War and Peace rubbed shoulders with The Satanic Verses on a list of the 10 ten novels that Britons are least likely to finish reading.
LONDON: War and Peace rubbed shoulders with The Satanic Verses on a list of the 10 ten novels that Britons are least likely to finish reading, according to a study on Monday.
Ten non-fiction titles won the same dubious accolade with David Blunkett’s lengthy autobiography The Blunkett Tapes topping the list.
The Teletext Reading Report asked 4,000 Britons about their reading habits. The findings suggest that in the digital age, attention spans are getting shorter, with four out of 10 respondents admitting they are unable to concentrate on long-winded novels.
Many also revealed they found it hard to make time for reading. Top reasons for this included; feeling tired (48 per cent), watching TV (46 per cent), or playing computer or interactive games (26 per cent).
Kevin Killeen, author of the report, said, “The research illustrates that the pressure of finding time for reading is the main factor when it comes to discarding a book unfinished. Topping the fiction list was DBC Pierre’s Man Booker Prize-winning novel Vernon God Little; with 35 per cent who had bought or borrowed the book admitting they could not get to the end.
JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, one of the longest in the Harry Potter series, came second with 32 per cent of adult readers confessing they did not reach the end. James Joyce’s notoriously impenetrable masterpiece Ulysses came in third. Ulysses was also one of the most popular books that respondents admitted they buy for decoration, rather than for reading purposes.
On the non-fiction list, former US president’s Bill Clinton’s exhaustive, 1,024-page autobiography My Life came in second after Blunkett, while soccer star David Beckham’s autobiographical My Side was a close third. For readers with no stamina, Killeen has compiled condensed versions of the top five fiction and non-fiction books, available on Teletext’s TV information service or online at teletext.co.uk.
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