About 1/7th of the books I tried to read this year I didn't finish.

[Infinitefox]

that's 14 books, and I've read 103 this year. I've heard lots of people say that they always finish a book they start, so I'm curious if anyone else has trouble finishing books as much as I do. I think 14 is a high number.

[Terror Firmer]

I often have a difficult time with novels that represent or used as a vehicle for the author's bias (and/or) political views. (askewed or otherwise.) Aside from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, I find them difficult to get into.

[Tallon]

Fairly often. I tend to go through bad patches so i return to an old favourite to get me back into the swing of reading. I've just about given up on The Portrait of a Lady, 200pages in and although it is very nice i am not in the mood for a slow read at the moment.

[sixsmith]

I usually make a concerted effort to finish every book i start (i'm not convinced of the merits of such an approach) however last year aborted several novels.


The Good Soldier - Ford Madox Ford: interminably slow though beautifully written.

The Solid Mandala - Patrick White: interminably slow and completely incomprehensible. Not a whiff of interest in returning to it.

Anna Karenina - Tolstoy: i had to take a break from it to sit exams and upon returning was not in a state of mind to read it properly. Will make it a priority this year.

The Unknown Terrorist - Richard Flanagan: just plain crap.

[JBI]

I have a worse rate - probably around 1/5 or more - I have a short attention span for mediocre verse, and on a good day I down 3 anthologies.

[Hank Stamper]

i always finish them for good or ill... sometimes takes me ages tho if im not really digging something... ive only ever stopped reading one book and that went straight in the bin.. cant even remember what it was now, but i remember being very angry (was on holiday)...

[andave_ya]

heh, 103 is a bigger number . I very rarely am unable to finish a book, although this year I put two aside for later .

[John Goodman]

I usually convince myself to finish a book regardless if I'm enjoying it at the time. It works sometimes when I find I love the book in the end as with One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest but more often than not it doesn't turn out so well. I forced myself through Naked Lunch, not seeing the point of all the disgusting, pointless passages but I did find some bright spots where the author's idea was very clear.

[Mopey Droney]

With some books you must trust yourself. There are many books where I felt about 200 pages in that I was going to hate the whole thing, but pushed on anyway, only to discover that I should have listened to myself. Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead are two examples of this.

[Akeldama]

I don't like giving up on books, and I never did until recently. I tend to remain optimistic that the book will get better or I'll suddenly "get" something that I was missing before. That happened with Kazuo Ishiguro's "An Artist of the Floating World", I wasn't into it at all at first, but the more I kept going the more I realized it wasn't necessarily about the plot, but about getting into the character's head and seeing life and the world through his eyes.

But now I've got so much to read that if I'm not connecting with and learning something from a book I just don't have time to force myself through something that I don't want to. I wish I could have given up on The Awakening, but alas, I had to read it for class and tormented myself with reading it. Thankfully it was short.

[Joreads]

I have to finish a book once started I am a bit complusive that way. I hate not knowing what happens no matter how bad - I am the same with movies.

[dfloyd]

try reading Mother Goose: The Complete Rhymes.