Extra Crispy | 10 May 2012 9:54 a.m. PST |
Faulkner's Soldier's Pay. I've read all his others at least three or four times. Can't get past page 10 of this one. Melville's Omoo. Henry James' The Ambassadors. |
138SquadronRAF | 10 May 2012 7:52 p.m. PST |
But I liked The Iliad! So did I, especially in the original. |
King Cobra | 20 May 2012 11:11 a.m. PST |
Len Deighton. Read his books one after another. Until "ABC of French Cooking"! |
ChicChocMtdRifles | 08 Jun 2012 2:31 p.m. PST |
Sad how tastes and perceptions change. Can't get into Tarzan anymore. Guess I read him so many times I'm burned out. Louis Lamour's another. It's hard work to open those covers, now. Sad. |
Old Jarhead | 09 Jun 2012 6:12 a.m. PST |
Robert B Parker, Alexander Kent, W.E.B Griffin, and now Clancy. Repeated story lines |
The Shadow | 09 Jun 2012 7:56 a.m. PST |
I really got into "On the Road" and "The Dharma Bums" by Jack Kerouac, but I couldn't finish "The Subterraneans" or "Doctor Sax". The spontaneous prose style just annoyed me. |
tirofijoisback | 09 Jun 2012 8:13 p.m. PST |
shadow – without a doubt. Try again. |
Willtij | 11 Jun 2012 2:44 p.m. PST |
Robert E. Howard- love his Conan but couldn't get into his other writings except his Sailor Steve Costigan (and related boxing) stories which I like almost more than the Conan ones. |
Chris B | 12 Jun 2012 7:36 a.m. PST |
Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. I like dense books. This one was too dense. Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I haven't absolutely admitted defeat on Anathem yet, but I put it down about a year ago. |
The Shadow | 12 Jun 2012 11:04 a.m. PST |
>>Robert E. Howard- love his Conan but couldn't get into his other writings except his Sailor Steve Costigan (and related boxing) stories which I like almost more than the Conan ones.<< Funny. I like his Crusader stories and his El Borak (the White Wolf) adventure stories the best. |
spontoon | 17 Jun 2012 10:20 a.m. PST |
Can we please have a 100 year moratorium on Napoleonic "fighting sail" period novels? I've had it up to the eyeballs with Pope, Kent, O'brien, and their ilk! Still a bit of a soft spot for Hornblower, though! Silmarillion, Unfinished Tales, and Children of Hurin all SUCKED! Pretty much anything published since J.R.R. Tolkein's death by his heirs, reputing to be written by him. G.M. Fraser's fiction departures from Flashman or McAuslan were all barely worth reading. Steel Bonnets was great, but has to be approached from a whole different point of view from his fiction. Later Anne McCaffrey dragon books couldn't hold my interest. |
Grandviewroad | 27 Dec 2012 7:47 p.m. PST |
Love Tolkein, couldn't finish the Silmarillion. But I read various parts of it to round out things, and that works. George Martin
I thought the first book was OK, then the second book a struggle, then
despised the third. Love the Odyssey. Can't seem to finish the Iliad! Probably all those lists of names. Cornwell isn't a favorite author, but I enjoyed his King Arthur series. Then I quit his Viking books, and I quit his 100YW books, and won't read them or any of his books any more. He's just too snide, formulaic and predictable. I hope his dog loves him. I read the first Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever trilogy, but couldn't get into the next trilogy. Gave up on Heinlein, I think it was "Time Enough for Love". But I'll reread his future history collection or starship troopers any time. |
spontoon | 27 Dec 2012 9:50 p.m. PST |
How can anyone not love The Iliad? The first great " novel" in the Western world! That's as bad as the bloke earlier in this thread who claimed to not love The Tartan Caliban! |
Fisherking | 28 Dec 2012 10:28 a.m. PST |
Disliked the first chapter or so of the Silmarillion enthralled by the rest. The appendixes were always the best part of LOTR. |
Old Jarhead | 01 Jan 2013 11:14 a.m. PST |
Love Pope, bored with Kent, could not get into O'Brien. Heinlein's later stuff is just too weird even for me. Like Weber, Stirling and Ringo. |
chromedog | 02 Jan 2013 3:45 a.m. PST |
If I couldn't finish it, the writer never became a favourite of mine. I could never finish (couldn't really get started)lotr, for example – and this was AFTER reading the hobbit in grade 4 (and first library card). For this reason, Tolkien never became a favourite and I just didn't bother. It's not because it was dense – I read Foundation and Dune in 7th grade (school library) – I blame 1978-79 and Battlestar Galactica being on TV – spaceships and laserguns beat hairy footed midgets. |
The Shadow | 06 Jan 2013 8:23 a.m. PST |
>>spaceships and laserguns beat hairy footed midgets.<< As did Tarzan, The Shadow, The Spider, Hammett and Chandler's detectives, Conan, The White Wolf, REH's Crusader heroes, and a boat load of other "pulp era" characters. |
14Bore | 08 Jan 2013 2:27 p.m. PST |
Silmarillion, And may be the only book I've started and couldn't finish and I love to read. |
The Angry Piper | 10 Jan 2013 12:26 p.m. PST |
Mark Twain wrote a brilliant and funny essay on how bad "Last of the Mohigans" is. He did indeed. Here it is. link Two of mine that come to mind are Taiko by Eiji Yoshikawa, and Imajica by Clive Barker. The first I just put down and never picked up again. It wasn't bad. The second was so bad I abandoned it after 200 pages. |