Have you given up on any books you started reading?

Those awful Jonathan Franzten novels that the critics rave about. A million words about nothing.

I received a birthday present of two books of the diaries of Michael Palin, whom I adore. I launched into them, thinking they would be as good as his round the world travel programmes. I limped through the first book, and got half way through the second, then gave up. They didn't convey his personality and wit, and although they were written contemporaneously, they didn't impart any spirit of those fascinating times of Monty Python and the start of his travel adventures. Such a shame.

I've had to give up on Crimson Petal and the White (Michael Faber). I hate giving up on a book, but just couldn't 'do' this one. Anyone else?

I agree about slapping The Slap characters, although in the end I hated them all so much (especially the vile child who caused all the bother in the first place) I would cheerfully have annihilated the lot. Can life in Melbourne really be so awful?

I've just abandoned The Passage by Justin Cronin. It started quite well but became more and more of a fantasy and I realised this morning that I couldn't care less what happened.

I did finish The Slap but found it irritating - everyone was so earnest I could happily have slapped most of them!

I was loving it until it got to the Rwanda atrocities. I can't understand adults reading fantasy, so I have never tried Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, or J.K. Rowling.
The Sea, The Sea, Iris Murdoch, P.D. James (too much irrelevant description of rooms), The World according to Garp, any C.P. Snow, ........the problem with studying literature at university is that you become over-critical.
Fortunately, there are enough wonderful books in the world to keep me going for the next thirty years, which should be enough! Hard to choose a favourite Austen - like choosing your favourite child! She was wrong about Emma, when she said she was going to create a heroine that only she would like- I love her! How sad for us all that Jane died so young.

Has anyone read the two Victoria Hislop novels, The Island and The Return - I was gripped by both and have pre-ordered her third novel from Amazon.
She is married to Ian Hislop, editor of Private Eye, and my favourite journalist.

I agree with most of your preferences Greatnan, except for Half of a Yellow Sun, if that's what you mean. I found it disturbing but absorbing because that period in African history interested me, but also because the characters were well drawn and believable. Middlemarch I adore - one of the finest novels in the language, in my opinion. And if I'm fed up with everything else, Jane Austen gives solace: my favourite is Persuasion. Paradoxically, I also enjoy the impossibly convoluted sci-fi of Iain M Banks.

I used to read books that I thought I should read, but now I read only books that I am enjoying. I have given up on Tristram Shandy, A suitable boy, War and Peace, and Two Halves of a Yellow Sun, and any Salmon Rushde, on the grounds that they are boring, have too many foreign names or are too depressing.
On the other hand, I had to persist with Middlemarch because it was a set book in my degree, and I became absorbed - the same applies to any Thomas Hardy novel.
The worst book I have ever read was Flowers in the Attic which has the most unbelievable dialogue - I did keep reading in the hope it might get better.

I do find that I judge books on varying criteria - Agatha Chistie just to spot the red herrings, Maeve Binchey because I can identify with the women, and Jane Austen for pure joy.

Gave up on Captain Corelli after 2 chapters.Like others here I used to plough on to the end but have no conscience now about abandoning if I'm not gripped by the 3rd chapter.
I've read most of Doris Lessing and Barbara Kingsolver but can't get into her latest The Lacuna.I mostly borrow from library now can return if it doesn't grab me.
like you Crimson I have poor concentration these days

The Satanic Verses. I did make the effort which I am sure is more than those who condemned the book did. But it was just too boring!

Well, I am getting slower and slower with the Julian Barnes book, Sense of an Ending. Nothing happens! I'm just hoping there's going to be a really exciting twist at the end to make it worthwhile. But I think I might be disappointed.

The Slap, Midnight's Children, A la Recherche du temps perdu (well I am cheating, had to read vol 1 at university so bought the lot to try to look brainy!) and loads of other paperbacks bought often as a "3 for 2" whose titles I cannot remember. I used to feel I should persevere and then realised life is too short and if a book which looked promising fails to live up to expectations, it perhaps isn't worth my time. Now I use our local library more I get 10 or 12 out at a time and frequently take them back unfinished.

Not sure that the good story in The Slap is finding its way out on the tv dramatisation either gulligranny but I am continueing to watch it ever hopeful. There is a really interesting story in there somewhere but so far it is disappointing.

Should have given up on "The Slap" instead of ploughing on through this swamp of the foulest (and I mean the absolute foulest) language, morality, horrible people - because somewhere in there was a good story which sadly didn't manage to fight its way out.

I did not even start to read her last, after reading a few reviews. She has had a longer pause between each book finished, so I think she ran out of steam several titles ago and is now running on empty. When the first was published she was to be writing 12 of them - it has stopped at 6.

I have just given up on the final book of Jean Auel's series Earths Children. Started the series earlier in the year and thoroughly enjoyed the first two books of the series It is fictional story depicting what life might have been like for people during the ice age and provided some insight into how man might have made new discoveries and developed. It is based on a lot of research about the era. However by the sixth book I found along with great detail too much repitition and although I found the main character Ayla very likeable I really don 't care how the story ends. Apologies to my daughter who bought me the last three books for my birthday but life is just too short. Now where is my new victoria Hislop book.

Oh no! double posted again. When will I ever learn?

baNANA (great name, btw), I agree about Star of the Sea, a wonderful, human story with great characters and a mystery at its heart. And I,too, found The Lovely Bones hard going - very creepy. I refused to see the film. My GD (19) thought it was great though!
One book I did give up on - The Betrayal, by Helen Dunsmore, sequel to her magnificent book, the Siege, about the siege of Leningrad. I just couldn't get into the Betrayal partly because, even at the beginning, I could sense how things were going to pan out. I'm not sure I was ready for a tale of woe!

baNANA (great name, btw), I agree about Star of the Sea, a wonderful, human story with great characters and a mystery at its heart. And I,too, found The Lovely Bones hard going - very creepy. I refused to see the film. My GD (19) thought it was great though!
One book I did give up on - The Betrayal, by Helen Dunsmore, sequel to her magnificent book, the Siege, about the siege of Leningrad. I just couldn't get into the Betrayal partly because, even at the beginning, I could sense how things were going to pan out. I'm not sure I was ready for a tale of woe!

I really wish I had given up on The Lovely Bones, hated it cannot believe it won the Richard and Judy Best Read a few years ago, particularly as it beat the truly sublime Star of the Sea by Joseph O'Conner one of my best ever reads. Like a lot of other people here, absolutely hated The Slap, wished I had given up on that one too, couldn't have cared less about any of the characters hated them all.

Ariadne Good luck with C. The sections are so different, if you don't enjoy one you may well like the next. My favourites were the flying
chapter and the Egyptian one. Found the spa and the medium rather dull. Definitely a Curate's Egg!

* raggygranny* Sorry, SF, not SB. Who he?

Dordor; if I buy a book second hand I can pass it on..if I buy it from new it's mine forever.

raggygranny My MIL was lent Birdsong by a friend and was so shocked by the sex scenes that she never spoke to the woman again! I too thought the chapters on the tunnelling were marvellous. Do you ever listen to SB on The Write Stuff on Radio Four? Clever, and very funny. One of my favourite programmes.

I started reading on of Joan Bakewell's novels recently and was surprised to find it was so clunky and badly written I couldn't finish it. I assumed Joan Bakewell would be "good". Sorry JB if you're a gransnetter. If you saw my bookoshelves you'd know how much I love reading, but I have been known to remove unreadable books from the house. Cannot ever throw a book away, any more than I could throw a milk bottle away. I have finally accepted that it's ok to pass on one-read books to charity shops, thank goodness.