"I'm with you 100% on the policy of putting down any book that either is irritating, or just downright fails to entertain."

One's got to be a bit careful about it, though, because some of the eventually most rewarding books of all are slow starters. For example, I recently read and enjoyed The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, but there was no real clue in the first few dozen pages of the riches that were to follow.