I Can't Finish This Book

aulsmith: It reads more like notes than a novel. I don't think I got past page 20.

merrystar : I like parts of this much better than others, but I did finish it.

ahef1963: I was given a lovely edition of this book by my mother when I was a teenager, but it is more shelf ornament than book I have read.

aulsmith: I read the first chapter and found the stuff they borrowed for Star Trek II. I had a friend who wrote three university papers having only read the first chapter.

merrystar : list duplicate

ahef1963: Have never read past the first chapter or so, despite several attempts.

aulsmith: I never thought of this a book to finish, more like an anthology to sample from as the mood takes you.

aulsmith: Too slow starting for me

aulsmith: I loved the historical parts, but the modern parts left me cold.

aulsmith: I don't think I got past the first page.

aulsmith: Got to page 2

aulsmith: Not sure one needs to finish, but sampling from time to time is fun.

merrystar : I actually did read these all the way through one summer.

aulsmith: Never got through the Iliad, but I loved the Odyssey.

aulsmith: I tried 5 times and always got bogged down in the side stories.

aulsmith: Got to page 10. Irving just isn't the right author for me.

aulsmith: Since it's not linear, I don't know if it's meant to be finished. I sample it from time to time

aulsmith: I was somewhat shocked at the beginning and put it down. Now I've read so much biography, I'm not sure I'd enjoy the original.

aulsmith: Fell asleep during the opening about insomnia and never picked it up again.

aulsmith: Having read Coriolanus, I'm convinced no one should have to read all of Shakespeare.

aulsmith : I loved the wacky journey, but I was pre-feminist then. Don't know if I'd get through it now.

ahef1963: Found the sexism in it too trying to keep reading it.

aulsmith : I liked this one.

aulsmith : I saw it more as how people deal with catastrophes.

ahef1963: It's a rather disgusting story. Plagues, examined closely, are really distasteful.

aulsmith : I was forced to finish it, but it doesn't get any better. I've now read enough related things that I might understand more, but the memory of being lost in all that darkness makes me not pick it up again.

ahef1963: Rather than not finishing, I barely began. I got lost so quickly.

aulsmith : I thought Kipling gave us a character who was truly multi-cultural and who showed us the good and bad in the cultures he was surrounded with.

ahef1963: Even looked at as a period piece, the racism of this work made it an impossible read for me.