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

[Mirage]

Mine are;
Ulysses(sp)
Wild Swans

at not getting through northern lights - a real hit in my house!

Only managed a few pages of Da Vinci Code - so badly written. Also couldn't get through Possession, Catcher in the Rye or Catch 22. Or anything translated from German.
Love Wild Swans and Pride & Prejudice and did read most of George Eliot - but pre-babies. Can't seem to concentrate long enough now. DH was excited when I asked him to get me something from Waterstone's - "The Mao biography?" he asked, hopefully. Er...no, Adorable crochet for babies and toddlers

Liked Oscar and Lucinda, Owen Meany, Catch 22. Brought the Satanic Verses when it first came out and it still looks at me like some great Albatross of unreadibleness(not sure that is a word similarly Dorian by Will Self, I feel like I should read his stuff...but I just don't want to...

Oh and loved...really loved Memory Keepers Daughter. Absolutely FAB

Sohpie's world - what a load of utter shi** imho, didn't want to finish it.

I have been trying to finish Crime and Punishment for ohh 10 years now, love it, but just keep having to pause. Also Alexander S--- "Cancer Ward" excellent but again, really heavy.

oh, and though I did manage to finish it, Shadow of the Wind was the biggest crock of s**t I've ever read

Laboheme...cancer ward is excellent and well worth finishing if you can find the time! gulag archipelago by same author excellent too.

catch22 used to be one of my favourites, not re-read it in a while. didn't make all that much sense but i loved Yossarian. and major major major...

have to confess to skipping over large parts of possession-is that the same as not finishing it?!

cis i am going to give it a go again now - I am determined to finish it - although I have a 6 month old...wish me luck

LB yes good luck! took me a while to get back into reading properly too after dd was born. now i'm back at work i do most of my reading while I'm commuting...

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
Shipping News
War and Peace
Wuthering Heights
Time Traveller's Wife
Master and Commander
Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow (4 attempts because dh kept raving about it)
Satanic Verses
Suitable Boy
Tristram Shandy

I have either tried and not finished, or rejected at the blurb stage, everything on muffin's list, except War and Peace which is still on my reading list.

oh and CCM, which I waded through to the end but it is such a pile of cack, I cannot imagine why the author is so feted, he cant write for toffee.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, I have tried 4 times, I just cannot get into it like I have with the previous books.

Also Human Traces by Sebastan Faulks.

Only book I haven't finished since I made a NY resolution to finish every book was a biography of a singer called Judy Collins - truly truly awful. Catch 22 - once you get past the first 100 pages it's brilliant. I'd put it down unfinished a few times before someone told me that.

'The Line of Beauty' proved a challenge for a different reason.

The reviews I read did not mention this but
the protagonist is a gay man.
Cue graphic descriptions of homosexual encounters
which did throw me somewhat.

Wasn't used to bum talk in those days (pre-MN obviously).

The book is absolutely engrossing and beautifully written,
though, so I am glad I persevered.

Have started "The Accidental" twice and still can't get into it....

Harry Potter. Give me the Famous Five any day.

I cannot begin reading a book and then just
put it down cos I cannot into it.
DH says it's cos i'm a stubbon old bint and won't let anything get the better of me, even a book!

I once wadded my way through A Perfect Storm (book of the George Cloony film) and I nearly died half way through it out of sheer bordom.

But the last 25 pages were amazing and totally riviting, that's why i'll never put a book down unfinished cos there might be little gem hidden inside. Or you coould end up really pissed off having just read a crap when you could have been reading a great one!

Kasho Iziguros latest one - Never Let Me go -did not get that

Captain Corelli's b*y Mandolin - never got past that pea in the ear bit and oh, did I want to.

On beauty - what hard work...

The Fourth Harry Potter - by then I couldn't remember who half he characters were or their point so I lost it a bit.

A couple of Phillipa Gregory

Shadow in the Wind - apparently once you get past page 100 you are off and running. I don't have that much patience...

Brick Lane. yawn yawn

I LOVED TIME TRAVELLERS WIFE !! and also WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN ....

I also nearly put Saturday by Ian McEwan on the not reading anymore pile, but lumbered on with it (very unlike me) and actually liked the writing (even if I find the stories a bit pointless).

PS also failed with Northern Lights trilogy....wild swans (left on a plane)..most bill brysons....

Captain Corelli's Mandolin was passed onto me by a friend who said it was the most
tiresome book she had ever read.

I picked it up and read the back but couldn't bring myself to begin reading it as I knew I would have to finish it!

herbgarden, Big up here for Timetravellers Wife, I loved it.
Can't believe there are so many 'haters' for such a great book.

the historian
tried reeeaaallyyy hard to like it but found it boring and predictable

one of the very few books i havent managed to finish

Anyone read Labyrinth by Kate Mosse?

Now that was a book I thought I was going to struggle with, all 700 pages of it.

Had no difficulty with it at all though, one of the best books i've ever read, along with all the Pratchett

adorabelle, I'm currently 'reading' Labyrinth ... and by 'reading' I mean 'deciding to read all the Harry Potter books before the new one comes out starting with book 2 because I can't find book 1 I think it's in the loft'. I don't know why I'm finding it such hard going - some of her descriptions are pretty clunky, but I can usually get over such imperfections. I just don't even remotely care what happens next.

CLOUD ATLAS

WHITE TEETH

LORD OF THE RINGS - took me years and several attempts but i got there in the end