All the time. They look good in the library but when I get them home, not so much.

Any fiction book that I bring home is subject to the 50-page test. If it hasn’t grabbed me in 50 pages, it is history. There are so many horrible authors

A few. Actually I started them but decided not to continue, sometimes right at the beginning, like page 1 or 2. I don’t feel any obligation at all to finish books that I dislike for some reason, and sometimes the reasons are trivial or irrational. I don’t care. I stopped having to read books on assignment a very long time ago.

What’s more common for me is to rent a movie (I still prefer Netflix DVDs) and then not watch it. Sometimes I’m just not in the mood for something that looked interesting a week or two ago.

Sure All the time. I often judge a book by its cover and then find it not interesting once I’ve begun. As Jeruba says, sometimes on the first page.

May I add that that’s the beauty of a library? You haven’t spent money on the book so you can return it without guilt.

Yes, I have. It’s not a problem unless the librarian peers down at you from the counter and says it is her favourite book and what did you think of it.

@flutherother, I would not hesitate to tell her. I would very tactfully destroy it.

Sometimes, yes. I enjoyed Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, so I thought I’d give the infamous The Satanic Verses a try when I saw it at the library. I got 20 pages in, realized I had no idea what was going on and probably never would, and thought “No. I am not wasting hours of my life on this.” Returned it promptly.

Sure. But also I had a dog named Mulligan when I was a kid.

Yes.

Yeah, quite often. I’m a methodical reader, so I rarely have time to get through a book (or get to more than one except to skip) in the time a book can be checked out.