Given humanodon's comment, I should chime in. Give P&P another chance. Thirty pages isn't enough. Stuff happens. My suggestion would be to skim descriptive paragraphs. You don't need them. They don't advance plot. Better still, find the Classics Illustrated comic if you can.
Sure, why not. Once I start reading something I finish it. It can't be any worse than Robert A. Heinlein's I Will Fear No Evil (I liked a few of his other stuff, but that novel...) or Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead. I'm in for the longhaul, and I'm always open to have my mind changed. People hated Jane Eyre and I liked that.
Nah; Just picked up a couple of paperbacks in a yard sale for a quarter a pop. None of his more renown works, unfortunately. I read Puppet Masters and Farmer in the Sky and figured they were decent enough. They weren't anything amazing, but for pulpy sci-fi they were quick reads that threw concepts at you for further thought. Then I decided between Glory Road, Space Cadet and I Will Fear No Evil, and choose Evil because it seemed hefty and the name sounded cool. Now I don't wanna touch the rest for a while. I'll read them since I bought them, but they'll be sitting there until maybe next year.