Books you haven't finished

I was wondering if anybody else had books they just can't seem to finish. They don't have to be bad books, just ones that you always seem to be perpetually in the middle of.

My most constant ones are The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia fame) and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. I enjoy reading both of them, but never seem to be able to get to the end of either one. With Seven Pillars I always get distracted by some project and by the time I get a chance to go back to it I find that so much time has elapsed that I've forgotten what I've read and need to start all over again. As for The Age of Innocence, I had to stop halfway through to write an essay about it and just haven't found the time to finish.

Anybody else have any?

I've been trying to read The Brothers Karamazov for months. I like it well enough, and I know I'll finish it eventually, but it's so easy to put aside for something else. Can't explain it.

I got about halfway through The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories before I finally gave up. Some of the stories were good, but most were just abysmally boring. I also started to read Asimov's Foundation series but only got through the first two books. Good idea but a serious lack of character development does not make an interesting read...

Madame Bovary. I try every few months to read it, and fail. Every time I get a bit farther into the story, so I guess I will finish it eventually, but it may take several years. I don't know why I am trying so hard to finish it - just pure stubbornness, I guess. :)

I had to set A Prayer for Owen Meany aside earlier this year. I may try to pick it back up again later, but I just couldn't get into it.

It took me forever to finish that one, too. I liked The Cider House Rules and The Hotel New Hampshire better.

I almost never read an entire anthology. Unless they have a really good editor, they tend to be a little uneven. I've also found that even really great writers can't always write a good short story, so I'm even less inclined to read them.

I've had trouble finishing The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, which I've been reading off and on for almost a year, and A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century. Both are very interesting, but long and a little dry. I'll pick them up again one of these days.

I've also tried twice to read Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and disliked it both times, so I gave up. It was one of those books I really wanted to like but didn't.

Edited to add: I agree about short story anthologies. I've got 8 of them that I haven't finished. I need to give up on short stories I think. They just aren't my thing.

See, I love short stories...usually. I can't even begin to name how many anthologies or collections of a certain author's works I've read. I also subscribe to several magazines (such as Asimov and Analog) which specialize in publishing short stories. But I've found that generally, I don't like any of the Mammoth Book anthologies. I've tried to read The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror and found the stories just weren't to my liking, and Modern Ghost Stories was the same. As each book runs about $14, I don't think I'll be getting any more. There are certain editors/authors I know I'll like (such as Years Best SF and Year's Best Fantasy), plus my magazines, so I have plenty to keep me busy in the short story department! :P

#8 lorie: I'm the same way with Wicked, so you're not alone there!

I plodded through Wicked and in the end I liked the book but it was painful. I wouldn't read another Maguire book because of it.

> 8 Lorie, I just bought a used copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, because my dad's old copy was falling apart! I would expect this book to take someone several years, at least, to get through. My dad read it off-and-on, among all his other WWII histories, for several decades!

Notes From Underground has been on my shelf with a bookmark in it for several months. That's really pathetic because it's a tiny book. I just have no will to pick it up again.

I am struggling through The Hero with a Thousand Faces, having taken a couple months just to work through about two-thirds of it. I'm just not seeing how it is particularly insightful or compelling.

I didn't have a problem getting through Wicked: I breezed through it in about three days and really liked it. Maybe it's because I've never had any sort of attachment to other versions of The Wizard of Oz, so I didn't have any expectations about this one.

I could not make it through the second book in Alexander McCall Smith's No. 1 Detective Agency series, Tears of the Giraffe. That series just does not do anything for me.

My contribution...

Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp: With the 272nd Volks-Grenadier Division from the Huertgen Forest to the Heart of the Reich by Douglas E. Nash

My review

I might return to this book one day.

I am struggling to get through the Tale of Genji. I do mean to finish it but other books just keep getting in the way, I just cannot read more than one book at a time!