Every few months I check out the library's audiobook copy of Gravity's Rainbow and listen to the first chapter or so while running errands, then give up. I've heard a lot of the banana breakfast :)

I read the first few chapters of the book then skimmed and read some more. Pretty grim stuff in there...

This book is my white whale. I read "V" straight to the end in a few sittings and love it and think about it a lot when I'm in NYC or the eastern seaboard or Malta or Florence. I read "The Crying of Lot 49" straight through in one go and loved its paranoid charm.

But despite having lived in London and thought a lot about what it was like for people there during the war I just can't finish Gravity's Rainbow. Maybe a real life reading group or something would help.