Dr Jordan Ellenberg has come up with the Hawking Index, from which he thinks he can find the most unread books of the year. Ellenberg does this by checking the "popular highlights" listings on Amazon for each title, and looks at the five passages most highlighted on a Kindle.

If a book is read all the way through, these passages should be spread throughout a book. If everyone falls asleep halfway through a particular book, then the most highlighted passages will be condensed in the first half. The most read book (as decided by the Hawking index) was The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. This scored a 98.5% on the index, unlike Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, which scored a paltry 2.4%.

Which books have you given up on and had to stop reading? Are there any you've persevered with, only to wish you'd thrown away after the first chapter? Do you often buy books that you think you should be reading, only to ignore them for an easy thriller instead? Tell us about the books that have defeated you.