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Is there any book that you keep trying but can not get through?
Like the title had said is there any books that you had picked up multiple of times but simply set down?
Mine would be Dune by Frank Herbert. I simply can not get through the first chapter, let alone the whole book. I think I had picked up the book like 5 times already from my library and failed to get through it. I get that is a classic sci-fi space opera, part of the reason I keep punishing myself with trying to read it. And because I keep hearing good things about it.
Edit: forgot a period
I was the same way with Dune. Must've tried 3 times in as many years and just could never seem to get through the first 30 or so pages. Then the movie was being hyped and I read a lot of comments from others who mentioned the same issues and suggested that sticking with it through the first few hundred pages does eventually pay off. So I soldiered through, determined to finish the book before the movie was released in theaters. And I have to say, I'm glad I stuck with it. Those first few hundred pages werent as easy as id like, but then it slowly creeped to the point where i couldnt put it down. In the end it was truly amazing, totally engrossing and there were so many threads that ran all over the place that it makes me think it's a unique beast onto itslef that defies categorization as simply a sci-fi novel. But yeah, I get it about not being able to get into it for quite a number of pages. There's very little expository details beimg offered, and no build up or entry point to determine any way you could possibly understand or relate to any of the characters. There's no catchy hook. It just drops you in to a fully developed universe as if anything is supposed to be meaningful at all to anyone.
Dune immediately came to mind for me too.
I ended up listening to it as an audio book and that got me hooked way faster than my attempts at powering through by reading
"Stick through the first several hundred pages" is really tough advice to follow; I'm impressed. The political intrigue and socioeconomic dynamics are what I find most fascinating about the book. I got about 75% of the way through before the movie came out, and I want to finish the rest before Part 2 is released.
I had to laugh when I opened this thread because I also immediately thought of Dune. I've tried it 2 or 3 times and never got past the first 100 either.
Not even sure why. The opening isn't boring or anything. Lots happening right away. I think there's just a lot of weird stuff thrown at you very quickly. Complicated political intrigue, advanced technology that doesn't fit the usual scifi style, religions and prophecy, psychics and mind control.
It's a lot and the logic and reason for thing isn't necessarily apparent. I definitely stopped reading at some point when they established that they all wore personal shields that could stop bullets but not swords, but also if you shot one with a laser it creates a nuclear sized explosion. Which seemed like a pretty good reason to not wear one.
I can't stand Dune at all and it's funny because I like other books by Frank Herbert like Destination Void, Whipping Star, Eyes of Heisenberg, Dosadi Experiment, etc. I can't see why they've made many movies out of it, but then again, my pet peeve has always been the Sci-Fi fan who read Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 20 times but never read Heinlein, Smith, Asimov, Niven or, more recently, the Fantasy fan that's read Harry Potter and... Harry Potter.
Ok, I will try this the next time I pick it up.
Jeez, maybe I should keep going with it. I've been reading Dune off and on with my gf before we go to bed, but lately just haven't had the energy. There's so much internal politics going on (which I enjoy, don't get me wrong), but it's not like it's hard to put the book down. If it gets as good as you say, I'll have to keep going through the slog. I'm about maybe 150 pages in? (I'm at the part where the one Atreides guy just made a deal with a sand guy to work on both sides)
As a slow reader, hearing "just read through the first few hundred pages" ends my interest in a book. My brother really wants me to read Dune. I tried it. I tried an audio book. Not for me. But I loved the movie! Looking forward to part 2.
I chuckled once I spotted Dune since I've been working my way through it on and off for the past two years. Initially, I was motivated to finish at least half the book so I could treat myself to the Villeneuve movie as a reward, but only now have I made it 60% of the way. It's not even a difficult read per se, but the world-building and Arabic terms come on heavy for somebody new to Herbert's style.
I was actually caught off guard by how closely the scenes in the film resembled the ones I imagined in my head which I think is a testament to Herbert's pictorial prose. Like many others have found, I'm glad I stuck with the book as it's turned into an outright page-turner. I'm especially looking forward to the second part of the movie now.
I had the opposite experience. Well, not entirely. The beginning wasn't exactly easy but I found it doable. But the Besse Generis stuff intrigued me as did the spices and the worms. I put it down sometime around 75% into it and didn't pick it back up again. The part I struggled with was the future predictions, religious wars and the main character seemingly detaching hard from the situation he was in to try and explore future paths.
I want to get back into it and finish it, but it's been so long I would have to re-read the entire thing to finish it and that's no mean feat.
GRRM is one of those writer who got very successful and stopped listening to editors.
ASOIAF absolutely explodes in complexity and yet despite committed to describing the political intrigue of an entire continent it still manages to be boring.
I think given the huge cast of the books, it's fairly normal for everyone to have characters they enjoy more than others, but how some people enjoyed the Bran chapters when they're beyond the wall or the Brienne chapters when they're trodding through the Riverlands for what feels like an entire book... His style drags so much. ASOIAF feels like a story that got stuck deep in the second act and I think GRRM has no clue how to get it out. It's wildly known that he planned a big 5 year timeskip originally that he did not commit to and this lead to big issues for him down the line, and honestly I also think as a person he's just way more interested in worldbuilding than actual storytelling. His work outside of ASOIAF (ironically) speaks volumes of that.
It's really weird how he thought that not doing the timeskip was ever the right choice. The closest thing to the "good guys" that the story has are the Starks, it's with what the story started. Most of them are literal children, and not in the teenager sense, but in the they are 12 years old sense. They need to grow up to be able to actually do anything. But GRRM didn't let them.
As someone who's read the main books that are out there: Honestly you are not missing anything. The show tells the story really well for 4 seasons and then it slowly (and then quickly) falls apart. Aside of that, the books are never getting finished. At the slim chance that GRRM finishes the next one, there is another one planned after that, and he definitely isn't finishing that one. And the man has left instructions to his wife to burn everything and explicitly said no one else is to finish his story (despite someone else having finished it already in TV form).
