I read both of those. I struggled with Corrections and felt as if evil were happening in my life the entire time I read it--but it got good around pg. 504 and the last 67 pages did resolve much of the earlier stress. Instance of the Fingerpost is a great book for a long plane ride or hospital stay. Really. It is interesting, especially if you can remember what each character records in his mini-book. It is definitely a thematic cousin of the Name of the Rose, one of the top unread's.
I truly hated The Sparrow--strange science fiction with really self-righteous liberal characters. I delighted when bad stuff happened to them and realized I could care less if they did get killed by space aliens. Yuck of a book.
Anything by Toni Morrison should be added to the unread list. With her, it's impossible to tell if it's real, a dream sequence, the past, etc. Why fight it when you can't figure out who have the people are, if they are real or ghosts or figments of imagination, if something really happened or was imagined, etc.?
I totally forgot about Toni Morrison. I used to belong to an online Oprah book club, and Oprah just loved Morrison's writing. I think she chose three of her books to read. Blech, I think
Paradise was the one I finished, and really could have cared less about. After that if I didn't get into a book after 75 pages or so, I didn't bother to finish it.
And I just thought of another book that a lot of people love and I detested: Lonesome Dove. One of the most depressing books I've ever read, and it took me 150 pages to get into it.