What book can you just not get into?

LadyJ

Hey all
I've been trying to read "The Vampire Lestat" for about three years and
for the life of me I just can't get into it!
Just wondering what books you've tried to read time and time again but
just can't seem to finish.

Scarinae

It took me forever to get into reading the Lord of the Rings, I just couldn't get past the first chapter, in the end it was hearing about the impending movies that actually forced me past Bilbo's birthday party and into the proper book.
For some reason, I've never managed to get through Bill Bryson's 'A Short History of Nearly Everything', even though I find it really interesting every time I read bits of it.
And a few years ago, a friend lent me a book called 'Three Men in a Boat' that was written in the nineteenth century, insisting that it was the funniest book in the world - however, I just couldn't get into it. That book sat in my room for nearly two years, and even came to Crete with me, but I just couldn't read past the first chapter. I eventually just gave it back, because I knew I'd probably end up losing it

banquo

Fishie wrote:

And a few years ago, a friend lent me a book called 'Three Men in a Boat', insisting that it was the funniest book in the world

i love that book!

Scarinae

Everyone tells me it's great, I just couldn't get into it. Is it sort of specific humour?

OfflerCrocGod

Fishie wrote:

And a few years ago, a friend lent me a book called 'Three Men in a Boat' that was written in the nineteenth century, insisting that it was the funniest book in the world - however, I just couldn't get into it.

It's HILARIOUS, I can't believe you can't get into it - it's worth it!

Goldstein

The Silmarillion. Dear God that took me 3 attempts to get through. I had previously read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings 3 or 4 times each. I'd heard people likening the Silmarillion to trying to read the Bible but I thought they were just exaggerating. They were not.

kawaii

Goldstein wrote:

The Silmarillion. Dear God that took me 3 attempts to get through. I had previously read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings 3 or 4 times each. I'd heard people likening the Silmarillion to trying to read the Bible but I thought they were just exaggerating. They were not.

Yeah, I agree.

The book just seems to take a bunch of ideas and stick them together without any story.

At least for the first 200 pages which was about as far as I could get.

dudara

The simarillion was tough.

For me, it has to be "A Brief History of Time", and I'm a physicist, yet I couldn't read that god awful book

LoLth

The vampire Lestat was probably the only book I have actually put down and not returned to. I couldnt . it was an effort to read a few pages before going to sleep. I think I managed about 4 chapters in a little under a month before something shinier came along and distracted me.

Current toughie is Quicksilver. Its good, but I never studied science so I think a lot of the character references he makes just pass me by which I think takes away from the story he is trying to present.

echomadman

Steppenwolf, every time i've started that book i get 80 or so pages in and fall asleep.
I waded through the silmarillion when i was on the dole, it was a hard read, and i dont think i retained a whole lot of it.

Chinafoot

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

i had attempted this one about two years ago and just couldnt do it. then it was on my course this year :mad: and i still couldnt do it!

tim3115

Is Quicksilver not about historical events than any scientific aspects?

I haven't read it, and it's 900 pages long

mokeymokey

anything by stephen king

Dellgirl

I know everyone likes it in here, but I put Catch 22 down after about 50 pages. I know, I know...shame on me.

tabatha

i think cecelia aherns books are so boring they are hard to finish. i know you can skoot through them but thats not good reading to me.

LadyJ

Blingarella wrote:

I know everyone likes it in here, but I put Catch 22 down after about 50 pages. I know, I know...shame on me.

I never got into that either!

arrietty

echomadman wrote:

Steppenwolf, every time i've started that book i get 80 or so pages in and fall asleep.

Oh man, me too. I hate reading that kind of writing, no matter how good the story is.

Also: When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. I quite liked The Remains of the Day, but... meh. For the same reasons, I think, as I didn't like Steppenwolf. There's this certain narrative voice, of a boring middle-class anal-retentive male of the mid-twentieth century, that I find unbelievably unreadable. Both those books have it.

Mr. Presentable

The Silmarillion
Joyce's Ullysses

Three men in a boat was great!

Scarinae

Blingarella wrote:

I know everyone likes it in here, but I put Catch 22 down after about 50 pages. I know, I know...shame on me.

Oh me too, I'd just forgotten about that! Another one to add would be Puckoon by Spike Milligan. But I was young when I tried to read both of those, which probably explains it

ronano

Spring Snow - Yukio Mishima (incorrect spelling of the author i'd imagine)

I read 'confessions of a mask' by him which was fantastic and eagerly bought this book and it was not even the book being bad that i couldn't get into it. I was distracted while reading it and got to page 50 without actaully fully taking in the plot/characters and couldn't go forward in the book nor could i re-read it. I gave up today after 3 weeks of trying

OfflerCrocGod

Blingarella wrote:

I know everyone likes it in here, but I put Catch 22 down after about 50 pages. I know, I know...shame on me.