Absolutely! In all honesty, my frustration with books might stem from the fact that I read them in German, and they are twice as long as the originals. Not joking. It's 10 books like 800+ pages each.
I'd like to say that I'm also a big lore guy. But I think at that point I might have been too frustrated with the story already to be able to dive into the lore. I need that thread to make me care.
I also can't seem to get through ASOIAF, but for me it's that I don't want to invest the time in a book series that will never have a conclusion.
I actually enjoyed the first book
Same for me.
I heard from a lot of friends that they were well-written, turns out they read - as expected I guess - the german translation of ASOIAF. Which is well-done on a writing level. I read things in original language when possible, and trying to read the original is dreadful. I got through the first book once, and that took me a plethora of quitting and restarting.
GRRM, get a ghost writer! 😅
Curiously, I feel the same (but not on a same level) about Discworld. I like Terry Pratchett but I love Terry Pratchett via Patrick Couton's French translation (Cotton even got a literary prize of his translation work).
Hrm, of course I don't know the French translation, but in German the translations by Andreas Brandhorst are legendary, and the ones by Regina Rawlinson (I think the Tiffany Aching novels were all done by her IIRC) were really awesome, too. And I hated the few done by Geralt Jung.
Translating authors can really do a lot of good stuff if they play with the language they're translating to well. For example the first Tiffany Aching book, Wee Free Men, has this faux scottish accent. This would not work well in German, at least when written. So instead the translation uses a faux frisian accent, something virtually any German can instantly recognize and that can be used to similar effect giving a mangled written form full of apostrophes and contractions as the faux scottish does for the original.
I guess the flipside is that bad translations can also not only be "wrong", but also... lazy. I kinda want someone to use the comparative strengths of the language they're translating to, after all I also expect them to tide over the comparative weaknesses.
I had the same problem. I found he changed scenes too quickly. Never letting you get to know the characters before changing scenes again, so they don't stick in your mind. By the time he cycles through the ridiculous number of characters and gets back to the ones you started with, you don't even remember who they are or what happened anymore.
The Wheel of Time
Conceptually, it has everything that I enjoy in a book. I like books like Lord of the Rings and Dune, but this book just throws so many characters out in front of me, I feel like I have to keep a running notebook of who is who. Normally I would trudge through books like this to get to the better parts, but I often read before bed and this book makes me so sleepy in the first 10 minutes that I figure I will enjoy the night's sleep more than I would by keeping myself awake. I also think it is daunting in that there are so many books to read, and the opinion that I hear that the books in the middle are a bit boring. Maybe one day I can crack the code and get into it. My brother loves the series and even has a friend group that plays a custom game in Table Top Simulator that is based on the books.
I came looking for wheel of time and I was not disappointed. I made it to book 5 or 6 and realized I had no context for the side characters anymore and the main character had grown into someone totally unlikable and unrelatable (to me). It's so funny you mention a notebook of characters because that's exactly what I felt like I needed - a running shorthand log of who all these people were and who they've feuded with in the past so I understand why the current chapter is important. Without it I was skimming through things looking for "good parts" like yourself.
I also made it to book 6, and then I started getting confused. There's characters popping up from books ago that's suddenly super important, and for some reason several side characters has similar names as well!
The similar names are infuriating, especially on audiobook.
I actually ended up enjoying most of the series, but the first two books are dogshit haha.
That's actually super surprising. Most people love the first two books, they're pretty standard heroes journey adventure books compared to what the rest of the series becomes so they are much more approachable for the series than the rest of it.
I read the first one and maybe 20% of the 2nd and it felt lukewarm the whole time, and after hearing about the slog and how the beginning is supposed to be one of the good parts, I just dropped it. Brandon Sanderson isn't one of my favorites either so there was absolutely nothing I was looking forward to despite how much good stuff I have heard of the series. Just not my thing.
Another book series that I could not get into, despite it being important. When I first picked up the first book, I was already lost, like you had said, to the point I really did not want to pick it up again. Which is a shame because the person that finished the series after the original author pasted away is one of my favorite modern authors.
I got until the party split in book 1 and just...couldn't do it. I know it's what pioneered a lot of stuff, but I just felt like i'd seen this all before and it just wasn't my favorite version of these things.
The world seems fascinating in theory, but also knowing there's a "slog" in the middle books, just kills any ability I have to stick it out.
I considered doing it as an audiobook but it's sooooooo long and there's so much that I zone out on.
I started with the audiobook, my preferred medium for long sagas, but it felt like a slog just listening to it. It's a shame because I was interested in the world building and magical systems, but somehow every single one of the characters were so unlikeable and irritating to me.
The series was highly recommended to me so I had really high expectations; I got through the first book and maybe the first couple chapters of the second book before I bailed.
Yep, gave it the ol college try right before the tv series came out and it just kept erasing itself from my mind.
Came here to say this. I loved it at first but I finally gave up at seven. I know, I know everyone told me to push through. But I just could not. If I’m being honest I ‘pushed through’ books four to seven.
I've tried reading Lord of the Rings like 15 times over 30 years, it's my Mom's favorite book series but even after watching the movies I bog down halfway through the Two Towers.
On a technical side I have yet to ever make it through the SQL cookbook, even though it's in my field and highly recommended, by the time I was actually willing to try to read it, I put it down in 2 chapters because I already know the stuff.
Same but for the Silmarillion. It feels like it should be exactly up my alley, I really enjoyed LotR and I love good fantasy worldbuilding (which like that's basically just what the book is cover to cover), but it just ends up feeling too dense and my eyes just glaze over after like a chapter max if I'm lucky.
I love The Egyptian by Mika Waltari - it is one of my favorite books, I have red it like 10 times. I was recommended The Etruscan by the same author and while I was reading it, I had exactly the feeling you describe - I should like it but something just does not click. I guess this just shows how subtle things sometimes determine what we love and what just misses the target.
