What's Your "No Turning Back" Point?

[Tero]

If its nonfiction, I read 20% when it's new. Then I read the rest, or none, a year later.

For fiction, I finish about 90% of the books bought. I never got past the 20% on the last Disc World book I bought. Its on Kindle, so those get forgotten faster.

[macdoc]

I sometimes "bounce" off books - then come back later. I'm struggling with Swerve for the same reasons even tho I really enjoy the content it's a slog due to the alieness of the time and place ( 13th century Europe )

Difficult books are one thing.
Truly bad books I will finish just to have a reference point -

26 pages I think is not enough to make a judgement call but is the right place to put aside for another go later.

[tattuchu]

I don't finish a lot of books because I fall asleep reading them. Not because they're boring, but because I fall asleep so easily. I can only concentrate on reading if I'm completely relaxed laying in bed. Of course the danger is that if I'm laying in bed, I fall asleep pretty much as soon as my head hits the pillow
But I don't like to give up on things, and if I've made it quite a ways through a book, I figure I've got all that time invested so it'd be silly to give up on it. And then there's the hope that it'll get better or something will happen, or the ending will make it all worthwhile or something.
One book I gave up on a good way into, though, was a (non-Discworld) Terry Pratchett novel. I love Pratchett, but this one was fucking awful, and a chore to read. I can't remember the title. I guess I blocked it from my memory.

[Bella Fortuna]

Lucky you. I abandoned a 4 or 500 page D.H. Lawrence novel about 5 pages from the end. Slow learner I am. It took me that long because Lawrence has the reputation of being one of those classic writers, but I've learnt since then. I gave up on James Joyce's similarly wordy Ulysses after about 70 pages.

Ugh! I actually finished The Rainbow even though I wanted to kill myself half-way through. I have no idea why I bothered to finish it. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED.

I try not to abandon books; there's only been a few times where I gave up. To Kill a Mockingbird and Pride and Prejudice are just a few (although, I might try the Austen book again). Just recently, I dragged myself to finish Glory by Nabokov which is a shame because I love his other books!

I remember being assigned Austen in my freshman year at uni and I just hated it. Now - I think she's brilliant and can't see how I didn't enjoy her before!

[Bella Fortuna]

I read 'classic' books strictly for cultural reasons, when I read themm... I never could finish a Balzac, and guess I'm grateful I didn't have to read Zola in school, that way I liked him better when I dcided to try his works.
many of the works I had to read through the university are now thoroughly forgotten, even the better ones.

I've only read one Zola, as a result of a French film version I saw of one of his novels, and I really really liked it. But then I go for that 19th/early 20th century realism/naturalism stuff in a big way.

[anna09]

Lucky you. I abandoned a 4 or 500 page D.H. Lawrence novel about 5 pages from the end. Slow learner I am. It took me that long because Lawrence has the reputation of being one of those classic writers, but I've learnt since then. I gave up on James Joyce's similarly wordy Ulysses after about 70 pages.

Ugh! I actually finished The Rainbow even though I wanted to kill myself half-way through. I have no idea why I bothered to finish it. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED.

I try not to abandon books; there's only been a few times where I gave up. To Kill a Mockingbird and Pride and Prejudice are just a few (although, I might try the Austen book again). Just recently, I dragged myself to finish Glory by Nabokov which is a shame because I love his other books!

I remember being assigned Austen in my freshman year at uni and I just hated it. Now - I think she's brilliant and can't see how I didn't enjoy her before!

I've read a lot more since I first had a go at it so I might appreciate it now.

As far as pages go before I give up, it's usually between 50-100 pages depending on the size of the book.

[charlou]

Ulysses was a challenge. I wasn't up to it.

I'll abandon books at any stage rather than waste time reading something I'm not interested in.

[Svartalf]

The greatest sleep drug in the world comes in book form, it's titled Finnegan's Wake.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I give up the first time I think, "well, that was really stupid".

[Rum]

I thought this thread was about sex. Why isn't it yet?

[Svartalf]

it's neither in the Pub nor NSFW.

[Jason]

Life's too short to read anything I'm not enjoying if it's something I'm reading for leisure. I've quit books twenty pages from the end because I realized I didn't care enough to finish.

All that build up for no climax?

Literary blue balls.

I forced myself to read The House of the Dead. It was torturous with brief moments of enjoyment.

[Azathoth]

I made it through Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind (HOLY FUCK, DO NOT READ!) It was a bigger accomplishment than the Greeks defeating the Persians at Plataea, if I say so myself.

I think I said before in this forum that I couldn't make it through the long version of Robinson Crusoe and Moll Flanders--both Daniel Defoe books. Not much guilt after I had given up tho. I gave up around half-way through for both.

Bah. that is an awesome series. You obviously have no taste in fantasy

[Sean Hayden]

I read non-fiction almost exclusively, so there are a lot of books in my collection that are not necessarily meant to be read front to back. With technical books I stop usually when I realize I'm lacking too much prerequisite knowledge to continue to get anything useful from the book. I don't feel guilty about that and often enough it means --if I'm interested-- finding other books to fill in the gaps. I have plenty of books that I don't even attempt to read yet. Still, there is the occasional (okay, more than occasional) oh my god I'm an idiot factor which is probably worse than guilt.

I just remembered a book that I do feel dumb about not finishing. I didn't even start it really, and there is no excuse. It was a gift from my mother-in-law and apparently she knows me well. It is essentially a coffee table book of plans for homemade projectiles and their launchers. How could I neglect to read that? -asshole


edited: Confuseduled point of no return

[charlou]

hehe Sean