What are you NOT reading?

[PoeticPassions]

I have tried reading Don Quixote and gave up about half -way through... it just couldn't keep my attention and I found it rather dull. I understand why it is a classic, but I guess I can't understand why two very dear people to me note it as their favorite book of all time...

Also, for some reason, I couldn't get through One Hundred Years of Solitude, though I really like Marquez and have read a few of his other novels. I do plan on trying this one again, however (as this happened with Madam Bovary a long time ago, and then I tried rereading a year or two ago, and I not only found it to be poetic and amazing, but I couldn't put it down).

And Nabokov's Pale Fire... I found my thoughts wandering every few lines... Again, I plan on re-trying this one.

[ashthehunk]

I tried What Is Man by Twain twice and both the times its cynicism made it tough to keep up the flow . I think Twain wrote it after loosing an argument or a game in poker.
But i have friends who had it as their favorite.

Another one is Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. Would it be suffice to say that it is the most difficult book to read. Alas! I got to know it after trying it.

But having said that it is an eternal truth that Books are those things which no one can review for you. Literary taste is subjective issue.

[KCurtis]

Edit: I don't think Dostoyevsky is a bad writer, but it is fair to say that he is perhaps over-rated. I personally read him religiously when I was 14, and there was something in it, but when I go back to him these days I'm much less enthralled by it all.

He is not for everyone, that's for sure. His stories are depressing, sad, insightful though, sensitive and yes, dreary. But I also see the humor. I have a thing about Russian writers who write about political stuff. Especially when they have been through so much. My grandparents escaped the Russian Revolution, so maybe that's it. I'm glad you were such a reader when you were 14, impressive!

[Jair]

Runner up--Les Miserables--again a good start but Jean Valjean stealing a coin from a kid--on his way to redemption--was a bit too much and again i quit.

Do you realise that he didn't steal the coin? It simply slipped under his foot when the kid dropped it.

[Insane4Twain]

I forgot about Moby-Dick...I've given up on that one a couple of times. It's an objectively great novel, but the first 200 pages (which, incidentally, is about as far as I ever got) are painful.

Hasn't anyone ever told you to read every other chapter? It's like reading The Scarlet Letter - skip the first chapter.

And then enjoy!

[Desolation]

^ I know...But I can't do that. I'd like to say that next time I go about it, I'm going to skip straight to the part where Ahab is introduced (Because Ahab is a badass), but I probably won't.

I'm a sucker, if I'm going to read something, I have to go from beginning to end.

[mal4mac]

2. Don Quixote de la Mancha - This turned up a library book sale. Decent condition, fifty cents. I've been teaching Spanish for about 25 years. Isn't it about time I became familiar with this worldwide classic? Sigh! It was interesting for the first three or four chapters. It's a huge work, and my attention span ain't what it used to be. The best part of the book was the introduction which was an overview of the life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Maybe I should pick up his biography instead.

I gave up on this the first time, but found a better translation! Don't you think you should have put a bit more effort, and money, into finding a good version?

How can you teach Spanish without having read this? Do you teach "business" or "tourist" Spanish? Any intellectual students would ask you questions about it, surely? What do you say?

There are sticky patches - maybe you found one after four chapters. But I found it picked up again very quickly, and in the end was, mostly, a very enjoyable and interesting read. OK it's long, but you'd be hard put to find five "ordinary sized" novels as much worth reading.

Note I don't persevere "whatever" - I gave up on Joyce's Ulysses and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I do try a little bit harder to get into acknowledged classics, but there are limits to my perseverance...

[ChicagoReader]

JR by Gaddis. I went into the book with high hopes after enjoying The Recognitions and Agape Agape. It was just too tiresome for me. I got to around halfway and quit our of pure frustration. All the male characters are very similar and their rants go on and on, half of it being gibberish.

Another is DeLillo's Underworld. Again, I'd had positive experiences with several of his books and figured Underworld is most people's recommendation, but it just seemed to take fifty pages to say what many writers could do in twenty or so, just my opinion. I quit this one also around halfway, but I plan to finish it at some point.

[aliengirl]

Middlemarch by George Eliot. It is the only novel which was in my course and I didn't read it. I could not get beyond a few pages. I've tried twice and given up. Maybe later this year I'll give it a chance.

The Adventures of Augie March by Bellow is another novel which I left midway. I read a few chapters and when I realized things were not going to change or were just getting worse, I quit.

[Paulclem]

I wouldn't read the Mill on the Floss - begun and discarded. I include this first as I know Mal4mac is a fan. (I did like Silas Marner though).

Jane Austen bores me - I have no interest in the manners genre.

I disliked Henry James The Turn of the Screw from the start due to his irritating style.

Many of the ones mentioned I've enjoyed - particularly Hawthornes list.

I very ratrely have to give up on a book because I don't like it as I know what I like.

[Insane4Twain]

How can you teach Spanish without having read this [Don Quixote de la Mancha]? Do you teach "business" or "tourist" Spanish? Any intellectual students would ask you questions about it, surely? What do you say?

Are you kidding? I teach high school Spanish. They've barely heard of Mark Twain, let alone Cervantes. If I used the expression "tilting at windmills," they'd look at me like I just grew another head.

[Insane4Twain]

i'm surprised to see the great gatsby on this list.

and 1984!

[PabloQ]

I gave up on Don Quixote as well, but I do plan to try it again soon. The reason I gave up on it was because I found it too sad , but I'm sure I can come back at it with a fresh attitude.
The Henry James work that I read all the way through and wish I had had the wherewithall to chuck aside was Wings of the Dove. Hated the characters and the plot. Still do.
I disagree with many of the opinions expressed above. I have no experience with Joyce.
I do agree with JBI on one thing. So many of these threads include the comment that so-and-so is overrated. This typically is synonymous with not to the individual's taste. It does not, however, mean that the author in question has not earned the high regard generally bestowed on him or her. Every author might have a clunker, but it doesn't void an entire body of work. Review the comments on Henry James. There are different works cited as favorites and others as unreadable, but at the end of day, none of our opinions alter James' standing in the halls of literature. Same with Faulkner or any one else here. It's why it is opinion.
Often a work simply does not meet our expectations -- of the author or of the work. As a closing thought, Great Expectations disappointed me, but I finished it. I didn't like different elements of the plot or of certain characters and really didn't care for the ending. It doesn't matter. It doesn't diminsh Dickens standing in the canon of British Literatue. It's just my opinion.

[Ohmyscience]

Beckett's The Unnameable. After getting halfway through I literally lost my place while reading and could not find where I left off. I could not comprehend it. You know you're lost when every page reads the same.

[msmoonlite]

I just have to laugh....I love Dostoevsky but for the life of my I couldn't tell you why. I am far from being an angst-filled teenage boy. I'm going to have to go home tonight and flip through my copies of the Brothers Karamazov and Crime and Punishment to see if I can come up with a good reason why I liked them so much.