Harry Potter book often unread

[pegkerr]

From the BBC: The fourth Harry Potter novel and David Beckham's autobiography are among the books least likely to be finished by Britons, according to a survey. Booker winner Vernon God Little was the least-finished fiction title, followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Autobiographies by David Blunkett, Bill Clinton and David Beckham topped the non-fiction unfinished list.

A Teletext survey of 4,000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished.

Some 35% of those who bought or borrowed Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre's story of a US high school massacre, admitted not finishing it.

The figure was 32% for the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series, while 28% said the same for James Joyce's Ulysses, third on the list.

UNFINISHED FICTION
1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read the rest here.

Some of the comments from the survey are also pretty funny.

Comments

[nwl.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. I started reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Does mean I'm doomed to not finish?

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

What do you know! I've also started and failed to finish #7 and #9. I'm feeling unenthusiastic about finishiing #7 but I have #9 in my pile of Things to Finally Finish Reading. I don't see what's so hard about finishing GoF, though. Hello? Tons of children have managed, and I doubt that most of the people surveyed were children if these are the other titles on the list.

OTOH, I'm evidently prodigious when it comes to my nonfiction reading: I've neither managed to start OR finish Bill Clinton's book, which I received for Christmas over a year ago. :) I am, however, greatly enjoying Jane Alexander's book about running the NEA after being appointed to the post by Clinton and this is making me finally want to pick up Clinton's book when I'm done Alexander's. Perhaps the problem was that the folks who didn't finish his book didn't read hers first. :D

[huladavid.livejournal.com]

Peg, you asked for the link to the Godzilla vs. Jane Austen sketch, and I think this is the episode with it. If not I'll keep on digging. Maybe I can get Chris to post it on YouTube or summthin'.

http://chansurfwipe.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=30264

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I wonder if #5 isn't on the list because of all the people who never finished #4. I can't believe that anyone who could finish #5 would have problems with #4, so I conclude that they don't abandon #5 because they never even started it.