Through to the end

There was a time when I would never put a book down without having finished it. Not all at one go, though I still do find books I have to keep reading and reading. But not so much nowadays. In the last couple of weeks, I've read several books and three of them I've given up on. One of them was JK Rowling's A Casual Vacancy. I almost got to page 90 with that but couldn't keep going. The writing was tight and descriptive but I was - oops sorry - bored. Bored with the plot - such as it was, and bored with the characters. The book I gave up on last night was the same- boring- but I gave up at chapter two. I could tell by the tone I wasn't going to like it. Life is too short to waste on books I don't like when there are lots out there still to be read.
Having said that - I have persisted with reading club books that I don't like - because I need to be able to discuss them with the group, and I have persisted with books that have had hundreds of 5 star reviews because I keep thinking - something magical is going to happen to make me like them- it rarely does. And I have persisted with some books that I don't like because I know I'm not the target audience and I want to give them a fair chance. But readers deserve better than a lot of rubbish that is out there.
The big name publishers - I'm not talking epublishers here - seem to be so obsessed with getting celebrity writers in their stable that they stop caring about the quality of what they produce. I used to buy as many as 12 paperbacks a month. Now I'm only going for my auto-buy authors for paperbacks. I've been disappointed too many times.
So is the quality falling or am I getting pickier in my old age?