Books you can't finish reading

[KDS]

My wife and I watched the show Black Sails on the STARZ channel. 

On chance, I picked up a copy of a book of the history of pirates at the Dollar Tree called Under the Black Flag by David Cordingly. 

I was expecting a fascinating history of piracy and separating some of the myths and realities, but the writing just didn't speak to me for some reason.  It was very dense, and maybe a little too much time devoted to pirate fiction.  I did eventually finish it, but not as fast as I usually get through a book.   I read Mike Love's book, which was at least 100-150 pages longer, in less than half the time. 

[Loaf]

The most recent book I almost finished but didn't was Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. I'd read both V and Gravity's Rainbow twice (extraordinary books both) but Vineland didn't grab me the way its two predecessors did.

I have another fat Pynchon tome waiting in the wings. I bought The Mason-Dixon Line on a whim at a book launch where they had been serving white wine but I don't hold out much hope for it.    

Pynchon is my favourite author, and I've read everything he has written.

Mason & Dixon is such a beautiful book. Full of some of Pynchon's best prose and descriptions. Read the first few pages and savour it! If you like Gravity's Rainbow, it will hopefully resonate with you. Think of the description of the parabola of a thrown snowball as a great in-joke

My personal favourite Pynchon is Against the Day. A 1000-page monster of ideas, conscience, humour and changing styles. His magnum opus, imo. There is a great web resource for read-alongs, http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html

Vineland, and it's cousins Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, are less satisfying to me, but still contain enough Pynchon to elevate them above most other authors' works.

[JK]

The most recent book I almost finished but didn't was Thomas Pynchon's Vineland. I'd read both V and Gravity's Rainbow twice (extraordinary books both) but Vineland didn't grab me the way its two predecessors did.

I have another fat Pynchon tome waiting in the wings. I bought The Mason-Dixon Line on a whim at a book launch where they had been serving white wine but I don't hold out much hope for it.    

Pynchon is my favourite author, and I've read everything he has written.

Mason & Dixon is such a beautiful book. Full of some of Pynchon's best prose and descriptions. Read the first few pages and savour it! If you like Gravity's Rainbow, it will hopefully resonate with you. Think of the description of the parabola of a thrown snowball as a great in-joke

My personal favourite Pynchon is Against the Day. A 1000-page monster of ideas, conscience, humour and changing styles. His magnum opus, imo. There is a great web resource for read-alongs, http://chumpsofchoice.blogspot.co.uk/2006/12/now-single-up-all-lines.html

Vineland, and it's cousins Inherent Vice and Bleeding Edge, are less satisfying to me, but still contain enough Pynchon to elevate them above most other authors' works.

Many thanks for the heads up, Loaf. I've had this "reader's block" for years now and hardly read anything of length anymore, including long posts! I'm hoping to break it with The Great Gatsby, after which, if successful, I shall give Mason & Dixon a go (sorry about getting the title wrong). 

[RangeRoverA1]

Plenty & don't plan to finish them, too boring.

[JK]

Pynchon is my favourite author, and I've read everything he has written.

Mason & Dixon is such a beautiful book.

Many thanks for the heads up, Loaf. I've had this "reader's block" for years now and hardly read anything of length anymore, including long posts! I'm hoping to break it with The Great Gatsby, after which, if successful, I shall give Mason & Dixon a go (sorry about getting the title wrong). 

And yes, I'm now a good fifty pages into The Great Gatsby! There's hope for me yet (with the occasional push)...