UK's Top 10 "never finished" Fiction Books

[Winters_Sorrow]

This made me chuckle a little and got me thinking about books which I started but never finished.

BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Harry Potter book 'often unread'

I'll start this confessional by admitting to starting but not finishing many fine works but chiefly in the stocks are:
Otherland Book 2: River of Blue Fire by Tad Williams (and books 3 & 4 not got)
Kings Dragon by Kate Elliott
The Algebraist by Iain M Banks.

I'll also admit to skipping ahead (i.e. missing huge chunks of the book to just reach the end) in Lord of the Rings. That book is just too laborious and fol-de-rol at points. If I wanted to read about little songs and hey-nonny-no's I'd read a book about morris dancing

Anyone else got some unfinished books on the shelf which everyone else likes but you don't?

 

[Urien]

Hey nonny nonny...

The Lord of the Isles by David Drake... derivitive...and then this happened.

Hmm there must be others...

By my tights, my thoughts lie unbidden. Verily they do. Tra la la.

Oh and twice I have failed to finish Ulyssesesseesseesseess (proto type for Booker prize winners)... speaking of which "The Famished Road" by Ben Okri... up it's own bottom I thought.

 

[Raven]

I didn't particularly like Cloud Atlas (I think it was overpraised, so I was disappointed) but I'm surprised people didn't finish it. It's not that long or dense, really.

I used to finish books come what may. One Mr Goodkind cured me of that habit.

 

[dwndrgn]

There are many books that I haven't finished. There are way too many books out there that I'll enjoy more to torture myself by finishing a book I don't like. However, I do always finish books I'm reading for a purpose like for review or for a book club (Two notables there are Xen and The Man in the High Castle, both of which would have hit the circular file long before the last page had turned otherwise.) I never finished Ellen Kushner's Swordspoint even though it has been praised by many here on the board, most of which I respect for recommendations. Of course now I've got to read The Priviledge of the Sword by Kushner for review so I'll finish that. Hopefully I'll like it better than Swordspoint.

Other well-lauded series where I've read only the first book are Martin's A Game of Thrones and whatever his name's The Darkness that Comes Before.

 

[ladyflorange]

I never finished Cloud Atlas. Actually I barely started it. I couldn't get into it at all, and that's really unusual for me.

 

[Jason_Taverner]

The Algebraist by Iain M Banks as well lol, I just so lost off on the pod things going down to the surface of the planet, Thomas Covenant, I'll go back to it one day, and Prince of Nothing series

 

[littlemissattitude]

I never finished Cloud Atlas. Actually I barely started it. I couldn't get into it at all, and that's really unusual for me.

Interesting lists; I've never even begun any of the books on either the fiction or non-fiction lists, as far as I can remember. There are, however, lots of books I've begun and never finished, since I don't feel the compulsion to finish a book I don't like just because I began reading it. One book I've tried repeatedly to read but never been able to finish is A Tale of Two Cities. I've never been able to get very far with Tolkien, either. Don't throw things, okay? There are other books which I've tried several times before I was able to finally finish them. Dune is one example.

Oh, and did you all know that there is another book, not Mitchell's, also called The Cloud Atlas? It is by Liam Callanan, and is a neat little book (Amazon reviews notwithstanding) that takes place in Alaska near the end of World War II. It concerns the adventures of a young military specialist in the defusing of bombs (and who later becomes a Catholic priest), some of the natives of the area, and a program by the Japanese to send incendiary bombs over the Pacific Ocean to burn down forests and cause general chaos in the United States. It is a lovely book that, while grounded in historical reality, also has fantastic elements to it.

 

[Culhwch]

Like Winters, I couldn't finish Elliot's King's Dragon, nor the first of Erikson's Malazan books (despite three attempts), nor The Darkness That Comes Before. Those I'd say are the most notable - at least, in these circles. So many rave on those three authors, but I just can't see why.

