Ulysses did me in, too. I also couldn't finish Clarissa. She was such a whiner, I just wanted her to die already.

It's not that I don't like a dense book. I love Proust enough to have reread.

I have trouble with Dostoevsky. Endless dull grimness.

Getting away from classics, I love travel memoirs, but couldn't read more than a few pages of the Eat Pray Love mess. It was bad in that way where you want to viciously slap the writer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am the only person in the world who could not finish "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho.

I don't know what it was... all I remember is that it was so slow.

I couldn't finish it either! We were supposed to read it in high school and I totally fudged my way through it. Was supposed to read it again after college when I was tutoring a high school kid and I just couldn't do it. So boring!

I didn't finish it either and I was actually a TA for a freshman intro class that had it on the reading list.

Anonymous wrote:The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I know everyone loved it, and I love other long, dense character studies like that, but I just couldn't get through it.

You did not miss anything. I think the trend is to write a book about people no reader will like or care about, to rave reviews.

The Snow Queen by Cunningham. Put me to sleep every night -- and I have read LOTR multiple times with glee.

Anonymous wrote:

I tried Foucault's pendulum and felt really dumb after 30 pages. I just could not understand the book.
Now i feel very impressed when I see someone reading it in public.

Agree....and I usually force myself to finish a book, even if I don't like it at first.

For The English Patient poster--I recommend watching the movie, then reading the book. The book will fill in many of the holes in the movie's plot. I do think it's a rare case of a person needing to do both to get the whole picture.

Hee - I loved, loved, loved The Name of the Rose but it was a hard-earned read; enjoyed one of his recent ones too but it was a toughie. My sister told me that Foucault's Pendulum pretty much made Name of the Rose feel like a beach read, so I think I'll be leaving Foucault's Pendulum be... feel like less of a book-wimp for having read both of your posts

It took me almost 100 pages to get into the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Glad I stuck wtih it.

I tried Foucault's pendulum and felt really dumb after 30 pages. I just could not understand the book.
Now i feel very impressed when I see someone reading it in public.

Agree....and I usually force myself to finish a book, even if I don't like it at first.

For The English Patient poster--I recommend watching the movie, then reading the book. The book will fill in many of the holes in the movie's plot. I do think it's a rare case of a person needing to do both to get the whole picture.

Call the Midwife - Shadows of the Workhouse, second memoir by Jennifer Worth. Just too hard to bear knowing that the stories were real. Really painful.

Anonymous wrote:My old book club, in the 90s, went through a phase of reading what had been classics in the 60s and 70s.

Stranger in a strange land. Ugh. It's the only book I finally quit with literally only pages left. I simply could not finish the last 10 pages or so. Horrible.

Agree. I loved Heinlein's early stuff from the 50's, but after the he seemed to go off the rails.

The book I couldn't finish was Atlas Shrugged. I was half way though and thought, Ayn, I got you point 300 pages ago, and TBH you're not a great writer. Set it aside and went to work on "The Gunslinger" and was much happier.

Anonymous wrote:The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I know everyone loved it, and I love other long, dense character studies like that, but I just couldn't get through it.

This.

Umberto Eco books
I tried Foucault's pendulum and felt really dumb after 30 pages. I just could not understand the book.
Now i feel very impressed when I see someone reading it in public.

The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen. I know everyone loved it, and I love other long, dense character studies like that, but I just couldn't get through it.

Anonymous wrote:The Happiness Project. I found it trite and wanted to smack that Gretchen person for her smarny, self-satisfied, overacheiving, overprivileged point of view.

Middlemarch. I tried to read this in high school, again in college, and could never get past the first 100 pages.

I'm reading The Happiness Project now and it is jaw-dropping for the reasons you cited. She clerked for Justice O'Connor, and that was fine, but she just didn't enjoy it enough...

Anonymous wrote:Couldn't finish:Fifty Shades of Gray, The Sound and the Fury, The Hobbit

I too was bored with Love in the Time of Cholera, but loved his 100 Years of Solitude

Steinbeck's East of Eden is one of the greatest books ever

I'm the East of Eden poster. I kept getting told that it gets better after the first 100 pages but I couldn't make it past 45. In general though I'm not a Steinbeck fan - of Mice and Men was tolerable but the rest is not for me. On the other hand, I love, love, live The Hobbit and LoTR. To each his own I guess.

Anonymous wrote:I am the only person in the world who could not finish "The Alchemist" by Paul Coelho.

I don't know what it was... all I remember is that it was so slow.

I couldn't finish it either! We were supposed to read it in high school and I totally fudged my way through it. Was supposed to read it again after college when I was tutoring a high school kid and I just couldn't do it. So boring!