I did on the other hand love the other book we were studying -A Portrait of the Artist as a young man

I had to watch The Lovely Bones after reading it - the class was about adaptation. I didn’t really like the film but it didn’t bother me as much, I think possibly because I felt the book was so overrated, whereas I had heard very little about the film.

Where the crawdads sing. The most unbelievable plot!

SO glad to see others couldn't get on with Labyrinth! I tried and tried, everyone around me was telling me how wonderful it was; to me it just came across as 'I speak French! Look, watch me speak French! I speak French, you know!'

And a LOT of 'I did lots of research for this book. Here it all is.'

I'm struggling with The Ink Black heart at the moment. Such a huge book and the social media text pages are so difficult to read and take in. I'm almost at the point of giving up but I really like the Strike and Robin characters.

Just remembered another one that I could not finish On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I struggled with Catcher in the Rye too, though i did finish it. Both ages ago, perhaps i should try them again. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, though for some reason I read that twice.

I'm struggling with all books at the moment, I've lost my mojo completely.

The book I gave up on before this current state of affairs was a Wilkie Collins that a friend raved about, can't remember which. I could not get past the first few pages for some reason. No idea why, but it was like wading through treacle and setting cement. Entirely my issue, as I know many many people love the author's work.

I'm beginning to get the impression of a hint of moral superiority regarding any book that has been immensely popular simply because it was popular. I hope I'm wrong.

One of the reasons I loved Crawdads (which I read before it became popular) was the wonderfully descriptive writing. If you don't like descriptive writing then fair enough.

I agree.
American Grit.
Most of the classics (had them dinned into me at school)
Eleanor Oliphant.
Probably 90% of the best sellers 🤷🏼‍♀️

Another one for 'Wolf Hall'! Tried three times!

It's already been a TV series and a film, both are passable.

I find some of the more heavyweight books are better as audio books. I listened to Middlemarch on a long drive to visit family, and another classic heavyweight (I can't remember what it was just now) on the drive back.

I had already seen a TV adaptation of Middlemarch which helped.