Convince me to carry on with Ken Follett's Pillars Of The Earth.

[Showy]

So many people rave about it and I started it with gleeful anticipation. It is so badly written. Does the story distract from the clunky prose at any point? I'm about 100 pages in. 800 or so to go.

[FriedSprout]

This is one of the few books I have I given up on too.
Made it to chapter 3 when it made me so cross that I wrote my one and only book review and put the book out for charity.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

I read it about 20 years ago and really enjoyed it, not sure if I would now though.

[Elsiequadrille]

My husband bought both books for me. I haven't finished the first, and not sure I will. Though I'm afraid the TV series was partially responsible for putting me off.

[glammanana]

I read it first time around years ago and will always remember going to work on the train when everyone was reading it,they where so engrossed you daren't say good morning in case you put the readers off their place in the book,I still have that copy and am now going to read it again I really enjoyed it.

[HooNose]

How can anyone say they aren't interested in reading about women!? What a bizarre stance to take!

It's not a stance! It is just how it is. Women bore me. Men excite me.

Name me a book in which a female character will not bore me and I am prepared to give it a go.

[WhoKnowsWhereTheTimeGoes]

Never really thought about it, but when I was youngerI read almost entirely male oriented books (I liked Frederick Forsyth, Alastair Maclean, Arthur Haley, Ken Follett, John Grisham etc). Somewhere along the line I've changed and read much more female oriented books, I don't follow particular authors so much any more, but most books I read have female main characters now.

[TheNightIsDark]

Game of Thrones. There's no way Arya or Cersei could bore you.

[HomeIsWhereTheGinIs]

Unusual for me to see a tv adaptation before reading the book but I have to say the misogyny put me off buying a copy. Rape, rape and more rape. It all felt pretty gratuitous so I shan't bother with the book itself.

[highlandcoo]

Hoonose - a challenge for you! Try The Observations by Jane Harris and see if Bessy bores you or not. I really liked her as a character.

[HooNose]

Game of Thrones. There's no way Arya or Cersei could bore you

Are they women behaving as men by any chance? I keep meaning to give Game of Thrones a go, but I have been told all the characters you become attached to die which is a bit of a stumbling block for me. Plus, glimpses of the tv series look unremittingly grim.

Try The Observations by Jane Harris and see if Bessy bores you or not.

Thanks, I'll look out for that.

I am like a previous poster. As a teen, I read books by Alastair Maclean, Raymond Chandler, Alexandre Dumas, that sort of thing, and now I like reading Bernard Cornwell, Patrick O'Brien (well, not him particularly but I like naval stories), stories about men in brutal times. Pillars of the Earth seemed quite a fluffy read to me.

[TheNightIsDark]

Slightly like men in the ruthless vengeance quest but Cersei uses her womanly ways to be a power mad nutcase succeed.

Some good characters die but IMO the best ones are still alive.

[Starballbunny]

Do I love him/does he love me?

ODFOD, let's have a good thriller with a male lead and get on with the bloody story!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

Interesting, exciting and entirely non-boring female characters -

Anne Elliot
Elizabeth Bennet
Hester in Philip Reeves' Mortal Engines series
Holly Golightly
Susannah in King's Dark Tower series
The woman whose name I have forgotten in the Tales of the Otori series
For starters...

[PacificDogwood]

Game of Thrones is rather gripping, but the writing is hardly first class - as said upthread, could've done with rather vigorous editing .
And I made my way through ALL the books last summer, to only realise in the end that it was not flipping finished. And the next instalment out in 2015. Maybe... .
Brienne was a great female character though - I hope she survives the remaining books .

[tobiasfunke]

I have got to that stage where if a book is too much trouble to read by about 50 pages I give up. Life is too short and there are too many good books out there. I couldn't be doing with Wolf Hall at all- Mantell's third person present tense just jarred. Some book's are just not good fit.

[tobiasfunke]

That should be books without the apostrophe obvs before some pedant jumps on it.

[PacificDogwood]

Oh no, I've just bought Wolf Hall for my kindle

[TheNightIsDark]

I can't get into Wolf Hall. Which is annoying as I love that period.

Yy to the annoyance of GoT not being finished. I'm on the second rereading cycle!

[amyshellfish]

I wouldn't bother with game of thrones. The female characters are poorly written and cliched.

Op have you read the assassin series by robin hobb?

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

The present tense stuff drives me bonkers. I finished, 'Wolf Hall' but the writing style irritated me all the way through. I am now reading Morrissey's autobiography...it is also in the present tense...it is also doing my head in. I might have to throw it out of the window.

[Doshusallie]

Is it Part of the century trilogy? I just finished fall of giants, really enjoyed it.

[TheNightIsDark]

No the other century is winter of the world (I think ). Next one due out in September.

[myitchybeaver]

OP I agree with you. I also agree that it is clunky and badly written. I think it's comparable with 'dick-lit' in that it's as poor as chick-lit but somehow more worthy because a bloke wrote it.

Life's too short to read anything you don't enjoy by 50 pages in and there are so many fabulous books to choose from!

[RemusLupinsBiggestGroupie]

I don't think it is as bad as chick-lit tbh (although liking the phrase dick-lit!). It has been properly researched and the stuff about architecture adds interest and depth in a way that would not be done in chick-lit (in which 'interest' means sex and 'depth' means descriptions of which brands are being worn by various bloody irritating women).

[Showy]

@ interest = sex

DH did wander into the bathroom the other night and ask 'how's the new book?' I explained that a recently (as in hours ago) bereaved man had just left his baby for dead on his wife's freshly filled grave and was now having malnourished fever sex with a random woman who lives in the forest.

amy, I read Hobb over Christmas after dh recommended the Assassins series.

I've officially given up. I'm reading The Snow Child instead.