8 Great Books Everyone Starts—but Almost Nobody Finishes

Subscribe to my free newsletter for essays, reading recommendations, writing updates and more: https://substack.com/@benjaminlaird Some books are famous because everyone has read them. Others are famous because everyone intends to read them. These are the great, ambitious and sometimes intimidating books that readers pick up with the best intentions—only to quietly abandon them a few hundred pages later. Beginning with Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, we’re looking at eight celebrated books that people repeatedly start but struggle to finish. Why do readers give up on them? Are they genuinely too long or difficult—or have we simply forgotten how to approach demanding books? More importantly, which ones are actually worth returning to? Let me know which famous book you’ve started but never finished—and which abandoned classic you’re determined to conquer one day. Happy reading, Benjamin