Are you a serial unfinisher?

[Dirk Gently]

A new survey reveals that some readers in the UK left their Goblet half full, or own a partially read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire book that is. In a new study 4,000 Brit's were asked about books they were unable to finish reading, and the results showed that "just under a third (32%), of adult readers admitted they did not get to the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire." More distressing came the news that:

More than half of those surveyed admitted they often buy books for decoration, and have no intention of actually reading them. The report found attention spans have shrunk in the digital age, with 42 per cent admitting they are unable to concentrate on long-winded tomes.

Many also revealed they found it difficult to dedicate time to reading for pleasure, with 48% saying they were too tired.


The top ten books the participants were unable to finish reading are as follows:
1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

The top 10 non-fiction titles
1 The Blunkett Tapes, David Blunkett
2 My Life, Bill Clinton
3 My Side, David Beckham
4 Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
5 Wild Swans, Jung Chang
6 Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking
7 The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher
8 I Can Make You Thin, Paul McKenna
9 Jade: My Autobiography, Jade Goody
10 Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?, Mick O'Hare

I only have two books on those lists, one I've read & one I haven't started.

Do you agree that we don't read enough any more?

Do you think that our attention spans are getting les.................................

[SiHart]

I have to admit that I started and failed to finish Ulysses, but that's because it's bloody inpenetrable. Half of my tutor group admitted in the seminar on Ulysses that they'd be unable to finish it, and those that did didn't think much of it. Joyce's stream of consciousness doesn't make for a fun read- it's prententious and difficult.

However, I did get to the end of Cloud Atlas, which was really very good for the most part, The Goblet of Fire wasn't even the worst Harry Potter novel and was an easy enough read and Crime and Punishment was hard going, but well worth it, because ultimately it's one of the most fantastic novels ever written.

There are very few novels I've ever begun and not finished. I always think it;s worth reading to the end once you start because you never know it might just become fantastic in the end.

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

The only one of those I never finished was God of Small Things. With about 2 hours to read every day now, I tank through a heck of a lot of books without thinking about giving up. Goblet of Fire and War and Peace both fell to the McCow reading machine last year!

Many also revealed they found it difficult to dedicate time to reading for pleasure, with 48% saying they were too tired.

Without my train journey, I'd do very little reading. I try to at lunchtimes, but when you've been at your desk all day it seems a bit silly.

[Captain Tancredi]

I've read three of those- Captain Corelli, Crime and Punishment and the Clinton autobiography. Clinton's autobiography is weird in that he doesn't tell you about his misdeeds when he's writing about the time they happened- he only mentions them as he covers the time they came out.

The two biggies I've never finished are Bleak House and Lorna Doone, both of which I've tried twice so I'm now saving them for retirement when I won't have to worry about not having enough time. I tend to read books because I know I want to read that particular book and what it's about, which is perhaps part of the problem with readers who've just heard it talked about and seen it in the 3 for 2 in Waterstones.

[Andrew Curnow]

I've only read two on that list - HP, and War & Peace. War & Peace is the exception to my rule of always finishing a book, in that I got about 5/8 through it and floundered to a halt (albeit this was years ago). Apart from that I can't think of any book I've started but not finished. Although there were a few I finished and wished I'd never started...

[The Secretive Bus]

10 Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky

Bugger, I've got that on the shelf ready to read in the summer. Ah well.

I'm terrible at finishing things - writing projects, episode guides, books, whatever. At the moment I'm reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins and it's a bit of a struggle, which is all the more disappointing considering that The Woman in White was fantastic. Moonstone's story just isn't interesting enough and very little actually happens in it. I'm convinced that everything that happened in the 90 or so pages narrated by the religious aunt could have been told to us in two paragraphs. I got so bored with it that I took a break halfway and read Casino Royale and Live and Let Die instead. I'd intended to read the Bond series but I've given up on that as well.

[Trudi G]

I started a Terry Pratchett, and a Douglas Adams biography, and i didn't get to the end of either - yet in my teens and 20's i was an avid reader...

[WhiteCrow]

I started the Wheel of Time series of books back in 1994 - I haven't finished them.

This is okay as the ****ing author who writes them hasn't finished them either. And if he dies before the last book (increasingly likely) the instructions on his will are for his hard disk to be erased and his notes destroyed!