The Silmarillion is my go-to to enjoy a single chapter with a cup of tea in the evenings. I have a beautiful limited edition with illustrations from Ted Nasmith and it is a literary/fanboyish joy to savor it a little at a time. It helps that I've read it before and I've been a huge LoTR fan for something like 25 years now, so I'm already familiar with all the stories.
The Silmarillion is such a convoluted book that rattles off a bunch of historical events, accompanied by a seemingly endless genealogy of its most prominent protagonists. I've tried reading it multiple times, but never could make it more than halfway through.
Because of this thread I pulled out my copy and browsed through it briefly. It's
so boringtoo much. I really want to trudge through it one day just because I'm a huge fan of LotR and The Hobbit. Maybe I should try reading it in smaller portions, one chapter at a time, like you said.I want to love the Silmarillion, but reading it feels like English homework.
My mistake was doing the wrong order. I read The Hobbit, loved it, was going to start on LOTR, and then heard about this marvelous prequel. So I jumped from Hobbit to Silmarillion, and that pretty much killed any interest I had in reading more Tolkien.
Can I make a book recommendation? I read the Silmarillion too and found it super hard to get through. My parents however also gave me 'Middle Earth for Dummies'. I initially felt a bit embarassed because at the time I was an idealist who wanted to learn from the source. But I am also a Tolkien fan so I picked it up.
The dummies book did more for me than the Silmarillion. Honestly. It's super easy to get through, it gives you a tonne of the same background information the Silmarillion does, like how the world was created and who the wizards truly are, it teaches you how to write Elvish, but it skips the long prose and poems. It's honestly really good.
Sort of similar experience here. I have watched the movies somewhere between 30 and 50 times so I clearly love the universe. But I don't think I made it past 100 pages into the first book - I have read The Hobbit 3-4 times though, so something about the trilogy is just way too different
I'm glad to see there are others who had the same problem. I read The Hobbit, but when I tried to read LOTR, I only made it halfway through The Two Towers. I tried again (from the beginning) and made it to the same spot before just not picking it back up. I will probably try it again some day, but I'm not holding out much hope.
Tip: skip all the songs, poems and other crap which aren't story. it makes it much more readable. I have no advice on the Tm Bombadil parts though.
Edit: peoms > poems
I don’t know why I never thought of that, reading through 90 pages of some song that I don’t know the tune to and doesn’t rhyme is murder.
Chalk up another failed Lord of the Rings reader, I really can't get further than the first 100 pages. Also I have tried the Audio book (Andy Serkis reading is excellent) and I hated the films
Also Slaughterhouse five. Its a book I feel I should read but have never managed to.
Oh man I felt so alone with LOTR! Im sad that I couldn’t get through it. It felt like trying to read an encyclopedia and not a story. Lots of friends told me it was fantastic, but I gave up after not being able to get through the first 50ish pages for the third time.
I will admit that my last attempt was ages ago. Maybe it’s just one of those things that will grow on me with age.
My people are here. I also can't make it through Lord of the Rings, and I've lied to friends about it in the past. One of these days my lies will catch up with me, but so far so good.
For the Lord of the Rings can be challenging at times, so I can understand why people can have difficulties reading it. With it, the reader can interpret it as Tolkien's interpretation to the lead up to both World Wars, considering his experiences fighting in it and his training as a historian and as a dead language translator, the books are suppose to be memoirs of Frodo and the other hobbits had done. And that both of the wars had changed the way that English authors used imagery because a lot of them had fought in both Wars.
Edit: And it is really difficult also because a lot of the modern tropes in fantasy comes from Lord of the Rings. And because of the saying that LoTR is like a mountain in the distance, it is always there.
The tech books are to be read differently. Tub through the index and see what catches your eye. Usually these cookbook style books end up giving you some new ideas especially if you are already experienced in the subject matter.
IDK, I've read most of the O'Reily books as books, not using them as technical references from the start. I have a bunch of them and SQL Cookbook is the only one from the exciting series I haven't "read", their series on "clean" coding is actually really good and I've "read" the entire thing.
I love Neal Stephenson and have read (and generally liked, despite some iffy endings) every book of his except for the Baroque Cycle series. I've tried to read Quicksilver three times and gotten about 2/3rds of the way through before quitting each time. Historical fiction is not my jam and that book proves it.
I can agree here, as I never finished Quicksilver. It also took me three tries to finish Cryptonomicon.
Cryptonomicon is such a weird one too. I feel like I just kinda dozed off toward the end and the plot takes a crazy turn. First it's Turing working on the Enigma Machine, then it's something in the present, back to Turing, and now people are shooting at each other in the woods in the present and the book ends. I enjoyed Snow Crash and that drove me to try something else of his, but after Cryptonomicon I'm good.
If you enjoyed Snow Crash, I'd give Diamond Age a try.
Stephenson is my answer for this
I loved The Diamond Age and Snow Crash, but nothing else I tried (anathem several times, cryptonomicon several times, sevenses and zodiac) grabbed me. Just a bit too dense for me
Same here. I've been given copies of all three, but they remain resolutely unopened past the first half of Quicksilver.
Same here, I just couldn't get through Quicksilver. But I've read Anathem a couple times now and despite it being very dense I still enjoyed it both times.
Same for me. I read both Snow Crash and Diamond Age and liked them well enough. Plus I like the idea of a good book set in the 17th century.
But nope. I couldn't do it. It felt like the book had no real plot. It was just a series of events happening to the characters, none of which were terribly interesting.
I think I made it about halfway through Quicksilver before I gave up.
I have a few books like these on my shelf of shame, but the one that kinda stings the most is Catch 22. I was told it was one of the funniest books of all time, and on top of that, one of the best books of all time. I was so excited when I bought it.
I read like 30 or 40 pages and I felt like a moron. Read them again. I gave up after that. I thought then maybe the comedy was hidden in military jargon or something, or that I wasn’t smart enough to figure it out.
I figured it was maybe a dark comedy. Historically, I’ve had huge trouble understanding dark comedies as films, too. For example, I hated “Dr Strangelove” the first time I saw it, but it grew on me as I aged.
