Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. I've recently come back to it after a year...we'll see if I can get through this time.

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Books are my drug of choice.

Confederacy of Dunces and Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears. I tried twice to read Instance of the Fingerpost and just found my mind wandering. I did finish Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurty but when I finished I felt that I had just wasted my time. My opinion was that he couldn't figure out how to stop writing and therefore just killed off everyone so he could quit.

I usually finish reading every book I start because I feel awfully guilty when I drop a book. However, the book I just couldn't bring myself to finish was Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago. It was hard to follow the dialogue in its never ending run-on sentences. I just couldn't do it. Maybe one day I'll get the courage to pick this one up again.

The longer the book, the happier I am. However, I have picked up a few that were impossible to enjoy. Annie Dillard's great big book about the Oregon Trail, The Living was miserable. Jane Smiley's book Greenlanders had me tripping over difficult names, never getting a sense for who anyone was. I tried to stay with these to find a connection I could finally enjoy, but it was just not to be. I love books about women who conquer the odds, traveling and surviving against the odds. Jeanne Kirkpatrick was great at it in her Kinship and Courage Series.

The death of my first book club was Jane Austen's Emma. My second book club just read it and only four of twelve came, and those ladies liked it.

I like popular fiction, but I could not enjoy The Inheritance Of Loss. Tried as I did, not one person would ever be happy. I finally closed the cover at 200 pgs. and gave it to a library. My book club has wasted a few months on dithering sap like Julie and Romeo and The Long Walk Home. We have learned not to judge a book by its pretty cover!

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annaplainwell

I was very excited about finding this book, but it was obvious about 10 pages into it that it wasn't well done. I don't like giving bad reviews but I had to wonder who (if anyone) had edited this book.

Ideas were repeated ad nauseum (in the first two chapters! I couldn't bear to continue). The section on the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 didn't really seem focused and the author didn't advance her premise at all...

Sigh.

I was looking forward to reading T.C. Boyle's new book "The Women" about Frank Lloyd Wright, especially after thoroughly enjoying "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan. What a disappointment! The first third of the book is all rantings in the 1st preson by his nutty second wife, Miriam. What an unpleasant character! And, Wright comes off as the thoroughly selfish individual he undoubtedly was. There is also a 1st person narrative by his mistress then 3rd wife, Oliganna. The tone of the book, even as narrated by a Japanese apprentice, is overwrought and shrill. We are supposed to discuss this in our next book club meeting, but I'm going to suggest a change. I don't see how this book can get any better! I normally like Boyle's style, and enjoyed "Drop City", "Kinsey", and especially "Tortilla Curtain," so this is really an unpleasant surprise. Boyle lives in one of the first homes in the Western US designed by Wright, and has spent a lot of time and money restoring the house.

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Glenda

What's up everyone, I'm new to the forum and just wanted to say hey. Hopefully I posted this in the right section!

"Chesapeake" by James A. Michener. I am from Maryland. I enjoy historical fiction. I adore LONG novels. Both my father and my mother-in-law raved about it. Ah, there were many reasons that I should have devoured it. However, after a couple of times up and down the Bay in a canoe, I knew that Michener will never be for me.

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jcfrank

I feel like such a failure when I don't finish a book but I've only done this 3 times since 1987. Some books are so dreadful or boring that they are physically painful to read! The first one was "It" by Stephen King. I devoured all that he wrote until that point but I believe that he was smoking weed when he wrote this one! He would digress for 100 pages or more. Maybe he eventually put down the bong because "Cell" was much better! The second one was "Spangle" which was recommended to me because it is about a circus in the 19th century and I loved "Water For Elephants".But after 300 pages I stopped looking for a narrative (it's over 800 pages long!) and realized that it is just a bunch of vignettes strung together without a central plot.By the way,the author is Gary Jennings who also wrote "Aztec" which I will definately not attempt!The third one is "Intruder in the Dust" by William Faulkner. I pride myself on reading classics as well as contemporary fiction but this was awful.I read half of it and then just skimmed the last half and read the plot summary on the web. What the heck is so great about a three page sentence and NO punctuation!

Wicked by Gregory Mcguier ( I think) I wanted to read the background story behind the play; since the play was so good. but I couldn't get past all of the crazy names for different people (?). I'm going to try again when the audio version comes in from the library; until then Nada.....