 

[Kitera]

That surprises me. The 4th HP book was one of my favourites and I often thought it was one of the best out of the other HP books; excluding the last book for I have not read it!

 

[Nesacat]

I've not been unable to finish any of the books in the two lists that I had started though both Ulysses and Cloud Atlas were tough going. I try to finish a book if I start it. I feel bad for some reason if I don't.

I really liked Eats, Shoots & Leaves. I bought it for all the other editors as a Christmas gift last year. Also liked Why Don't Penguins Feet Freeze; but then again I like books filled with all kinds of bits of information. Always have.

There have been books I could not get into though like the Thomas Covenant books. I stopped reading after the first but that because of my personal feelings about the main character. I stopped with Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time as well after the fourth book. I might go back and try again after they are all done.

As for Harry Potter, I liked the first three the best and found myself skipping large chunks in the others.

 

[Kettricken]

Usually, I try to finish all books.
For me, Cloud Atlas was a sometimes tough (I think because the style switches so often and it's unclear where the story is headed), but very satisfying read.
I started 'the Colour of Magic' by Pratchett in Dutch, I put it away because I thought it would be better to read it in English. Also, Danielewsky's House of Leafs still stands unfinished, mainly because at the time I started it, I was also writing my thesis and I had no time for a big book like this.
Vernon God Little is a good read, but has a tough start, so stick with it.

 

[Raven]

Jason, Nesacat: I'd forgotten Covenant. Couldn't finish that either. I keep meaning to go back to it, because I actually really like Donaldson's other work, and I will some day. But on the first attempt, like you Nesa, I couldn't stick Covenant himself so I gave up.

Kettricken: I didn't find Cloud Atlas a tough read - but I didn't find it satisfying either. It just wasn't all that well-written or original to me.

 

[Myth]

I'm surprised Tolstoy's War And Peace and Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment are on the list—I loved those books.

One book I never managed to finish was Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, it just bored me, and Eragon which is just as bad—just my opinion, anyway.

 

[Talysia]

I was never able to finish Robin Hobb's Shaman's Crossing. One of these days I'll have to pick it up and try again.

 

[Werthead]

Funnily enough, about 200 pages into Lord Foul's Bane I put the book down and never picked it up again. More recently I got a few dozen pages into the second Viriconium novel and just gave up. The writing was okay, he just had no story worth reading.

I recently suspended reading of Neal Stephenson's The Confusion halfway through due to extreme density of the writing and brain overload, but I'll definitely go back and finish reading. Jack Shaftoe is too awesome a character not to go back to.

One thing that's odd is that A Brief History of Time isn't even on the non-fiction list, when it is often referred to on TV and in newspapers as the most unfinished book of all time.

 

[The Wanderer]

I'm surprised Tolstoy's War And Peace and Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment are on the list—I loved those books.

One book I never managed to finish was Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix, it just bored me, and Eragon which is just as bad—just my opinion, anyway.

Crime & Punishment, is an enthralling book, can't think how anyone can fail to finish it...

I've failed twice at Tolstoy's book though

 

[Myth]

I never got past the first part of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina.

 

[UltraCulture]

The only book i can remember not finishing was The Snow by Adam Roberts it started of great then after about the 100th page boredom struck and i just put it down,strange because i like most of his stuff as a whole.

 

[Steve S]

Just couldn't get through Catch 22. I tried but failed about 150 pages in. Maybe one day...

 

[Coolhand]

Just couldn't get through Catch 22. I tried but failed about 150 pages in. Maybe one day...

Gasp! I LOVE Catch-22. Especially the whole "read me back my last line" scene. And the fact that PFC Wintergreen basically runs the entire war from the mailroom...

Couldn't finish Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series. I hated it after 50 pages but stuck with it for two whole books because I didn't want to give up something I'd heard so much about. Personally, I think the Emperor is running around in the nude when it comes to these books but I seem to be the only one...which probably means I'm just too thick to understand them.