The books I couldn't finish:
1. American Gods by Neil Gaiman
2. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
3. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
4. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
5. July's People by Nadine Gordimer (earning my only F in high school)
6. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (but I handled Tolstoy just fine)
7. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (to my mother's chagrin)
8. 1984 by George Orwell (although Mrs. Slocombe once compared my writing to Orwell's, saying "in that it is like a windowpane, not that it is feverishly dystopic")
9. No One Gets Out of Here Alive (Jim Morrison's biography) (I tried...a friend really wanted me to read it...I just couldn't).
10. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. I didn't even go to the book club meeting about it.
Interesting list. I had no problem with the first three, but oh my god, Henry Miller! I read Jane Eyre all the way to the end as a girl, but now would have trouble even starting it. I recently bailed on a horribly self-centered nonfiction book, and Eat-Pray-Love-wanna-be (which I also could not read).
ReplyDeleteYes! I was about to post the same thing about Jane Eyre. LOVED it as a kid. Could barely get through it as an adult.
DeleteI forgot the navel gazing eat pray love! I also did not finish that.
ReplyDeleteI have this horrible habit of finishing almost everything I start. Even when it's bad (for me). I hope against hope.
ReplyDeleteI would put almost every mystery book I've ever started on this list. (And that Mrs. S. had such a way with words.)
ReplyDeleteI'm shocked at some of these. But some books need to be read at the right time, otherwise the reading just doesn't happen.
ReplyDeleteI am reading 1984 right now. I tried in 1984 but didn't like it. I sometimes get it confused with "The Prisoner" series.
ReplyDeleteI liked The Glass Castle and The Time Traveler's Wife, but I agree with you about American Gods.