It's currently on book 11, I gave up about book 8 which was the latest book in 1998. He didn't seem to realise people don't want to spend 20 years of their life reading the same book series. Although his universe is very well realised the fact the books took so long to bring out and book 1 was released in 1990 with book 12 scheduled for 2009!!! I regret getting as far as book 8 to be honest.

[Jon Masters]

I rarely don't finish a book, but I shold add the word 'eventually'. The only ones I can think of that I've abandoned for some time would be Cloud Atlas (wasn't really focussed enough to get into it) and DW The Art fo Destruction.

However, I am very bad about having a number of books all on the go at the same time - like at the moment I'm about half way through at least 6 different books. I just like to magpie my way through them at different speeds, whatever the mood takes me on a particular night.

Probably more embarrassing is the number of books sitting on my shelves that I haven't even started yet ...

[Paul Clement]

This is okay as the ****ing author who writes them hasn't finished them either. And if he dies before the last book (increasingly likely) the instructions on his will are for his hard disk to be erased and his notes destroyed!

Actually, his current state of health is quite good, with his Lambda light chain levels being back around normal.

[Jeff]

This is okay as the ****ing author who writes them hasn't finished them either. And if he dies before the last book (increasingly likely) the instructions on his will are for his hard disk to be erased and his notes destroyed!

Not actually true. RJ did make that claim once, but that was before his illness, and he has since explained that it was a joke. Here's a bit I found at a WOT forum on that topic:

I heard that too via word of mouth but I've never seen an actual quote. Once, well before he was diagnosed with Amyloidosis, when asked what would happen if he died before he finished the series he answered, "All my notes will be burned and my hard drives wiped." More recently, however, he explained that he was only joking and added "I was afraid that someone might decide that another author could get this series finshed more quickly and would decide to bump me off." Moreover, in his interview with Forbes RJ stated that he is open to the idea of someone else finishing WOT, and that the final decision will be up to Harriet and his publisher.

http://www.forbes.com/2006/11/30/rob...201jordan.html

The above quote was taken in a thread about recent rumors that TOR publishing has been assured that if RJ in not capable of finishing the series, his wife, Harriet, would finish it. The quote below is from the Forbes article linked in the quote above.

"I'm getting out notes, so if the worst actually happens, someone could finish A Memory of Light and have it end the way I want it to end, but I hope to be around to actually finish it myself." -Robert Jordan

[Si Hunt]

I never finish books. I just don't want to be reading the same thing for weeks on end. If I'm on holiday and can read all the time, it's fine. But who wants to go to bed and think "great, it's that thing I've been reading for three months again". Boring!

Si.

[Darren]

I have bought and not touched Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel (hardback, about 2 years ago), a Mark Gatiss book whose name I can't remember, Guitar for Dummies, and The Fourth Bear by Jasper Fforde. Oh, and I also have a large format Pratchett book which has sat on the shelf for about 4 years.

[cullsoft]

I never finish books. I just don't want to be reading the same thing for weeks on end. If I'm on holiday and can read all the time, it's fine. But who wants to go to bed and think "great, it's that thing I've been reading for three months again". Boring!

Si.

I think I've got the same sort of problem - I just can't muster up the enthusiasm to work through a book when I've got "other things to distract me". Last time I properly read through book was when I was on holiday in March, and before that was during last summer when it kept me busy during nightshift breaks (where for all of the job's flaws, at least it gave me the chance/excuse to have to do some reading).

[Doctor Vendetta]

The only significant book I've started and never finished was 'Stand On Zanzibar' by John Brunner. It's 582 pages long but I've never gotten past the second chapter, multiple plotlines are started and (what feels like) dozens of named characters are introduced, and the story cuts between them in such quick succession that I get utterly confused and reading it becomes hard work. This combined with the length of the thing and the large pile of books I really want to read waiting for me in the box room, mean that I've have given up on this novel twice, even though it seems interesting and going someplace. It's one I intend to go back to.

I also gave up on a tie-in novel for the TV series Lost, but I seriously don't count 'Endangered Species' by Cathy Hapka as a significant book.

More like a waste of trees.

[Paul Monk]

I always finish what I sta