Sally asks: “Do you persevere with a book even if you’re not enjoying it?”
Nope. I like the 50-page rule Sally mentions, but I have been known to quit a book earlier than that, if it’s just not doing it for me.
My DNF (Did Not Finish… or is that Did Not Fancy?) List is long, but these four immediately came to mind:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.
It’s such a popular, well-loved book I feel a bit churlish to say I couldn’t get into it, despite having tried a couple of times over the years.
The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.
I think I stopped reading this one because I misplaced my copy midway through it and then couldn’t get back into it when I found the book again. It could be time to try again. Maybe soon. I see the author’s finally got a new novel out, after what, twenty years?
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth.
This one I definitely should pick up again. I only stopped reading because it’s so long, I think I just got distracted. Should save it for a long holiday or something, read it in one sitting. I’ve got the ebook version, so I can’t complain about lugging bulk around, either.
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
Simple case of finding it boring. Possibly gave up too early.
I did read One Hundred Years of Solitude, which was in Sally’s list, and enjoyed it.I was surprised I enjoyed it because I don’t usually get magic realism, much less enjoy it. I read it in 1992. (Note that I don’t normally remember so exactly when I read something, but that was the year I lived in China and I didn’t have access to much English language literature, so what I did have I devoured. I also remember reading Possession by A.S. Byatt that year.)
While we’re on the subject of books I have not read, I will confess to never having read The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Or any Terry Pratchett. Or anything by Haruki Murakami. Or Kurt Vonnegut. Thomas Pynchon. Virginia Woolf. Does this make me a philistine?