Catch 22 is it for me too. The first time I tried to read it I got a few dozen pages in, like you did. It didn't grab me - it just felt disjointed and strange.
After that I read advice online from others and found "give it 150 pages", so I tried it again. I got in just over 150 pages. I still didn't like the disjointed, snippet kind of nature of it but I understood it better. I started to get a sense of the humor there, but it didn't hit for me. Finally I read the plot synopsis and grasped it more fully.
It's interesting you bring up the dark comedy aspect. I like some dark comedies but find many to be stilted and just not very funny. Maybe that's why Catch 22 didn't hit for me either.
However, all that to say that in the end I decided it wasn't worth it. Life is too short to mess with books, shows, movies, games that I don't find enjoyable. There's just so much more out there that might provide a more meaningful experience for me. Just because something is generally determined to be "good" doesn't mean that I have to find it to be good.
I clicked on this thread thinking "well ok I guess I'll admit I must be a dummy because I can't ever get into Catch 22" so good news neither of us are alone. It checks nearly every box for me, but for whatever reason I can't get into it. I've tried probably 5 times over the last 20 years and every time it is the same thing. Maybe I'll give the audiobook a try.
Same. I tried reading it twice with many years in between. It reads like the author tried too hard to pack "humor" into every single sentence. That makes it a real pain to read. Most of it feels like a stretch or you need to be aware of every cultural nuance at the point when the book was written. Not worth it to me.
I read Catch-22 while in a somewhat ideologically similar situation to Yossarin. It's a very dark comedy but it rarely comes out and tells you the punchline which is doubly odd considering how much time is spent telling you why a situation amused the characters.
I found the easiest way to get through it was to read each chapter twice in a row. I need the second read to let the story aspects soak in before moving on.
But, seriously a good book.
Same here. So many reviews from everyone raving about how funny it was. After reading a bit, I was confused. Where is the funny I thought. Maybe after decade of consuming memes and dark humor, I should probably revisit it. Perhaps as an audiobook?
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I bought it because I devoured The Name of the Rose in like 3 days... but this one is not for me I guess. I have tried multiple times and I cannot get through the first 50 pages for some reason.
Same experience for me, although I skimmed my way through (waste of time/effort, in hindsight).
Foucault's Pendulum felt like 10 pages of plot and 500 pages of medieval gossip / conspiracy theories. The first 50 pages are actually heavier on plot than the rest of the book, if it makes you feel any better (i.e., it only gets worse).
Island of the Day Before was similarly disastrous, but I found Baudolino to actually be a good read - though very different in style to the rest of his work. He actually tries to write a novel there, instead of novel-as-data-dump.
Came here to mention the same.
I always get to about half the book and then life happens and I lose track of where I was and what was going on.
It does not help that the version I tried reading is localized and very footnote heavy, going back and forth slows down my pace massively
My experience has taught me that I shouldn’t try to force myself to read books that I can’t muster the attention to read. More often than not I am losing attention because it’s just plain bad.
So at one time I wanted to read a book called Naia, which was a sequel of sorts to my favorite book. It was a really thick book, with more than 600 pages. The only reason I was able to get through it was because I was in a situation where reading the book was basically the only activity available to me.
I was so set on reading it because I was so captivated by the world the author had built. It was fantastical without any fantasy elements; it felt as if you could taste a magical ether running alongside the wind even if there was no magic.
Naia did not have any of that. It’s a story about a girl who gets sold as a sex slave. At one point she has sex with her female best friend. There is a point where there is a slave uprising but the story is told from the perspective of the main character who is not actively involved with it. And worse, there are so many pages in which absolutely nothing happens. The author is famous for his beautiful and poetic prose depicting nature, but this book more often than not is just filled with rambling.
The good news is that because I had nothing to do, I finished really quickly. But that is why I don’t force myself to read books these days.
I have tried a few times to get into Consider Phlebas, the entry level book in The Culture series. The problem is not any particular demerit of the book, but English is not my first language so writing that is sophisticated, poetic, and informal, with a high amount of invented words and concepts, can be tiresome. Neuromancer poses a similar problem.
It could be worth trying to skip to Player of Games, I find it does a much better job at introducing the world. Consider Phlebas throws you in a conflict between several different cultures which makes it harder to follow
I tried to read Cien Años de Soledad in the original Spanish, which was a mistake because it has multiple generations of characters all with the same names (!), and I absolutely could not keep track of it. I may yet try to read a translation.
I can muddle my way through a decent amount of Spanish on the basis of context and guessing at definitions from shared roots with English (thanks, Normans, for making sure I would have to learn a Latin-rooted synonym for basically every word in the language), but that is absolutely not adequate for a pretty sophisticated piece of literature. So yeah, I feel you on that.
Do you have to read it in English?
Consider Phlebas was never translated to my language. Neuromancer has though. If I ever read it, it will not be in English.
Too bad. English isn't my native language, either, but both of those books were published in my country. I often think it must be great being for example German and having pretty much all English books translated to your language. We only get a slice of what is published there.
House of Leaves.
Every time I start that book something comes up, dragging me away from finishing. Then, when I come back, I’ve entirely purged what’s going on and feel like I have to start over.
Same. It’s such a beautiful book and it haunts my bookshelf. I feel a bit of shame every time I see the cover at book stores.
It happens to me also, I think I've started it like 2 or 3 times and get like 1/3 of the way and then sometime comes up and I stop
For anyone having this issue, grab the audio book, and just listen to it, even if it's not grabbing your attention at first, if the book is good enough, you'll eventually start paying attention when it does get through the slowness of some books. I had this issue with ASOIAF series and The Dresden Files, both of which I completely hammered out once I got through that initial slog.
I love audiobooks. There's some really good narrators that make it a great experience. Plus audiobooks are nice for multitasking. I can listen to a book while cleaning, cooking, working, and even while playing some videogames.
Yep, I don't have a ton of time anymore to read, and when I did at night, the second I'm laying down I'm out in 5 seconds flat. Audiobooks have completely saved me from missing out on books that I know I'd never get a chance to read.
