Do you always finish a book once you've started it?

Always always always. I NEVER abandon a book until the very end. I think it is because I read so quickly. When I was a child my mother bought me a book a week, but I had to prove I had finished the previous week's before I could start the new one.
If something doesn't appeal to me the first time, I have been known to read it again, just to check.

Becky- I just finished Nights at the Circus! I thought I'd hate it, but I didn't at all- was great fun, with fabulous characters... but yes, rather odd!

For me- Dune and Captain Corelli's- both utterly dire, and I usually do finish what I start.

Dickens wrote to entertain people 150 years ago when people didn't have TV and mumsent and the like. I bet he didn't imagine we'd still be reading his books now. The middle classes had hours free in those days to spend reading about people like them living in the Victorian age. I totally loved Tale of Two Cities, Nicholas Nickleby and also David Copperfield. I remember thinking those BBC adaptations they used to put on on a Sunday afternoon were soooo boring when I was a child!

Lol at Jane Austin being high-brow chic lit. That is so right!

I've just been into Waterstones in town and I totally despair at the 3 for 2s on offer. A load of the same old, same old dross such as Ken Follet and friends. Boring!

School trip? You mean you are going with children? What about the shopping!!?

What kind of books do you like? Obviously high-brow chick lit (Jane Austin) but what about your average 3 for 2 paperbacks from Waterstones type low brow chick lit?

Both really - a school trip. I can't sleep on a plane, too busy gripping the chair and repeating Hail Mary's - I'm not even catholic!! I need a good book for the flight, any suggestions?

Don't say Charles Dickens...

NY - cool.

Business or pleasure?

Don't ruin the flight with that book though! You want something absorbing for a long flight. Although I suppose it might help you sleep if you have an overnight flight.

Er...you might have to wait Niecie.... just for you I will attempt to read it on my flight to NY next month
I love some chick lit, it entertains me - especially Jane Austen - supurb chick lit.

Undervalued - LOL at Dickens being a miserable fecker. DH and I said that all the way through Little Dorritt on the telly - don't know why we watched. Could never face the books.

Let me know how the Blind Assassin ends - maybe I should have tried a bit harder.

These days I have a fair idea of what I should avoid, don't even touch chic lit for example

so I do generally finish the books I start even if a few years down the line in some cases

I am also quite loyal/ obsessed / 'completist' mad regarding some author and will struggle through their lesser offerings just because

Clever pun - it's all I have!! My SIL keeps buying me Charles Dickens and my workmates dispair of me. Love Christopher Brookmyre though - I get him!!

LOL the book or a clever pun?both in my case

I never finish a book if I don't want to. Some books I've started several times. Some I will never try again.

Great Expectations Scottishmummy?

i speak from experience of having stuck with a dross book just in case it improved.it didnt

Because I always fall for pretentious bollocks and feel I should keep going and will eventually get it......I never do!! Dickens is a prime example - he just goes on, includes too many charaters and is a miserable fecker.

you will never get the time back so why waste it on a dross book

no life is too short and time is too precious to waste in a book you cant get in to. I have been know to finish a good book in a day but obviously now i have less reading time now DS is here!

Same as Niecie, The Blind Assasin still only part read - almost painful but I will finish it.
The only other book is The Reluctant Fundamentalist.
I love reading and have wasted many hours reading crap books - makes you appreciate a good book.

I did until I started the Satanic Verses, which was such boring drivel that I broke my 'never abandon a book' rule. It was surprisingly liberating!

agree uqd..some of it is just depressing (typos, inconsistent names etc)

I think there are a lot of books out these days which have been really lazily edited, or just not edited at all.

Ooooh I read that Blenheim thing by Tim Pears only because at the time we were living in a house called Blenheim Cottage and we lived in Oxford. It was a trail though, I agree. Could have done with lots of editing.

I loved Black Swan Green (but then I really like David Mitchell).

I'm actually struggling a bit through the book I am reading now although I think it is an excellent book: Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. I'm just not in the mood for deep postmodern magical realism right now! I'm sure I'd appreciate it more at a different time as I totally loved the Magic Toyshop.

I give up on books very easily. I would say there were at least 10 books last year I started and didn't finished.

I have a 10% rule. If I'm a tenth of the way through it and not enjoying it I move onto something else.

I used to feel I had to. Now I give it 50 pages.

Those to have failed that test in recent years include:

-The Time Traveller's Wife (god, woman, enough with the cutesy narrative-jumping!)

-That Marina woman and her Ukrainian Tractors thing. (You. Are. Not. Funny. Leave it.)

-That Blenheim thingy one set in Oxford by Tim Pears (why should I give a shit about these people, especially as they have children called Blaise and Hector who talk as if they have had coaching in How To Talk Like Middle-Class Children In Novels Should?)

-Black Swan Green: just dull, unfortunately, even though I really wanted to like it.

-The God of Small Things: I counted fifteen aren't-I-a-clever-girl metaphors and similes on the first page and gave up.

MsG - I found Kevin really really slow to begin with. I only carried on in the end as I guessed what happened and wanted to prove I was right (I was).

But yes we are all very different. Probably a good thing or we would have nothing to talk about!