Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.

[Romblen]

The Scarlett Letter. The author had a talent for going on and on and on without really saying anything that contributed to the book.

Certain books of the Bible too. Genesis and Exodus aren't bad, but the books immediately following them are just long and dry.

 

[the December King]

I can't believe how many people are citing Tolkien, so I'm gonna say 'Dumb Long Story' by Your Favourite Author.

Jerks.

Tom Bombadil was like Gandalf's granddad! He danced all day, and had a hot young wife that was also a river, and put on the ring and thought it was useless.

...

Jerks.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Pretty much anything I read in High School, they always made us read these crappy 'classics' that always have some sort of moral teaching for you :\

Personally I wanted to read Lord of the Rings again. Probably the hardest thing I read but I enjoyed it

Ha try having to read 'Heroes' by Robert Cormier, it's horrific. We were made to identify points about the moon being related to fate and other completely irrelevant facts. I did nothing like that and got a B on the test.

 

[crudus]

Things Fall Apart. That book was very boring with a very anti-climatic ending. It was hard to force myself to read every chapter of that.

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

Burn the witch!

 

[ProfessorLayton]

To kill a Mockingbird. I slept through the book AND the movie.

I despised that book. I can't understand why everyone loved it so much. I know I probably shouldn't admit to this, but out of all the books that we were to read my freshman year, I only actually read three of them and they were all awful. I still despise Romeo & Juliet.

And more recently, Ethan Frome. Awful awful awful book. We were to choose from a list of three books and it was only about 100 pages long so I just thought why not and decided to read it. It was torture. The book was seriously only 100 pages long but I had to do anything to keep myself from getting distracted by my walls. I could only read one chapter at a time and even that was a struggle.

 

[the December King]

Stephen King's Lisey's story, I can't explain why (Partially because I'm not a good reader).

Awww, I thought this one was an excellent return to a truly creepy monster tale for Stephen King! I'm sad you found it dull.

 

[Rylot]

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

Oh dear god yes. I got the extended author's version and it made me want to drive to Maine and punch King in the face. 1100+ pages of character study...it just wouldn't end...

 

[monstersquad]

Finnegan's Wake.

Umberto Eco is frustrating to read. It's brilliant stuff, it's just too brilliant. Not everyone is a trilingual, scholar of medieval history. (This goes for you as well, James Joyce) Focault's Pendulum was a great book, you just burned out reading it though. It's an overload.

The whole point of The Name of the Rose is that EVERYTHING and I mean everthing, from the plot, to the names of characters, to adjectives used is an esoteric reference to something else in medieval catholic literature. Everything. Every different concept, and it's ancient meanings to old men means something else in that novel. There's a ridiculous amount of subtext there. Umberto Eco's too smart for his own good, never mind for his readers.

 

[silver wolf009]

Toliken for sure.
George Orwell used to trip me up but not so much anymore.
Half-life full life consuquences but the spelling is hard enough to decipher for anyone.

 

[Rabarberskurk]

First Blood

... It was difficult to put away.

 

[brunothepig]

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens. Admittedly I only got through about 30 pages... But nothing happened! Plus, I realised that I'd seen the middle of the movie of Great Expectations. Nothing happens in that entire book. See, I was struggling through it cause I expected the kid to help the convict to escape, and they'd go on an adventure or something. Instead, he starts visiting an old widow lady, with her daughter. Her daughter is a *****. So of course, they fall in love. While she's being a *****. Oh, and apparently the house burns at the end or something, killing the widow. But I put it down when I realised nothing cool was ever going to happen. Call me picky, but I like books where exciting stuff actually happens.

 

[Patton662]

Lord of the flies pretty boring and difficult.

 

[Drummah]

The Hobbit.

I was forced to read it years ago in public school, and I threw it across the room.

 

[black-magic]

Honestly, Mary Shelly's unabridged Frankenstein, hated it.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

To kill a Mockingbird. I slept through the book AND the movie.

Not to be offensive, but I fear for you.

 

[Wiiiiiiilliam]

To kill a mockingbird it was hard to read at first but then it became easy and I liked it.

 

[Breaker deGodot]

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck. Boy was that a slog, and ultimately unsatisfying.

I honestly can't see what makes that book a 'classic'.

"I've done my damndest to rip a reader's nerves to rags, I don't want him satisfied" - John Steinbeck on The Grapes of Wrath.

I guess you can't deny that he accheived his goals.

Ayn Rand is a difficult author to read. I still have as of yet to finish Atlas Shrugged. It's good, but difficult.

You do know there's 60+ pages of JUST ONE SPEECH, right?

I did not know that. Either I have forgotten or have yet to get there.

I haven't read it, but according to my friends that have, if you have been paying attention to the rest of the book, the speech is sortof unnecessary. It merely puts the ideas explored in the other 1000 pages into a sortof thesis.
On the other hand, if you have read the other 1000 pages, whats difference is 60 pages going to make? It must be worth it just to say that you have actually read the whole thing.

As someone who has just finished the book (after a month and a half, I might add), I can safely say that the speech is a pile of trash. As you said, if you pay any attention to the other 1000+ pages, you don't need the speech. Whatever happened to good storytelling being about SHOWING, not TELLING the reader how to feel. That said, the rest of the book was excellent, and I look forward to reading it again.

 

[Quaxar]

Well, I bought Pride and Prejudice and Zombies thinking it would be an awesome zombie book with a bit of classic in between. But alas, it was an awful lot of talking with a bit of zombie talk in between... couldn't finish it. Thank you, Jane Austen.

And Plato's Politeia. Still, I expected it to be pretty hard and I myself freely chose to read it. Haven't finished yet, I'm reading one chapter/book every few months or so to avoid starting to hate it.

Well Nietzsche was a challenge. And if educational books count anyting with the names Schrödinger, Bohr and Heisenberg in them.

EDIT: I just realized everything that's difficult comes for Germany.

EDIT2: Except Niels Bohr.

Possible EDIT 3: and except Schrödinger. He's Austrian.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Honestly anything by Ayn Rand is a chore to read. Not because it's difficult but because it's terrible. I took a few hours to read "Anthem" and it was just a couple hundred pages of the flimsiest Straw Man argument ever. Perhaps even worse is she couldn't even be bothered to stick to her own asinine philosophy because she sets up her argument and then spends the last half of the book running away from it like a thing possessed.

For terms of actual difficulty I gotta go with The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
It's just so....Russian. I know that might not make sense but it's the only way to describe it.
It's like 5 billion pages of questions of faith and free will and loyalty all mixed Russian life and politics.

 

[micky]

Lord of the Flies.

T_T

Never will I read that again. But, I did manage to catch up on my sleep while I was reading it.

i reall did not like that book but the one that was worse than that was the secret life of bees, oh man that book was bad.