For me, it's Hyperion by Dan Simmons.
I've not tried reading it as such, but have had the audiobook for around three years. In that time, I've tried to get into it around four times and each time I barely make it past the second chapter. It's annoying, as everything I know about the book suggests that I would love it. But I just find it gruelling. It's one of the few audiobook experiences where I find myself switching off and not listening and then having to rewind several times to understand what it going on.
I'll probably try again next month.
Interestingly I tried and have bounced off Ilium by Simmons after repeated recommendations from friends. But I was able to get into Hyperion pretty quickly; it is high on my list of books. I haven't been able to make much progress on the follow-up novels. Recently learned that Simmons taught English in a local school district while writing his early work. I found his public political stances... discordant with the themes in Hyperion.
I found out long ago not to look too much up about the creatives I admire. It's crazy how open-minded, logical and just "good" the worlds and characters an author creates can be when contrasted to their often extreme views in the real world.
Agreed, I don't go out of my way to research an artist. But my SO saw he taught in her school district in his "about the author" page in the back of Hyperion and wanted to check out his instagram to see if she had any connections.
I had the same problem -- it was an absolute slog to get through the first bit. I can't remember where it picks up, but it picks up FAST and then it just carries you away like a strong current. The first night I started listening to it (for the third time), I ended up staying up until 4am because it was just too interesting.
How about: instead of starting from the beginning, skip a few pages or a chapter PAST where you keep stopping and try starting there. If things get good, you can always go back and read what you missed.
You know, I think I might do just that. You're not the first person to say it really picks up, so I know it will be worth slogging through it.
Finishing books has been a lifelong problem for me, largely because I used to put so much effort into retaining every sentence I read because I naively thought that was the right way to read. It wasn't until my 30s that my partner introduced me to the idea that losing sentences and entire paragraphs doesn't really matter overall and over-focusing only detracts from the experience.
This sounds ridiculous as I type it out, and I knew it was ridiculous that I read so rigidly for so long, but it's true. I had the same issue with audiobooks and used to have a hard time listening to them if I wasn't able to give them my full attention.
Once I realized that it was "okay" to not pay attention to everything, it made reading so much easier. I have ADHD, so I still can't easily consume text-based books, but I have torn through hundreds of audiobooks over the last several years. If I find something is painfully boring, I'll skip ahead and give it another shot, or I'll start doing a different mechanical activity while I listen to it. The Hyperion series required a lot of cringe-skipping.
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. I see everyone posting titles like "Wheel of time" and "Game of Thrones", and that is 100% understandable because they are sizeable books. To the Lighthouse is not a sizeable book; it is short, and I still can't finish it. The stream of consciousness narration makes it hard to pick up after putting down for a bit, and being a grown up makes it tough for me to dedicate a whole day to reading a book in one go - even if I could, it's the kind of book where you do have to take breaks to really let everything sink in (at least I have to!)
I've tried to finish it a handful of times in the last 10 years, but it might be something I need to try picking up again when I don't have so much on the go day to day.
I also didn't get into Lighthouse. It definitely seems to split opinions as either her masterpiece or an outlier in her catalogue.
Have you read either Orlando or Mrs. Dalloway? I feel like those are a bit more universally on-brand "Virginia Woolf."
I did read and enjoy them both! I found it much easier to follow the narrative. I'm no slouch when it comes to challenging reads, but To the Lighthouse is so hard for me to follow, it's my literary Mt. Everest!
(Also please tell me that your username is a reference to Skyrim puzzles. That would make my day! Haha)
The Bleak Falls Barrow puzzle specifically :D
To The Lighthouse is so experimental that it's closer to Gertrude Stein than Woolf's other books. Alfred Kazin criticized Stein by saying
and I think that can apply to Lighthouse as well. It feels like an experiment.
The book is divided into
two halves(EDIT: see below) if you don't know. The divide is pretty clean. Maybe you can make it your goal to get through the first half...?I personally liked it better than Orlando. In fact, I'd say it's my favorite Virginia Woolf work (though I've only read Orlando, To the Lighthouse, and her autobiography).
EDIT: I just looked it up--it's three parts, not two. Now I'm not sure what to recommend because my memory seems unreliable. Just looking at the text now, I think all 3 parts are pretty distinct. Maybe you can refer to a character sheet like this if you're having trouble remembering who is who...? (I don't think there are any spoilers in the link, and anyways it's not a book with twists and turns.)
There was a time I was an avid reader (reading 1 or 2 books a week). I would often read as much as I could of one author, starting with their greatest hits and then their deep cuts. I was on a Virginia Woolf kick when I read To the Lighthouse. It might help to read a different, more engaging (to you) book by VW first just to get you in the headspace / warm you up. Or read a biography of her or the Bloomsbury writers, also to prime you for the book.
Moby Dick is my white whale. I enjoy Melville's short works so much, but I have never been able to read the entirety of his most famous work.
Yeah, Moby Dick is a really difficult read, mostly because the amount of research that Melville had done for that book. But have you tried the audio book version?
That's a great idea! I will have to try that. I'll also have to try introducing it to my husband and son. They love when I read to them - and explain the history/background. Seeing them enjoy things helps motivate me!
Reading it to other people, is also a great idea and getting others involved is also a great way to ping pong ideas off each other on the book and its themes. With the audiobook and getting loved ones involved would help with getting through the book. Good luck on your next read through.
For the history behind the book here is a Smithsonian Magazine article about the ship that the book is based on. Or look up the whaler ship the Essex to start off your research.
Awesome. Thank you so much!
I got through Moby Duck by committing to read at least one chapter every day until I finished, even if it took six months. It was not at all what I had expected. It’s a fever dream of a novel, with many profoundly beautiful passages, a surprising amount of humor, and tremendous characters, but it’s also definitely heavy going in many places (I can say with confidence that whale biology is not my thing). Still, I highly recommend reading it.
