I recently had to read "A Prayer for Owen Meaney" by John Irving for my book club. Christ, it was awful. Pages and pages of unbroken, repetitive text, rants about the Reagan administration and all of Owen Meaney's dialogue in upper case.

It was unreadable. I confess I didn't finish it. Not even close. I cheated and read the Wikipedia plot summary and found a couple of critiques online so I could talk about it at the book group.

I also had to read 'The Holy Man' by Susan Trott for the book group. Thankfully it was very short, and I read most of it on my commute home one day. It was bad. So very, very bad. It was like those horribly sappy 'spiritual' cards you get in Hallmark, you know those pastel-coloured ones with script on the front that are meant to convey some kind of message. Ugh!

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. It took me six ever-loving years. And I'm a speed-reader.

Thomas Wolfe and Michael Chabon both rub me the wrong way.

I always think I should like Henry James, but I do not. I generally don't finish a book I don't like, why bother, but in college when I had to finish The Portrait of a Lady, I bought a second paperback copy and ripped out each page as I read the front and back. That was quite helpful.

Funny, Brujita, I love both Thomas Wolfe and Michael Chabon - especially Michael Chabon (I am reading Yiddish Policemen's Union right now). Tastes really do vary. My bugbear is Thomas Hardy. I have picked up and put down Jude the Obscure more times than I care to count. Far from the Madding Crowd drove me nuts.
I also failed to love The Shadow of the Wind, despite many people around me having loved it. I struggled and barely finished it.

I keep thinking I should like works by Sharyn McCrumb because she's an award-winning "Southern" writer. I have managed to read two of her novels, and each one is a struggle.

Anything by Faulkner.

Which, frankly, baffles me, because I love other writers contemporary to him who wrote in a similar vein.

I really liked Chabon's Yiddish Policemen's Union, but I hated Telegraph Avenue. Pages and pages of bombast.

This year, frustrating books have been The Word Exchange by Alena Graedon and The Magicians by Lev Grossman. The former had an intriguing premise but then went completely off the rails into blatherland, and the latter dragged too much in the middle and was generally unsatisfying.

Shakespeare is like this for me. It's like eating cashew nuts--a lot of work for little gain. I know a lot of people would be horrified if I told them, but way too often I'm just like "that's it? That's the plot? For all that hard work?" Looking up the unfamiliar vocabulary words is only part of it.

Woops, I meant pistachio nuts--having to crack the shells etc.

My experience with Shakespeare is that he has to be seen to be appreciated.

Neal Stephenson's three-volume Baroque Cycle was kind of like that for me. I ripped-through the first two volumes, and really enjoyed them. But somewhere around half-way through the third book, I sort of hit a wall. It wasn't that it was difficult reading or following. It was more that I just didn't care anymore. The story ceased to be interesting on any level, as did the characters. I put the book down many years ago and have never finished it. I will occasionally pick it up and give it another try, but I lose interest within a few pages.

Robinson Crusoe. It was high school. I had to read it for a test. If he went back to that damn boat one. more. time, I was going to set the book on fire. I did rip it in half in frustration about twenty pages from the end. Still got an "A" on the test.

No Faulkner, 'pode? Really? We often have such similar tastes (your love of "Prufrock," for instance). I haven't read anywhere near everything (and have no intentions of slogging through Sound and Fury, but As I Lay Dying is my very favorite book.

No Faulkner for me either.

Well, it's like faith, I suppose. You get it or you don't.

(I'm an atheist, mind you ; )