Does anyone...

Like more than a few people that picked up this book I came to it after finding out how the Alien films referenced it so...
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad
I get about a dozen pages in [if I'm lucky] and then stall. I've even tried starting at random points in the book just to get started..
I don't know about love. If it is it is a very bitter sweet love.
One day... One day I will get there!

 

They're more examples of "tried to read once and got turned off forever", but: Game of Thrones, and Susan Kay's Phantom. I didn't get more than a handful of chapters into GOT before putting it down and never picking it up again. With Phantom, I very much enjoyed the first several chapters, but there was one specific moment that basically slammed my NOPE button and made me unable to read further.

Spoiler: the NOPE moment in Phantom

It's when 12/13-year-old Erik is with the circus troupe/caravan (can't recall exactly, haven't picked up the book since 2008) and the leader of the troupe attempts to ... shall we say ... end his innocence.

What makes it even worse is, if I recall correctly it's written in 1st person. *shudder*

 

Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. I don't know what it is about that book, I just never seem to finish it. It's not even that long!

 

Funny, I read that in one weekend (the pages turned just fast...)

I suppose it's a matter of personal taste or even the point in your life in which you decide to read a book. I'm sure there are many books I can't finish reading that would be easy for others to read, like Wuthering Heights (who knows how many times I've started that one and never passed half of it).

 

I couldn't get into that book either. I absolutely loved Swordspoint but I just couldn't get into Privilege. I'm honestly not sure why.

I don't have very many instances of picking up a book multiple times. If I set out to read something, I'll usually finish it. I've read plenty of mediocre books as a result, although I seem to have a lot less patience of late, but if I put a book down its usually for a pretty good reason. I'm accustomed to reading books that start out a bit slow and plodding and then come together brilliantly later so I'll read two thirds of a book waiting for the payoff and by the time I realize its not coming I've already come so far I might as well finish it.

The only exceptions are Gormenghast and anything by China Mieville. My sister loves him so I've tried to read his books several times because he comes up with some intriguing stuff, but I just can't. I also put the first book of the Malazan series down once before finishing it, but that was because my life was full of stressful stuff leaving me no time or energy for reading so not the book's fault.

 

I did, anything in the Wheel of Time, but I finally conquered it and I'm at the last two hundred pages of the second to last book. Finally reading the Lord of the Rings too.


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Name of the Wind and Assasin's Apprentice. Both are well written; the prose is good, the characters should be intriguing...but...

I keep trying and trying and I get a little further every time, kind of like shoveling snow off the driveway. But I haven't been gripped yet.

It might be I just can't get interested in the isolated boy with special powers coming of age kind of narrative. I hate the Jon Snow chapters in ASOIAF, too (even with the TV show I used to fast forward through all the scenes beyond the wall until Hardhome. Then when Sansa showed up in season 6 I was like, "yes!"). I think need a more ensemble cast and high stakes relationships to hold my interest.

Hobb's worldbuilding throws me off too. Those names, of both people and places ... ugh. One of the pleasures of writers like Tolkien and GRRM is their ability to just give a person or place the perfect name (although in very different ways - Tolkien is obviously an amazing linguist, but I think GRRM's naming abilities are underrated.)

And I really want to like Hobb's books because her writing and characterization is very good, but I just can't be on board with a castle named Buckkeep.

 

No, because by definition, if I can't get into it after a couple of tries, I know its not actually for me. Doesn't matter what else is in the book, if it can't hook me then adios.

 

And why the perfect number of books in a bookcase is "just a few more"... Speaking as someone with 100[?] books under my bed because the 6 book cases I have are already overflowing...

 

*consults catalogue* 150 I think, not including the RPG books. Although that's the stuff I want to sell.