I read it in middle school for fun with my dad. And to this day we still make re defences to the book because how well written the book is. And I do agree with you that Moby Dick is heavy at some points in the whale and the whaling terminology that the author uses, which makes reading it a lot harder to get through. But when you do, you are glad that you stick with it.
I'm on my fifth attempt at Pierre, his hated follow-up to it. It is really sentimental and out there, with great moments, but it's a real slog.
This review from when it came out isn't totally wrong:
That review is pure gold. Thanks for sharing!
The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Despite being an avid reader of most of King's other work, for whatever reason I just have not been able to get into this series.
I'm pretty neutral on Stephen King. For me, I did make it through the dark tower series, but tried the stand and gave up maybe 1/3 the way through.
Mine are Gravity's Rainbow and Ulysses. Also The Sounds and the Fury. They are like work to read and I can't find the enjoyment. Maybe I'll try again in the future...
I agree with Ulysses being work. I think it most appeals to graduate students who need to write a dissertation. To me, it felt exactly like like doing hard crossword puzzles. Both mentally (taxing) and emotionally (empty). That's not to say there aren't some incredibly beautiful passages in it, but they're spaced far and wide between crossword puzzles. It's a book that I think could be incredible in an abridged version, if an editor were brave enough to attempt it.
I've been wanting to try Gravity's Rainbow. I liked the style of Crying of Lot 49, though not particularly the substance. One of these days, when I have time...
Same here, but after the second or third reading of Finnegans Wake they are a breeze... wait did I imply I got through more than the second or third paragraph... ;-)
A lot of H.P. Lovecraft's stories I found to be insufferable. The only one I remember enjoying is the one about the scientist dude that invents air conditioning. Supposedly that's one of Lovecraft's worse stories.
I tried to read one of his stories years ago around Halloween. I love Eldritch horror as a concept and wanted to read the OG. Within the first few pages, there were mentions of "ancient Indian burial grounds" and stuff about dark, satanic practices, and wild savage ways and stuff like that ... As an Indigenous person, I noped right out of that one.
From what I understand about Lovecraft is that he hated about everyone and everything. If he wasn't racist towards Indigenous people, he was towards African Americans, if not them he was towards the Irish or the Italians, etc, etc, etc. Part of the reason I really don't want to get into reading the OG stuff, despite me like the occult stuff that he wrote and had a influence on.
Oh and the dude was also really fucking paranoid too.
It's unfortunately pervasive through a lot of media - older media especially, and sci-fi/fantasy is no exception. When I was in university I read "I have no mouth and I must scream", I had heard so many good things and although I didn't play the computer game, people I know who had spoke highly of it.
Conceptually, it's interesting. Critically, the story reads like the dude's girlfriend left him for a Black man and he wrote unflattering caricatures of them both into the book as revenge. I like chilling stories, but I didn't enjoy reading that one at all... My professional opinion is that it was squicky.
I read somewhere that he wrote the story "The Color From Outerspace" (I think that's its name) when he learned about light outside the visible spectrum.
I tried for a long time to get into Terry Pratchett. Everyone who knows me and my media/book tastes has recommended the Discworld series to me, and he seemed like such a lovely man but I could not make it through Color of Magic; I would fall asleep every time. I don't know if I should have started somewhere else but I eventually gave up.
If you're up to it at some point, try the audiobooks. They're fantastic!
As a Discworld fan, I want to say that the Rincewind books are different than the rest. They are early and they are very silly, specific parody of then common fantasy tropes that are today much less common.
There are several unique character arcs/ subseries and a few stand alone novels that are in my opinion better starting points. Some people love the Rincewind books, but many don't, even if they like the remaining books.
Mort starts the Death series. Wyrd Sisters starts the Witches series. Going Postal starts the industrial revolution. Guards Guards starts the City Watch series. The Wee Free Men starts the Tiffany Aching series. Small Gods, the Truth, Pyramids, Thief of Time and a couple of others are stand alones within the Discworld shared universe.
Pratchett developed as a writer. I frequently suggest Going Postal or Small Gods to start, but I know that different people have different favorites.
I also didn't enjoy the color of magic, but what's cool about the discworld books is that you can just read the ones you like. If you like a character more then others you can just read the books about that character. They're all connected in the same world, but they are stand alone stories!
I really enjoyed the books about Death, I think Mort is the first one
I couldn't get into Color of Magic either, I don't remember why though.
Audiobooks! Start with going postal.
Underworld by Don DeLillo. It's a personal neurosis, but I hate hate the use of sports events as the framing device for a book; in the case of Underworld, the world series or whatever the world series was called in 1951.
I may have just watched too much Aaron Sorkin, but the idea that the winning ball from a world series game could have a historical trajectory like Forrest fucking Gump, tracing from hand to hand a portrait of the US in the 20th century, is so blockheadedly apple-pie that it makes me want to throw the book across the room. Ugh.
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I read This Is How You Lose Her and didn't really get the praise, but Oscar Wao is so discussed as Diaz's best that I gave it a shot. There's something a little twee or too-clever about it that reminds me of Dave Eggers or Jennifer Egan, neither of whom I love.
Ministry of the Future, which I mentioned in another post. I'm a sympathetic audience, being interested in science fiction and climate change — but the book reads like a New Yorker article in book form. I've had it for a year now and will pick up a chapter every month or so. It's a very long book, and there's a singular droning message of "climate change bad, humanity lazy". It's been a slog trying to get through the first third. And I'm not of poor stamina: I've read Dune and the Three-Body Problem in single sittings!
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous. I picked this up at least... 3 or 4 years ago from my gay bookclub? Everyone raves about it, but I think the writing is—pardon my rare use of vulgarity—bullshit. It's all over the place. The prose is so purple, even Prince would blush. I feel like I'm reading a teenager's diary—a precocious one, yes, but a teenager nonetheless—and that I'm on crazy pills and/or the rest of the world is experiencing a shared psychosis over how incredible this book is. But I keep at it because it's now ensconced in the contemporary queer literary canon and if I stop now I might as well be exiled to Florida to live under Ron DeSantis' rule.
