Most boring/difficult books you've ever read.

[Kais86]

Harry Potter, it bored me to tears. The pacing is so miserably slow, I was on page 50 when I quit because they were still at the train station. Now it wasn't difficult, aside from figuring out what some of the characters were on when they made their incredibly poor decisions.

 

[whaleswiththumbs]

Mine would have to be The Children of Hurin; anyone agree that it was incredibly dull?
Most difficult to read - to me, anyway - would be Robinson Crusoe, simply because of the insane amounts of semicolons in every mammoth-sized sentence, that once you finish you immediately forget what it was all about.

I go with Robinson Crusoe, infact, I haven't finished the book. I literarly threw it across the room when i got fed up of it. I couldn't stand the 20 page long lectures about how religon is effecting his thought process and how he was thinking about it.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: making crucifixion seem like a pleasantry.

 

[Aimless Flea]

So this last summer I had to do an assignment for high school in which we read from a list of books. The Road by Cormac McCarthy immediately caught my eye. If I decided to read The Road, I would have to read Persuasion by Jane Austen also. The Road was great, and I recommend it to anyone, but Persuasion was terrible. It was probably the worst book I have ever read.

 

[Ampersand]

Mine would have to be The Children of Hurin; anyone agree that it was incredibly dull?

Ha. I read children of hurin when I was stranded for 24 hours in a hungarian airport during a blizzard. I challenge you to come up with a duller senario O_O.

Given the circumstances I still thought it was pretty good though, however on reflection that may have been dew to temporary boredom induced insanity.

 

[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.