Have you given up on any books you started reading?

Like Myfanwy, I cannot bear Henry James, but my real "book of shame" ( my qualifications are all to do with English literature) is "Wuthering Heights" which I have yet to complete! Am just about to start "C" and have been warned that one has to persevere....

Henrietta Join my club. I thought I liked Jewish novels, but enough already! Did you read the other short listed ones? Damon Galgut, can't remember name, utterly pointless. Loved Parrot and Olivier in America and am just finishing C by Tom McCarthy. Hard work initially, but worth it in the end. The descriptions of British bureaucracy in Egypt are almost lol!

I must be the only person in the world who has never read the Stieg Larsson books, or watched any of those Scandinavian programmes on BBC4. I know violence against women exists, but do we have use it as a subject for entertainment? I find this most distasteful.

Also agree about Jane Austen. Came back from two years in Saudi Arabia and watched Mansfield Park on tv - just meat market in pretty frocks!

Sorry, bit of a rant for a Sunday morning!

I like Scandinavian writers ...went with a recommendation (on another thread) to try Karin Fossum. Library had one ...'Calling out for you'. Struggled to get to get to Chapter 7 ...gave up ...so boring. Can't remember the last time ...if ever...that I've given up on a book.

Henrietta - I tried the sample of "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" on my Kindle recently and decided that it wasn't worth buying the whole book. Must admit that I felt a bit guilty though as so many people said how brilliant it was

I've given up on a few, I can't remember which ones, I probably forgot them on purpose. Most recently I gave up on Ranulph Feinnes's autobiography. He also wrote a book called The Sett which I remember finishing but disliking enormously. So nothing more by him for me.

I have given up on a lot of books in my time, the most recent was 'The Finkler Question' by Howard Jacobson - life's too short.
Tell me, am I the only person in the known world who did not enjoy the Larson trilogy - ('Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo' etc)? I had an operation last year and bought all 3 from Asda before I went in. Because I had to sit still and do nothing much when I came out I read through them all, but did not enjoy them.
I also think I'm the only person who cannot read 'Pride and Prejudice' - sooo boring.

My latest libarary book club offering The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Half a dozen pages in and I thought "My life is too short to read this".... I am however sticking with The Sisters Brothers on my Booker list and that's pretty dire.

I agree with GingerSilk - The Slap was pretty awful.

I am also put off book that come too highly recommended....eg Wolf Hall.

I missed ''Fingersmith'' when it was on the telly and was sick of people raving about it.I got the book, and gave up a third of the way through.I just could not fathom out all the convuluted twists to the story, and who was who.

Hi jangly and thanks. Having my name Wowed is a nice start to a Monday.

How do people come up with these fantastic names. "GingerSilk"! Wow!

I gave up on 'Line of Beauty'. I really tried with it but eventually decided life's too short. Also gave up on a Kate Mosse book, can't remember the title, it was so memorable.

I feel really cheated if I am convinced by the publicity, buy a book and its a real dud. Glad you've all helped me realise 'The Slap' is not worth reading. I had suspected as much.

I stuck with "Room" but was totally unimpressed with it. Got to the end and wondered why I had bothered!

I'm afraid I've given up on Room too, I did try, especially after reading all the great reviews but its just not for me and I've got so many books sitting on my kindle that I really want to read.

I think sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind to read certain books,maybe one day I'll give it another go.

that Room one.

Loved Kate Mosse "Sepulchre" & "Labyrinth" but couldn't finish Douglas Kennedy "State of the Union". Just finished "Rescue" by Anita Shreve but didn't enjoy it as much as her other ones. Just been introduced to Santa Montefiore and have read two of her books, both of which I enjoyed very much.

Loved The Kite Runner; Larsson trilogy; Half a Yellow Sun; The Time Travellers' Wife and Her Fearful Symmetry to name but a few ................really struggling with Kate Atkinson's "Started Early Took My Dog".............I've read KA before and really enjoyed but not this time................another chapter or so and I'm giving up...............

Labrynth and Sepulchre by Kate Mosse; tried them both quite a few times but can't 'get' it! On the other hand I got through the Larsson trilogy in a weekend - brilliant

C. P. Snow's "The New Men" - what a horrible grind! I read it as the same time as my son was doing his Eng Lit O Level, as it was one of his set books. He would ring me up from school to talk about it, so I didn't dare give it up, but afterwards, I consigned it to the dustbin - not something I have ever done with a book!

I absolutely loved Wolf Hall and couldn't put it down. I hope there will be a sequel. I started to read Hardy's Trumpet Major and got a bit fed with it, but I like his short stories.

Hardy wrote some amazing poems after Emma died. They had been estranged due to her mental state - she had some kind of religions mania. All the details of their courtship came flooding back to him. He thought of himself as a poet who wrote novels to make a living. My favourite is The Return of the Native.
Melanie, I struggled through Wolf Hall which, as you say, is interminable. And, as the name Wolf Hall only crops up at then end of the book, as the name of the Seymours' home, I fear that there is going to be a sequel.

I love reading but some of the others already mentioned have defeated me. This was the last failure though:- Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, winner of the Booker Prize 2011. Absolutely interminable.

Loved the Time Traveller's wife though.

'He wrote great parts for women..but boy did he make them pay for it.....' I love Thomas Hardy, but then I lived in the part of Cornwall where he met his first wife, so his novels take me back to my youth. Not sure if I could read Hardy now, but I devoured them when I was young [probably the result of having a melancholy disposition ].

I nearly gave up on Birdsong because the early chapters were very much a man's view of sex (naturally, as the author is a man!) and I found them tedious to say the least. But once the First World War scenes started I was hooked and stayed up until the small hours to finish it. It ended up being my Book of the Year! Should add that I normally avoid books about WWI, so there must have been something about the quality of Faulks's writing to keep me going. I haven't found that any of his other books 'got' me in quite the same way.
I find Thomas Hardy unreadable and his characters irritating beyond belief. Have tried a few of his books but have never managed to finish one.

I think the fact you called it Nothing Happened was a sort of Freudian slip, as nothing obviously did [or didn't] happen.

Just realised that the Joseph Heller book, after 'Catch 22' was called 'Something Happened' so more proof I am lightweight - couldn't even remember the title properly. It wasn't a good book. I like the comment about Faultks' protrayal of women being unconvincing Annobel. I didn't analyse why it had irked me so but that may be a part of it.