The Count of Monte Cristo
I've started and stopped this book several times over the years, getting a little further each time then putting the book back down. Similar to you, have heard amazing things about the book and that it's one of the best revenge stories ever written. "The payoff is so worth it! Just keep going it pays off!!". I get past the prison arc, and then completely dread the slog that is whatever is happening in Italy. It doesn't help that I struggle a bit with how the book is written since they're all translations, and a lot of the phrases and concepts in the book don't exist anymore.
If I can't get through a book on the first attempt, there's almost never a second attempt. If I didn't like it the first time around, I assume I'm not going to like it any more the second time around.
There was one exception to this: I recently made a second attempt on the second Uplift trilogy (collected as 'Exiles') by David Brin, and finally made it through to the end. It wasn't worth it, and my first instincts had been correct. (Fuller story here and here.)
So, that just confirms my policy of not trying a second time if I don't like a book on the first attempt.
I think the only book I never finished was Dracula. I can see how it would be interesting but I had watched so many Dracula inspired movies before getting the book that I was over all bored with it.
I've read Dracula. But it's hard work to engage with Stoker's epistolary technique of writing different viewpoints as journal entries, newspaper articles, and correspondence - the reader as voyeur.
I found a much easier and more historically appropriate way to read it, thanks to modern technology! There's a Substack called "Dracula Daily" which will e-mail you the Dracula pages that correspond to the same date.
If Jonathan Harker makes a journal entry on June 26th in the book, that's the text you'll receive in your e-mail inbox. Instead of clawing your way through the high-Gothic horrors until you're worn out and bored, you get delicious bite-sized thrills. The caveat is that the e-mail only starts to arrive on the beginning date in the book, May 3, so you'll have quite a wait before the cycle resumes.
I sent that link to a couple people this year - I believe they send a digest of that chapters that have been sent so far if you sign up after May 3rd! So no need to wait another 10 months, there's still every reason to jump right in.
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. The Secret History is one of my favourite books and a frequent reread, but I’ve tried so many times to read (or listen to) The Goldfinch and it’s just so boring. Never got further than a few pages
The Secret History is one of my ultimate favorites too, and I just loved The Goldfinch. It was brilliantly narrated, I wish audible would give Secret a redo with that same narrator because Donna ruined her audiobook by narrating it herself. I live in fear that some asshole in Hollywood is going to try to make a movie out of that brilliant novel and destroy it's magic.
Re Goldfinch: I hope you can give it another try some day, it really becomes wonderful.
You’re one of the few people I’ve found who like both, I’ve had a bit of a pet theory for years that everyone loves one and hates the other!
Have you read The Little Friend? I never picked it up after disliking The Goldfinch
Hmm interesting. I read the little friend but very long ago, whenever it came out. I should reread it because I remember almost nothing. Maybe I'll see if audible has it, and report back!
Please do, I’d be interested to hear what you think. Perhaps you’ll be a rare lover of the trifecta!
That's me, Noted Contrarian~
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Conceptually, it should be a book I love, but I can't get past the halfway mark. His writing in general is rough for me as I find his characters much too flat.
The other is, and don't hate me, but The Hobbit and all of the LotR. It inspired so much of fantasy, but my guy could not give up the descriptors. I am not surprised going on a walk with him was an all-day affair.
Infinite Jest. My stubbornness has caused me to purchase it in e-book and now audiobook form, in addition to the physical copy I’ve owned and attempted to read once a year for the past decade or so. I think, at this point, I know I’ll never finish it but a part of me is weirdly unwilling to let it go.
Oh trust me. I always joke about just biting the bullet and buying the Dune series so that I can have enough time to get through the book.
I was reading through the comments to find this one. Same, so much the same.
Don Quixote.
It is so packed full of dialogue, specifically from Quixote, that my mind can't help but picture a standard setting of medieval England and as a result I have to put it down, or else I may become as crazy as Quixote himself.
After a certain point, I can't picture it any other way. I know Quixote is supposed to be the crazy one, pretending he's a knight in an era of flintlock rifles, but 300+ pages into the book and I've found myself proverbially lost in his delusion.
I had a collection of stories from Edgar Allen Poe. Enjoyed all of Lovecraft's stuff so thought I'd like this too.
I tried. Really tried, but just couldn't get into it.
I've been trying to read Way of the Peaceful Warrior for more than a decade. I don't know what it is, but I just can't get fully invested in it.
Any of Tolkein's works. I have tried numerous times over 3 decades, and just cannot.
Godel, Escher, and Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid.
Gravity's Rainbow.
Finally got through GEB on my third go. That was over a decade ago and I don't remember any of it except for one small passage. I rememebe it being a fascinating read yet it still look me 3 times and I rememeber none of it... Go figure
A lot of the books I see here, I actually quite liked. There is only one series I haven't been able to finish (yet), although I know it has a large fanbase and some people just love it: Malazan Book of the Fallen.
What I like about larger series (like Wheel of Time) is that it is one big epos. Lots of characters, lots of storylines, but in the end it's all tied together. Malazan is not like that. It's different storylines, spanning over several books, which are linked and intertwined, but it doesn't actually go anywhere. At least not in the 8 of the 10 books I read. I know that's part of the point, but that's not what I want.
Maybe I'll pick up the last two books eventually. If I ever find myself not knowing what to read next. But I don't see that happening soon.
I've personally read Dune over a dozen times, but my wife had never been able to get into it, so we decided to pick it up on audiobook for a long road trip we were taking. I highly recommend it to anyone trying to get into the book, there is a version that has it partly done by multiple voice actors that makes consuming it MUCH easier.
There aren't many books that I have made multiple attempts at reading, plenty I've dropped and not looked back. Some of the hardest reads I've ever had though are 1981, Catch-22, and Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. Honestly would have dropped DADoES if it wasn't for my film and literature class (and Bladerunner is one of my favourite films).
