Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.

[Ace of Spades]

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. I felt like I was reading Shakespeare without the handy translation pages. It actually seemed pretty good from what I could decipher, and I would probably finish it if it were rewritten in modern English and retitled as Who the Bell Tolls For.

 

[ragin64]

Oh, it has to be the Scarlet Letter. Absolutely terrible *shudder*

 

[DragonChi]

The most difficult book I've read would have to be the Silmarillion by Tolkien. difficult yes,, but SO fucking informative and interesting. I loved it.

 

[Ampersand]

My main two where I-robot and Soal music.

Just not my cup of tea.

 

[Diligent]

Hardest for me is The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie.

Hardest has got to be House of Leaves...but it is amazing and I think everyone should. But do be warned, it will send you crazy.

Oh baby, I'm reading that book now, and I'm thinking about holding off until October with it, because there is nothing like reading a creepy ass book in the fall. It is pretty tough to read especially because of the split narrative, one of which is kinda boring and cliche in my opinion, and I feel like they're road bumps to get over so I can get back to the interesting plot. But still a fantastic book.

 

[DemonicVixen]

Tale of Two Cities. The uncut version

The "old language" is awkward to understand and before i get 3 pages into it im already confused as to what its all meant to be about.
Same also goes for Pride and Prejudice.

Robinson Crusoe provided me with a hard reading job but i deciphered it nicely and finally read it properly =D

 

[justnotcricket]

Hardest: there was this 40 page article on non linear optics once. I don't have a physics background...man did that ever need some close reading!

Most Boring: Anything by Robert Jordan. I just can't fight through all that overwrought prose and unnecessary faffing about.

 

[onewheeled]

Mythology by Edith Hamilton was absolutely dreadful. Some of the myths were rather interesting, but that was balanced out by them COMPLETELY skipping over the exciting parts. It'd be all "The gypsy told the hero he had to slay a dragon to save her. When he'd slain the dragon...", not even mentioning what could be interesting.

And the Families section, ugh. "A married B, who bore three children, C, D, and E. D married F, who gave birth to G, H, I, and J. I and J were killed, but G lived a long life and married K." for like thirty pages. I feel asleep many times.

Also, I liked Lord of the Flies and To Kill a Mockingbird. Yes, they're required reading, but I enjoyed both of them.

 

[p3t3r]

The Dark Tower series are pretty difficult to read, I never finished the series.


Although I've heard The Stand is ten times worse.

i read the stand bonus extended version and i thought it was pretty good, but like 10 pages into the dark towers book i got really bored.
I also bored out of the first lord or the rings book. though i managed to read the count of monte cristo. (took me a couple months but i didn't read that often) and most of the books that you read in school i can get through pretty easy.

 

[SimuLord]

I read An Inquiry Into the Nature And Causes of The Wealth of Nations. Unabridged and unannotated.

I consider myself an intelligent person but I kept thinking "could someone please dumb this down for me?"

(and when someone did exactly that, namely P.J. O'Rourke's commentary on the book, it instantly made 1000% more sense!)

 

[Firehopper]

Business @ the speed of thought. Worst. Book. Ever.

 

[Mrkittycat]

A tale of two cities, and unfortunently, Dracula. First one I sparknotes'd, and Dracula I couldn't keep reading after they changed point of view. I hate that.

 

[BlackWidower]

Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. There were points throughout the book where I was like "wait what just happened!?" It was too obtuse. I simply hated it.

 

[Danielsmells]

The Harry Potter series were the most boring books I ever read.
And as for difficult, I'm not sure. I don't read a lot.

 

[SturmDolch]

A Clockwork Orange. I didn't get past the first page. It may be a literary classic, but I can't read it for the life of me.

I couldn't figure the accent out. Maybe if they were speaking it, but written down it's very hard. The above paragraph could be written like this in Clockwork Orange-Speak:

"A Clockwork Orange. I din't give a diddly squat yonder the page afore the rest. Classic scribe it may be, but I couldna read it fer a fifth pence shilling on sunny loafers."

I've started many books I got from the library and then put them down because they give me headaches. But usually I pick the right books and read them.

 

[Zyxx]

Three spring immediately to mind: The Great Gatsby, A Farewell to Arms and The Scarlet Letter (I think I had to read all of them for the Worst English Class I Ever Took, back in high school, and normally English was my best subject.)

The Great Gatsby I hated because if I want to see idiot yuppies doing stupid things, I've got an effing door that can take me outside.

A Farewell to Arms I hated because it was just boring. Here's this jackass gets hurt in the war, knocks up a nurse, nurse and baby die, he goes and drinks beer. None of these events inspire emotional reaction in any character. The end.

The Scarlet Letter I didn't actually think was all that bad, but for some reason every time I tried to read it I got sleepy, like some dark force was absorbing my energy.

 

[Kermi]

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. I loved Cryptonomicon and Stephenson's baroque cycle trilogy was suppose to be a spiritual precursor... but it was all so dry and dull and it rambled from page to page namedropping historical figures and accomplishing nothing narratively. I've tried to read it four times and never gotten more than three hundred pages in.

 

[Juan de Betolaza]

The Silmarillion. Even though I finished it, it was torture.

 

[Zarthek]

Displaying my heresy here, I'll say ANYTHING BY TOLKIEN.

About time for another execution anyway....

OT: Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.. /shudders

 

[Dalisclock]

I've tried reading Thus Spake Zarathustra and Gravity's Rainbow several times and failed due to the difficulty.

But special mention goes to Catcher in the Rye, not because it's difficult but because the Protagonist is possibly the most unlikable and annoying in the history of fiction. I'm trying to slog through it just to see if it ever comes to anything, but I'm not hopeful.