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

[Mirage]

Mine are;
Ulysses(sp)
Wild Swans

Timetravellers Wife(whilst all around were saying what a fab read it was)

Norwegian Wood - dire.
Ditto TT Wife.

Unquiet-you have made me feel alot better

DW loved it though. (TTW, not Murakami.)

I have a running bet with DW that if she ever reads the Silmarillion by Tolkien, I'll give her a grand.

She's a voracious reader of french novels, literary novels and other worthy material... but I think my thousand smackers are safe.

Time Traveller's Wife here as well

(but loved Wild Swans, have read it a few times )

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. I have tried this 4 times, and each time get a little further. I love it, its difficult to read tho.

Its my destiny to read it, and I enjoy the fact that I have not yet, in an odd way, its like a goal now .

And yes Wild Swans - twice so far.
Sophies World - currently on third attempt, doing well this time. about 1/4 through!

Brief History of Time
Finnegan's Wake
Clarissa

captain corelli's mandolin

Wild Swans too, only got half way through I think,

Finished Captain Correlies whatsit, didn't like all the in the trenches bit but it is a fantastic story.

Tess of Deuberville, couldn't be arsed it just didn't hold my interest.

That one about Kevin (can't remember the exact title)

lovely bones thought it sloppy mushy tosh

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood. I've read ALL of her others, she's probably my fave author ever but this one I just kept making false starts and never got past about p40...

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell - It's still under my bed but bored me silly and didn;t seem to go anywhere!

I'm reading Strange and Norrell, it's ok. Blind Assassin is pretty good, I thought. Zen ok, Correlli was crap. I think I liked Norwegian Wood, I have a lovely edition of it, but honestly all the Murakami blends into one after a while.

I haven't managed to read Gravity's Rainbow (have read lots of other books by Pynchon). Never got through anything by Joyce, either.

Underworld, Don DeLillo

Oh, I liked White Noise, Delillo is on my list of authors I should read more of ...

The only book I've failed to finish recently was by Julie Burchill (one of her 'novels'). Dear God, it was DIRE

Possession (AS Byatt), Lucky Jim (Kingsley Amis) and am currently struggling to care even remotely whether I get to the end of Labyrinth or not. And any Tolkein apart from The Hobbit.

What is totally inexplicable, PW is why you would have started it in the first place ...

A Suitable Boy

Loved Wild Swans and TTW, couldn't put either down, strange isn't it?

Still can't read Silmarillion, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and it constantly annoys me that everyone else loved The Ginger Man by Donleavy and Will Self's How the Dead Live, because even after 100 pages I was still bored!

me too for Norwegian Wood, Time Traveller's Wife, We Need to talk about Kevin
Plus White Teeth and Donna Tartt's second

White Teeth (only finished On Beauty as it was for book club)
Pride and Prejudice
The Shipping news
My nemesis is a random book I got from the library 'The glass book of the dream eaters'
I have rented it about 4 times now and cannot get more than a third into it without giving up and launching it across the room.

And I had to force myself to finish captain correlli's mandolin as it was for book club, but glad I did!