I did read Ulysses, in the summer between the end of A levels and the beginning of university, on the basis that it was one of those books I "should" have read. Despite reading each page, with the words in what I assume were the author's intended order, I never understood it. Also, I thought it was hideously pretentious crap.
I have started and not finished a number of sci-fi books because although I would like to enjoy sci fi, I don't. Also Tolkien: I read the Hobbit but nothing else of his fiction. I find reading Tolkien is remarkably like talking to a
really stoned adolescent boy, and I know this because when I was an adolescent girl I did a lot of that.
I do like Tolkien's non-fiction though.