There was a news item on Monday about the books which people start and never manage to finish. The actual survey itself covered both fiction and non-fiction, but the way it was presented on breakfast time TV anyone would think that there was only fiction. Anyway, why does it matter if one never finished a book? Why the fetish that starting a book means you have to plough on to the bitter end. I don’t read a lot of fiction these days (yes, I know I should) and many of the non-fiction books I do read I never do finish – many of them I never start properly either but dip into them, and again, and again, which works for me and is I think just as valuable.

Anyway what books have you started, never to finish? I’d be interested to know. Here are a few of mine:

• JRR Tolkien, The Hobbit. Don’t think I ever got past page 2.
• JRR Tolkien, Lord of the Rings. I once managed to get as far as page 50 in something like four attempts.
• Mervyn Peake, Titus Alone. Final volume of the Gormenghast trilogy. I gave up half way through as it was just too depressing and I couldn’t face any more.
• Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace. That old favourite of never finished books. Admittedly I was trying to read it at age 14.
• James Joyce, Ulysses. Another favourite of the never finished. I read most of it but found the last part tedious in the extreme, but again I was reading it in my teens.
• DH Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Another I tried reading in my teens and found so deadly boring.
• Salman Rushdie, Satanic Verses. Another favourite of the never finished list which I bought because I object to being told what I can/can’t read. I don’t think I got as far as page 20.

Some of these appear on the “official” list. And they are the only ones from the list I’ve even tried reading, with the exception of Lynne Truss’s Eats, Shoots and Leaves which I only ever dipped into and found boring.

Here’s the BBC News report with the top 10 fiction and non-fiction lists.