I am simply stunned! I mean that book nearly had me burst a gut with laughter.

byte

Blingarella wrote:

I know everyone likes it in here, but I put Catch 22 down after about 50 pages. I know, I know...shame on me.

Heh, i did the same the first time I tried to read it. Six months later I tried again, and succeeded to read it all. Maybe it was my frame of mind the first time, but the second time, I enjoyed the whole book.

DapperGent

In the Name of the Rose.

I thought Foucalt's Pendulum was amazing but I just can't get into In the Name of the Rose. Must try again.

Naos

Lord of the Rings as well..

Im on the last book, I should really finish it for the sake of it.

theCzar

Something Happened - Joe Heller

I'm just bothered with mid-life crisis stuff, amybe later, when i'm having a mid-life crisis i'll give it another look!

Dellgirl

I am simply stunned! I mean that book nearly had me burst a gut with laughter.

me bad. I knew it.

Kazujo

Clockwork Orange

And for some reason I just cant get into A Brief History of Almost everything, I managed to get back into Zen and the Art of Morotcycle Maintenance so I'll give Bill another try after that.

Larianne

Angela's Ashes

Read to where Frank gets TB and then just had to stop. Couldn't take all the misery or I was just bored. Cant remember was a few years ago now..

echomadman

Oh yeah, i forgot to mention Great Apes by Will Self.
I just could not read this book, despite trying a good few times.

House of leaves took me a few goes to get into, then tipped along nicely, albeit confusingly.

Easily_Irritated

I don't think I've heard of Three men in a boat... who wrote it?

LadyJ

Yeah this "Three men in a boat" sounds good!

Scarinae

Easily_Irritate wrote:

I don't think I've heard of Three men in a boat... who wrote it?

Jerome K. Jerome. It was written in the nineteenth century like.

I know I keep adding to this, but I also couldn't get into a book called "Smilla's Feeling for Snow". I mean, I read half of it and just got bored

Nimrod's Son

"Otherland" by Tad Williams was a toil. I actually got really far into it (about three quarters of the way) but it was taking forever to read. Then I found out it was the first in a series of books and I decided nuts to that. I tried to stay with it after a really good opening and my mate kept ranting about it. Alas, it was not to be.

I don't think there's anything more painful than trying to finish a book you just haven't got any interest in (regardless of whether it's good or bad).

Fenny

The Great Gatsby. I don't really know why I found it so hard to get into it, because it's not a bad book - it got off to a fairly slow start, but as a whole, I enjoyed once I had finished it. Didn't like it during the reading of it, I mean.
And The Silmarillion. It's still sitting on my bookshelf half-read. It's quite galling to me because I enjoyed LOTR so much.

theCzar

Fenny wrote:

The Great Gatsby. I don't really know why I found it so hard to get into it, because it's not a bad book - it got off to a fairly slow start, but as a whole, I enjoyed once I had finished it. Didn't like it during the reading of it, I mean.
And The Silmarillion. It's still sitting on my bookshelf half-read. It's quite galling to me because I enjoyed LOTR so much.

I found both of those kinda hard going as well. I thought that not a lot happened in The Great Gatsby until the end, i thought there was going to be gangster intrigue, and was a little disappointed.

Silmarilion was hard to read because it didn't really have characters and a story you could follow, it's a neat piece of mythology that shows the origins of Sauron and the Men of Westernesse, but it's a not a book that grips you.

Fenny

^ Yeah, that's definitely true. It's terribly hard to apply real interest in the Silmarillion because of the lack of characters. I'll give it a try again sometime, though.
It's probably the only book I couldn't finish. I have an insane habit of never being able to put a book down, no matter how bad it is, until I've finished. :P

Fenster

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.

I read Cryptonomicon, loved it. I'm trying to get into this, but the fact he keeps going off on five page tangents to explain a point has put me off, somewhat.

LadyJ

Ha,just found that "Three men in a boat" book on my aunt's book shelf! I'll soon see what all the fuss is about!

Franky Boy

Fiesta - Ernest Hemingway.
I have tried so many times.......sigh.

LoneGunM@n

Clive Cussler's Golden Buddha ... in a word sh!te

nesf

There have been a few books that were very tough for me to get through. I needed an open dictionary beside me to read them and grasp them fully. Books on philosophy mostly.

One of Satre's books, can't remember which one exactly, was the last one like this. Was a few years back iirc.