The LOTR trilogy. I really want to read it but I just can't get through it. It feels like I'm reading a history book instead of a novel. I have tried, at least ten times by now.
Also, Heaven's River, book 4 of the Bobiverse series. I loved the other 3 books, but Heaven's River just bores me to sleep. Tried it twice, stopped halfway through each time. I'll have to try again some time.
I like books that are easy to read, like the Expanse series. I've read all of them one after the other (including the novella's) except for the last one because it wasn't out yet. Once book 9 came out I read that in three days. Loved it all.
Pride and Prejudice for me. It's a classic, so I felt like I had to read it. It's just hard to keep track of all the characters when multiple women are called "Miss Bennett". I tried twice, gave up even sooner on the second try. It's actually given me the passing thought that it might be worth doing a "rewrite" of older classics. Not changing the plot, characters, time period or setting, or any of that "sensitivity" rewrites that have popped up recently, but just modernizing the writing style and language used so they're more accessible.
Aside from that, one trick I used a couple times as a kid: I'd just skip parts I thought were slow and boring, particularly towards the beginning. I can't tell you much about Jane Eyre's childhood and life before becoming a governess. Nor can I tell you much about Roy Disney's childhood, I skipped to his adulthood when I read his biography.
Sometimes, books just take a while to really get going and grab readers' attention. It's a fatal flaw of many writers, so I try to skip ahead sometimes to see if it's just another case of a slow start.
I mentioned another in this thread but another for me was The Broken Earth series. I really enjoyed most of The Fifth Season, but when it came time to start The Obelisk Gate I didn’t have any interest in continuing.
There is a type of book that is called Encyclopedic novel. Gravity Rainbow was already mentioned here and it fits this type. I imagine that those type of books are some that a lot of people drop it after some time. I read a book like that in recent times. Infinite Jest. It was the hardest book I read ever. It took me over 6 months to finish. Many times I questioned if I should just stop it since I wasn't enjoying it. Maybe I was masoquist sometimes. I feel that I absorbed not even 20% of it. Sometimes I questioned myself if the problem was me or it was the book or both. Until this day I don't know. But from what I've seen is a book that a lot of people find it hard and it gets a lot of discussion. I can understand the effort of trying to write something meaningful and unique that sometimes wont be easy to read, but I wonder if this can have limits. Maybe in the freedom of creation realm it hasn't. I don't know if I wasted my time reading this book or not, but I can say that it was a experience I'll never forget. I certainly need to read this book again (to get more from it) but I don't know if I ever will.
Finally, although I can say that I read all the pages of that book, I don't if I can say that I really got trough it.
Wheel of Time series. I have been recommended it again and again, and have gotten to the third book a few times, but I just cannot do it. I have given up at this point.
I tried to stick with les miserables but fell off somewhere nearly 400 pages in and following a nearly 100 page deviation on the intracies of the napoleanic wars... Haven't mustered up the strength to sift back though all those pages only to end up where I left off.
Jerusalem by Alan Moore, it's split into 3 books, got through the first twice, and half way through the second, once. Love all. His graphic novels and wanted to love this opus but couldn't make it happen.
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse
I think it's been five attempts and yet the book remains in my attic in the vain hope that I may yet finish it before I die.
Here's the blurb from Goodreads:
The final novel of Hermann Hesse, The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.
Set in the twenty-third century, The Glass Bead Game is the story of Joseph Knecht, who has been raised in Castalia, the remote place his society has provided for the intellectual elite to grow and flourish. Since childhood, Knecht has been consumed with mastering the Glass Bead Game, which requires a synthesis of aesthetics and philosophy, which he achieves in adulthood, becoming a Magister Ludi (Master of the Game).
I'm a huge Hesse fan. I try to read a different book of his at least once a year. That one is a slog. It's a wonderful meditation, and many of his insights are fleshed out more fully into the Ludi's odyssey, but it often feels pointless and meandering. I personally loved it and thought it was a wonderful read, but you have to abandon a sense of continuity and typical storytelling devices.
I read it in winter, which helped too. For slow, cold days, it helps to pass the time. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone but the most ardent Hesse fan.
I'm not sure if it was just a bad translation, but I've taken a couple of stabs at Crime and Punishment and keep flunking out about 1/4 way through.
Although I've completed it, The Prince by Machiavelli. So much of the book is just "if we look to the past, when this guy was writing about this guy fighting another guy, we see that you should not fight but if you have to fight, win. And if you win, you should do it in a way that makes people like you."
Like, I get that maybe I'm speaking from at least a few hundred years of learned lessons from that level but that feels like pre-K for leaders. I'd read like three or four pages a night because my head was just spinning trying to keep track of all these people he was referencing and I felt I didn't glean anything truly worthwhile from the book, aside from a healthy skepticism of anyone who claims to have read it.
It's a really short book too but I'd rather just reread Fear and Loathing instead...
Wicked by Gregory Maguire. I've tried three different times to read it.
I'm someone who has absolutely been known to enjoy stupid "teen reading" quite a lot. But there is nothing quite like the "interject weird sexual innuendo for no particular reason" like this book. None of the relationships felt realistic, and the characterization seemed excessively shallow, even for a book designed on a child's fable. It's supposed to be this "adult version" and every time I get to part 3 or whatever at the most I just finally have to cringe my way out because honestly it's exhausting to read what an adult wrote as though from the perspective of some teens who apparently doesn't remember what it was like to be a teen, and just chalked it up to "I guess I thought about sex a lot."
Maybe a controversial take.
I loved the musical though. Silly, takes itself seriously when it needs to, and plays the fool when it needs to; honestly a great adaptation. It's the only real reason I gave it a couple chances to try to get me through the book.
OMG - I thought I was the only one with Dune. Best I could do was 100 pages and I burn through tough to read books all the time.
like a few here I also can't get into Game of thrones. I really want to because I know how much is out there for me to explore but I just can't get stuck into it no matter how much I try. Same happend with the series too where I kept watching the first season then giving up, forgetting about it, rewatching it, getting sad I couldn't get into it and then giving up again