I never finished it either...
I found it tedious and quite alarming it would assigned it as a High School read.
I am seriously NOT a fan of the book.

After 20 yrs, If I were you, I'd read the cliff notes, call it a draw, and move on to something more fun.

 

Two come to mind. One was "The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity". It's a history of the how and why of Europe's conversion to Christianity. It has some interesting things to say about how the early church's views swung back and forth between seeking converts and shunning outsiders. It also has some interesting ideas on what led to the downfall of the roman empire. But it was oh so long!

I don't remember the title of the other. It was a history of western civ from the 15th to the mid 20th centuries from a point of view of people's ideas about government. It described the evolution from feudalism to centralized monarchies, to nationalism. It was full of interesting ideas, but way too much detail. It would have been great at a quarter of its length. I only finished because I had invested so much time reading the first half that I wasn't willing to give up.

 

I have my favorite parts of this book...and definitely find it challenging, but prefer the NIV.

Cover to cover is quite an accomplishment; My hat's off to you!

 

How many of you have actually read the S2000 Owners Manual cover to cover. I bet most put it down half way through and just went out to drive the car.

 

Actually, my hand is up for this one...
Absolutely true story:
I bought the car without knowing how to drive a manual transmission.

Sooooo...not wanting to really screw up the car, I read the entire manual before I taught myself how to drive it.

How did I test drive it? I rode in the passenger seat. I made the salesman do the driving and LISTENED to the engine/tranny, etc.

How did I get it home? I asked a good friend of mine to drive it home for me, and I drove his car home from the dealer.

Crazy? Nah...just really, really determined to own it.

 

Good for you. Thats a nice story. Still I bet not too many others read the entire manual.

 

I always thought GEB was a really interesting book. Certain chunks of it are harder going than others, though. Daniel Dennett's stuff is the same way. Darwin's Dangerous Idea isn't too bad, but Consciousness Explained was just tough sledding. Same sort of experience -- I would read the words but not really parse the intent.

Lots of philosophy is the same way. I sort of think of it as a buffet -- if you can find a few good nuggets among the overall selection, that's all you really need. I took a class on Kant and Spinoza in college and somehow I passed it, even though I really didn't find the source material readable.

I have a Roman history book from college that I have never read all the way through. From time to time I just read bits of it. (I've probably read almost all of it, but over 20 years.)

I also checked out from the library a college textbook on racecar engineering (Miliken and Miliken). That was surprisingly hard to read, even though I am an engineer and am really interested in vehicle dynamics.

As for fiction, even if I don't like a book I will usually finish it. Certain Frank Herbert novels are notable exceptions (Dune is great, but the sequels I managed to try are all terrible). I loved The Lord of the Rings, but I couldn't even really get started in The Simirilion.

 

James Gleick's "CHAOS - Making a New Science" is an interesting read. Did you know that the slow dripping of a faucet is chaotic?

 

I did.

Can't quite say I read my whole Element owner's manual, but I certainly came close to that. Some bits I just skimmed over, such as the instructions on child safety seats.

 

"V" by Thomas Pynchon. I think I started it at least V times.