finishing books

[Ken Gargett]

i have friends who toss more books than they finish. which horrifies me. i must confess that if i start a book, i hate not finishing it - that does not mean that there are not quite a few i just could not make it through. there are others i've stopped for unrelated reasons and always intend to get back to them. sometimes i do, sometimes, i still have to. 

delighted to see the japanese even have a word for it. 

found this interesting. i had no problems finishing catch 22. i have read lord of the rings more times than i can remember. enjoyed moby dick, though it took me a while. never bothered with any ayn rand but i will confess that i did not get far with Ulysses before i had to put it down. 

any well known books that members have not managed to make it though?

The Classic Novel That Is Most Often Abandoned By Readers

BY Ellen Gutoskey

August 9, 2019

 

Deagreez/iStock via Getty Images

Just because you buy or borrow a book doesn’t necessarily mean that you'll actually finish—or even start—reading it. In fact, the practice of stockpiling books without reading them is so prevalent that people in Japan even have a word for it: tsundoku. Though tracking which books don’t get finished is not an exact science, people have tried to figure it out.

The Independent reports that in 2013, Goodreads compiled members’ answers on which classic books they had abandoned. Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 clinched the top spot, followed by four notoriously verbose novels: The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, Ulysses by James Joyce, Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, and Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Strangely enough, none of these novels made the overall list of abandoned books, which features some surprisingly popular works:

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Wicked by Gregory Maguire

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It’s possible that the film and stage adaptations of some of the above novels, while initially generating interest, ultimately ruined the “What happens next?” factor that can sometimes be so pivotal in establishing momentum for the reader. And, in The Casual Vacancy’s case, Harry Potter fanatics might’ve abandoned the novel after realizing that no magical elements were likely to appear in the story.

Jordan Ellenberg, a mathematician and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, devised his own way of calculating a book’s unreadability, which he dubbed the Hawking Index. Ellenberg looked at the sections that readers have highlighted on Amazon’s Kindle e-readers, and infers that after they’ve stopped highlighting, they’ve probably stopped reading. According to his analysis, deciding to abandon Hillary Clinton’s Hard Choices is an easy choice—only 1.9 percent of readers actually finished the memoir. The rest of the top five list is as follows: Capital by Thomas Piketty, Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, and Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman. This method also found that a staggering 98.5 percent of readers actually finished Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, despite it being 784 pages long.

Since there are millions of people who neither report their reading habits on Goodreads nor use a Kindle, don’t take any of these statistics too seriously. But also don’t be too hard on yourself; if you decide to celebrate Book Lovers Day today by starting Catch-22 and have switched to watching Hulu’s television adaptation by tomorrow, you’re probably not alone.

[h/t The Independent]

[JoeyGunz]

I've been half way through Lolita for a long time now, one day maybe I'll go and finish it.

[El Presidente]

50 Shades Darker. Such a letdown after "Grey".  

[CaptainQuintero]

  I admit to ditching catch 22 too, nothing major, I just didn't get hooked by the story and had nothing puking me to pick it back up.

  I do like changing reads though, I loved the silmarillion; having maps and family trees spread out in front of me trying to see which river tributary a character was following into which land, who they were distantly related to in that area and if there was family beef etc

  I can't think of too many books I've actually abandoned though. Speaks a lot about catch 22 for me I suppose

[Deeg]

Wuthering Heights.  I actually liked most of the novels I read for English classes, but I loathe that one with a passion.

[Ken Gargett]

1 hour ago, El Presidente said:

50 Shades Darker. Such a letdown after "Grey".  

seriously? 

life is too short to know that there was even a sequel. let alone read either. 

[El Presidente]

6 minutes ago, Ken Gargett said:

seriously? 

life is too short to know that there was even a sequel. let alone read either. 

........you elitist snob. 

You could do worse than to do a little work on your feminine side Ken.  Pick up a copy, change out of your "I'm not a gynecologist  but I'm happy to take a look "T'shirt  and head to the local coffee shop. I can guarantee that you will be hit upon. I can also guarantee that you will scare them off......but one step at a time. 

