Way too many for me, on my bookshelf I added a shelf called "Gave Up On".

Ulysses, Satanic Verses, Crime and Punishment. So many of the big books I have started and never finished.

Sherri, i have started Ulysses a couple of times but haven't come close to finishing it. I think because it was a landmark book I've felt like I should read it.

as for constant reproach anything by Hemmingway or Kipling. I don't know if was here or not but I started a thread about books that cured you of any thought of reading the author again. I have an unnofficial "cured" shelf.

My friend told me all about the encyclopedic chapters on sailing, on whales, and some other stuff related to the story but not contributing to its furtherance. I guess that's what people had to do before Wikipedia :)

A friend read Moby Dick years ago, and recounted his great exploit to me chapter by chapter. If I'd ever considered reading it before, that experienced killed off the inkling. In fact, I've found that anyone who praises a book too unconditionally -- especially one of those big Western Canon mofo's -- will turn me off quickly. A quick response to "like it?" and a lucid explanation of why will suffice.

I've thought about Ulysses and Finnigan's Wake many times, but I'm never sure there is anything in Joyce I want. I've read other stories by him and had the explanations of the artistry and the symbolism and so forth, but as stories I just don't find myself involved.

No reproaches here. Yeah I've got those books that I feel like as a reader I SHOULD read, but really have no desire to. Ulysses, Proust, and sure why not throw Moby Dick in there.

Altho today on NPR Garrison Keillor recited that Famous monologue by Molly from Ulysses, and it actually made sense. I tried to read it much too young. Same with Proust.

But Moby Dick has no women. Feh.

I think we did a whole shelf on the topic, didn't we?
ETA here it is! http://www.goodreads.com/group/bookshelf...

Of my original list, in recent months I've gotten to a couple, though I can't remember which at the moment.

We had a discussion about all the 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' books in our lives several months ago, but I think it's a good topic for book lovers. The NPR article brought it back to my mind.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/...

I'm making an effort to read some of those "reproaching" books, and also deciding which of them give me no guilt whatsoever in not reading. I want to read George Eliot's Middlemarch, so I'm reading something about it (usually a good way to get interested in a book for me) and I just got a copy.

I'm still working on getting around to Faulkner.

What about you? Do you have a list? A shelf here? Have you even had such a thought? Go on, confess all. You're among friends here :)