Booking Through Thursday
Today’s suggestion is from Cereal Box Reader
I would enjoy reading a meme about people’s abandoned books. The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So . . . what books have you abandoned and why?
Rarely do I abandon books, but several do come to mind:
The Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver: I didn't like the story
American Gods by Neil Gaiman: made me too squeamish, I may try again another day
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus: I liked the story, but thought it would never end and I wanted to read other things
Flush by Carl Hiaasen: boring
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky: got distracted and just never finished!
The Wings of a Dove by Henry James: too hard!
Peter Pan by James Barrie: another one I mean to finish some day!
Scarlett by Alexandria Ripley: didn't like it at all!
I don't like to leave things unfinished and books are no exception! The only one that I haven't finished is Dublin by Edward Rutherford. There are others I've considered not finishing but somehow, I get through them.
ReplyDeleteOh I loved Prodigal Summer! Sorry you didn't!
ReplyDeleteHenry James is difficult, isn't he? I've not read Wings of the Dove yet though.
I respect that you said the James book was too hard. I think a lot of people have trouble admitting that. I never read it so I couldn't say how I felt, but a few books have left me completely confused (Toni Morrison's Beloved comes to mind).
ReplyDeleteI have not read this book: The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky, but my book group never finished the Brothers Karamazov. I have read Notes from Underground, which I liked well enough, and Crime and Punishment, which I loved and have read several times. I still have the Karamazov Brothers on the shelf with the bookmark in it, but I have not goten up the nerve to finish it.
ReplyDeleteSee? I'm one of the few people I know that didn't like Barbara Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible. It was enough for me not to read any more of her books!
ReplyDeleteAnd...I put Wings of the Dove on my list too! Lord, I hated that book!
After loving Poisonwood, I was disappointed by Prodigal Summer, too. Didn't finish it, either.
ReplyDeleteI liked Poisonwood Bible AND The Bean Trees... but Prodigal Summer.... it was just, I don't know... boring or something.
ReplyDeleteI hope to try the Henry James book again someday, but it will be awhile I'm thinking.