I will lend you Di's copies. Pick up the below Tshirt.  Do a test run Friday 11:am at The Single Guys Coffee Co up the road from you in Kenmore.  11am is the most popular time for highly motivated single women to go out for coffee. It's on the internet.  

 

 

Clean up a little before you head out for coffee.  First time out, stick to bringing home just one. Let us know how you go 

[Fuzz]

1 hour ago, Ken Gargett said:

seriously? 

life is too short to know that there was even a sequel. let alone read either. 

Trilogy. 50 Shades Freed is the last book. And no, I've never read any of them.

Can't recall how many books I've not finished, probably only a handful. I tend to push through and speed read through the rest of it, if the book is really crappy.

[Ken Gargett]

2 minutes ago, El Presidente said:

........you elitist snob. 

You could do worse than to do a little work on your feminine side Ken.  Pick up a copy, change out of your "I'm not a gynecologist  but I'm happy to take a look "T'shirt  and head to the local coffee shop. I can guarantee that you will be hit upon. I can also guarantee that you will scare them off......but one step at a time. 

I will lend you Di's copies. Pick up the below Tshirt.  Do a test run Friday 11:am at The Single Guys Coffee Co up the road from you in Kenmore.  11am is the most popular time for highly motivated single women to go out for coffee. It's on the internet.  

 

 

Clean up a little before you head out for coffee.  First time out, stick to bringing home just one. Let us know how you go 

charming!!

[El Presidente]

Just now, Ken Gargett said:

charming!!

I'm just here to help 

[Ken Gargett]

1 minute ago, El Presidente said:

I'm just here to help 

you've always been jealous of that T-shirt.

i'm just surprised you manged to finish this thread. 

[ebhead]

Never got through Moby Dick, Brothers Karamazov, The Idiot, Crime and Punishment...made it through halfway in C&P but just gave up. I've started all of Hemingway's novels and given up on them about 5 pages in.

For Dostoevsky you could say it might be the translations but then again I've read other Russian writers, it's just his prose that gets to me. I want to like all these books but I guess I've never been into turgid writing.

[Puros Y Vino]

The Hobbit.  Just couldn't do it.  About 100 pages in I was just bored to tears.  Read the LOTR and found them to be excellent.  Same goes with Bram Strokers Dracula.

[joeypots]

Couldn't abide Infinite Jest but couldn't put down the Goldfinch.

 

[Cayman17]

Ayn Rand is tough to slog through, in my opinion. I think I “skimmed” my way through Atlas Shrugged. I enjoyed the Fountainhead much more. 

[ErikB72]

6 hours ago, CaptainQuintero said:

  I admit to ditching catch 22 too, nothing major, I just didn't get hooked by the story and had nothing puking me to pick it back up.

  I do like changing reads though, I loved the silmarillion; having maps and family trees spread out in front of me trying to see which river tributary a character was following into which land, who they were distantly related to in that area and if there was family beef etc

  I can't think of too many books I've actually abandoned though. Speaks a lot about catch 22 for me I suppose

I started Catch 22 in 1994 on holiday in Rome , only to finish it at home in 2002 . Can highly recommend giving it another go

[inter4alia]

Dickens' Bleak House is the only book I could not get through. Bricked it like a bad cigar. 

[David88]

I often persevere with books I’m not enjoying until the end. Catch 22 I just could not get into and gave up about 100 pages in. I will go back to it though. 

[Colt45]

I'm another who will usually finish a book even if I might not truly enjoy it. The one I can recall finally putting down was Steven King's The Stand. I kept waiting and waiting for something to happen, but after a major chunk in, I gladly stopped.

[Riverstyx]

My issue: when I don't like a book it takes me a long time to read because I'm reluctant to pick it up.  Two problems with this: I forget what's going on in the book and I read less in general since I'm procrastinating.

[bpm32]

I used to finish every book I started, but as I get older I get lazier. There are books like Ulysses that I got through 20 years ago, but I don't think I could get through now. Once in a while I'll pick up a book and start reading right where I left off years later. I think I had 6 years in the middle of Anna Karenina. Thank God for Wikipedia.