There are however other books whose jilted attempts at prose caused my brain to haemorrage but I don't think of them in the same way

Tar.Aldarion

Fenny wrote:

^ Yeah, that's definitely true. It's terribly hard to apply real interest in the Silmarillion because of the lack of characters. I'll give it a try again sometime, though.
It's probably the only book I couldn't finish. I have an insane habit of never being able to put a book down, no matter how bad it is, until I've finished. :P

ive never really put down a book but on the silmarillion subject,lack of characters!!!?! it has 5 million :P but anyway i think it's one of the best books(if not the best)ever written,amazing.along with it go the unfinished tales etc books i can never stop reading.at any point in time one of the books i am reading is a tolkien

arbeitsscheuer

Closing Time, Joseph Hellar's sequel to Catch 22, in which all the characters are in old age and nearing the "closing time" of their lives.
Catch 22 was brilliant, easy to read and a blast, with colourful, rich characters but... This I just find so hard-going.

I actually bought it a year ago, and hav been reading it in fits and starts since then, and am only halfway thru.
It's a much longer book than Catch 22, but it usually takes me about 2-3 weeks to read a book this long (and much quicker if I really really enjoy it).

Just can't get into it. But I'll keep pluggin away.

thesteve

I'm another one for Bill Brysons A Short History of Almost Everything, find some of it interesting, some of it boring but just wanna get it out of the way now, feels like more of a task than anything else...

Johnny Storm

Ulysses (have read the 1st chapter several times over the years - LOL - maybe some day...)
Foucalts Pendulum - zzzzzzzzzzzz

Johnny Storm

Fenster wrote:

Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson.

I read Cryptonomicon, loved it. I'm trying to get into this, but the fact he keeps going off on five page tangents to explain a point has put me off, somewhat.

I read it and am halfway through The Confusion. I'm not sure its worth the effort. You're right he is obviously being paid by the word. Him and his editor need a good boot up the arse.

He is obviously a suberb, intelligent writer when he gets it together, can tend towards the obscure.

Cryptonomicon - excellent

Diamond Age - was blah-to-OK - might read it again someday.

Snow Crash - excellent - who wouldn't love a book about a guy called Hero Protagonist?

Zodiac - blah-to-OK - I read it but can't remember much about it

Interface (?) - crap - I think he co-ghost-wrote this one or something. I dont think his name was even on this book until he became well-known. Seperately describes two different charactors as looking like actors who could have played admirals in Star Trek TNG. WTF? Book never edited?

Stark

I agree. I loved Cryptonomicon but Quicksilver is rubbish.

Also Red Mars. It's good in parts but mostly it just drags I find.

Johnny Storm

Stark wrote:

.... Red Mars. It's good in parts but mostly it just drags I find.

I have to say I really liked it. It way exceeded my expectations (which admittedly were quite low). I thought the charactors and their interactions were generally very good and I loved the use of technology.
I liked the way there was no struggling to find a foothold in the barren Martian landscape which would have been the SF cliche. Instead they just drop in a whole pressurised trailer park and industrial infrastructure.
There was some repetition as you say but I thought on the whole the excitement and vision of the book more than made up for it. KSR really conveyed a love of the Martian landscape/geology which is quite an achievement when you think about it.
The second one (Blue Mars or was it green?) was at least as good possibly even better. The third one did drag in parts and "The Martians" was just for the cash. But still the first three books are quite an achievement IMHO.


I have to say though I'm still not clear why Frank(?) has John(?) killed in a flash-forward at the very beginning. Any thoughts?
- but it was a real attention grabbing opening.

theCzar

Tar.Aldarion wrote:

ive never really put down a book but on the silmarillion subject,lack of characters!!!?! it has 5 million :P but anyway i think it's one of the best books(if not the best)ever written,amazing.along with it go the unfinished tales etc books i can never stop reading.at any point in time one of the books i am reading is a tolkien

it lacks properly developed characters, it reads like a history book (and not a particularly good one). But Silmarillion is one of the best book ever written? We'll have to agree to disagree on that chestnut, since our views are irreconcilable :rolleyes:

Tar.Aldarion

oh they are properly devoled after you read a dozen or so books with those characters in them and know everything that has ever happened to them :P maybe i should put these books down....i dont think it is particularily like a history book but it can be looked at like that(one of the great things about it is the fact that he creates a whole world,its history and even languages that have practially correct language structure!).the english used is the kind i like as would be the english in beowulf etc etc
of course we don't agree,you are not me! :P i disagree with every1 and anything

Kenshi

Mear wrote:

Lord of the Rings as well..

Im on the last book, I should really finish it for the sake of it.

I am on the return of the king just after the house of healing and just started reading "The Grapes of Wrath" by Steinbeck. After that it is east of Eden. Although I didn't finish it yet I am just taking a break. Then I am done with Tolkein. I like the Lord of the Rings but it seems to go on forever.I ain't bothered about the Silmarillion. I read the Hobbit. It was cool.

Books that I couldn't get through were the skit's on Harry Potter called "Barry Trotter" by "Michael Gerbert" (I think that is his name). Also I couldn't get through a book about the british SAS captain Robert Nairaic. The book was good but I wanted to finish the Lord of the Rings. Now that I have stopped again I am starting to think I can't finish a book! Ever get that feeling?