Welcome!
We did just have that discussion a little while ago-and we've all done it-life is too short and there are too many good books!

I pulled up the thread for you-
"I haven't given up on a book in a long time"

Life's too short and Reading Time is even shorter. So there is no reason in the world to waste it on a book that you don't enjoy.

I read to escape and to tweak my imagination. Reading something that makes me feel dismal or frustrated just doesn't work.

Welcome!

The only time I will force myself through a book is if its for a reading group. I figure I owe it to the group to at least have read it and have something to say. Otherwise, I don't waste my time. I used to say if it doesn't grab me in 50 pages, its not going to. Now its sometimes down to 10...Something has to grab me - the subject, a character, the writing style - to keep me going with it. Sometimes it might take two or three tries (Possession is a good example of that), but if it doesn't take, I move on.

>But sometimes an event will occur that spoils a book for me, such as a glaring anachronism or an extremely improbable coincidence, or too much preaching, and I will give up.

Oh gawd yes. My wall is dented from the various books I've tossed aside in disgust. Nothing to be ashamed of. Sometimes again once I get passed the event, I'll try to see if I can still get into it. Usually tho, no. And so I move on.

I used never to give up on a book, but now I've given that up. Usually I finish them, but I do have limits now.

I remember reading Beloved when it was fairly new one weekend when I was home to care for my mother in her later years. I fussed about it so much that my sister finally asked me why I didn't just stop reading it, and I told her that I just had to find out what happened to all those horrible people.

Same here - in younger years it was "I've started, so I'll finish". Now I feel that as I only have a limited number of reading years left, I'd better not waste them with something I don't enjoy.

Cindy said The only time I will force myself through a book is if its for a reading group. I did that for a while, but then most of my reading group gave up on the first book I'd chosen for discussion - If nobody speaks of remarkable things, which I thought was brilliant. Then we had three books in a row which I didn't enjoy, so I've now not just given up on finishing books for the reading group: I've given up on the whole group!

Instead I join in group reading here when it suits me.

Great timing for this thread. I am 442 pages into "The Exiles" by William Stuart Long and I'm giving up. (there are 682 pages). It was recommended on this board and I did enjoy the first half.
It seems like a bodice ripper with no bodice-ripping, and that was fine because I enjoyed reading about the prisons and having to make that long journey to Australia and loved all the "settling" details BUT, now its become all about petty quarrels and vindictiveness and cat-fights!
So, onward, to "The Golden Child" by Penelope Fitzgerald. Anyone read it?

""But sometimes an event will occur that spoils a book for me, such as a glaring anachronism or an extremely improbable coincidence, or too much preaching, and I will give up.""

I couldn't agree more. However much I'm enjoying the book, it is spoiled totally and forever. The book has to leave the house, otherwise it seems to have an evil glowing light emanating from it whenever I pass it's way! LOL
The complaint at the top of my list is when I know that a word or object did not exist at the time the book is covering.

ana, I've given up on two book groups for that reason. I am in one RL group that I like - its sci fi, they choose some very interesting and unusual books, and don't take themselves too seriously. (I do find online groups more interesting and obviously more indepth. The one here and on another forum amaze me)

>The complaint at the top of my list is when I know that a word or object did not exist at the time the book is covering.
I usually notice things like that; they irk me but not enough to make me give it up. What inevitably does is when a character does something totally out of character for her time/place/society that nothing else in the book seems to fit. The young girl running away with the sailors in Ahab's Wife, the ending of Year of Wonders, Corelli's silent visits to his lover for 50 years - all of them made no sense, and soiled my feelings for the book.

I give up on books all the time. Sometimes for various reasons I just don't like the book and other times I just am not in the mood for that type of book. Although I may read that book later when I am in the mood.
I have never joined a book group for this very reason....I cannot read on demand.

Just tossed The Incident at the Merry Hippo by Elspeth Huxley on the NTBR pile-I enjoy sentences that have an ending that relates to the beginning-and the preceding and succeeding sentences-and I wasn't feeling it here.

cc....what the heck are you talking about?!

>I enjoy sentences that have an ending that relates to the beginning-and the preceding and succeeding sentencesThat's how the whole book was-well, the 38 pages I read. Sentences that were disjointed, disconnected paragraphs, and characters that wafted in and out of the frame with no apparent connection to the story or each other. And BORING! So off this book went to the Not To Be Read Pile.

Oh, you mean you want sentences that make sense? Now there's a concept

I have given up on many so called Post Modern books (and don't ask me for a definition coz I've never gotten a satisfactory answer) Thomas Pyncho was recommended to me as one to try - um, no. Totally disjointed, made no sense. There are others like him that somehow have acheived fame for writing that way, and some people swear by them. Im not one of them

That being said - I enjoy creative ways of writing books; Saramago is an author who takes some work, but I love his style.

Hi everybody, I'm new here too. I used to force myself to read cover to cover. I finally figured out that I read for pleasure so if I'm not enjoying a book I give up. I have also made myself a promise that I won't read a book more than once. I keep a reading list and I won't read a book again and again...like I used to. (Except Gone With the Wind that I read every time I can't find something to read.

Oh, Caroline, I was the same with Beloved, and whenever I see it praised, I feel both incomprehension (of some people's taste!) and annoyance all over again. But generally, now, as I am getting on in years, I am too impatient to waste time on a book that annoys or bores me.

More and more, like you, Mary Katherine, I give up quickly and never look back! Last week I went to pick up a book that I had had reserved. Well, I found it, checked it out, stood there while I read a little bit here and there, and then decided it wasn't for me, so I dropped it into the Return slot on my way out and FELT GOOD! I always have plenty of books from PaperBackSwap waiting at home to be read, anyway, so I am not as dependent on the library as I used to be.

I view every book I take out of the library as a "maybe" book. Maybe I'll read it, maybe I won't. If nothing else, I have a selection at home when deciding what next to read, and the circulation numbers are used for funding in our state, so I am helping even if I don't read the book. But I never feel guilty if I return one unread.
That is why, for the most part, I only buy books I have read and want to own-except for a few "guaranteed" authors who haven't disappointed me yet.
And of course PBS is a great source.