Most BORING book you have ever read *

[underpants]

*-all the way through

For me "Old Man and the Sea"-reading about fishing is actually less exciting than it sounds.

"The Count of Monte Cristo"-7th grade this was supposed to be our introduction to the classic novel, a really bad choice for teenagers.

[shaolinmonkey]

1. the Scarlet Letter. I think it was one long sentence.

[pansypoo53219]

23. i thought that was great.

and had my favorite word. contumacious.

for me i guess-can't remember the title. a danielle steel. started out good, but the she meets her soul mate and barf city.

and i have read jane eyre, wuthering heights, all but one jane austin.
but now i am in my non-fiction phase.
my 1903 encyclopedia britanica has turned out to be quite a good read.
ALRIGHT, i admit i did not read 40 pages on fortification.

[Carson]

47. Me, too. The SL was a great book! n/t

[kick-ass-bob]

54. Anything by Hawthorne*

Gawd. Shoot me.

* - There could be something else out there by him that could be interesting - but haven't checked. His style just kills me.

His writing made me think I didn't like to read.

[LSdemocrat]

61. That book sucked.

By far Hawthorne was the worst author feature in my Literature classes.

[Rabrrrrrr]

83. That is, indeed, my most hated book as well

slow, boring, pedantic, pathetic...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. The Silmarilion

[ZenLefty]

24. That would be my vote, but I never finished it.

:boring:

[sybylla]

31. You should try it on audio

if you need help getting to sleep. We bought it on CD because we like to listen to audio books when we are on long trips. My god, after the 30th begat I looked at my husband and asked if the whole book was like that. He actually read it in high school - for fun I might add. He couldn't remember, it being so long since he'd read the book, but he said it went on for quite some time. I hit eject before I fell asleep and put in some blues.

Now I'm trying to decide which of my Tolkien-loving relatives I should foist it on.

[SarahB]

3. I never thought "The Count of Monty Cristo" was bad.

I kind of liked it, but I'd have to go with "Moby Dick". I understand the various meanings and subtexts, but it was so long-winded, I had trouble not dozing off. :boring:

[yardwork]

96. I loved Moby Dick! I read it all in one weekend

ok, I was behind and in panic mode, but the book reads very well when read essentially in one sitting.

I also loved the Scarlet Letter. I love most 19th century fiction. Contemporary fiction bores me.

[rockymountaindem]

4. Old Man and the Sea is a great book.

I couldn't put it down. Clearly you missed the point. Don't you see that the old man is Jesus?

[AntiCoup2K4]

5. I know I'll get flamed for this, but it's gotta be 2001:A Space Odyssey

I really can't decide whether the book or the movie was the most boring.:boring:

[Richardo]

13. I read 2001 in one Sunday afternoon when I was 11 or 12 years old

Big sci fi fan back then. 2001 is still one of my favorite movies of all time, but I don't prosthletyze. I can understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea.

[bif]

74. Interestingly the book was written AFTER the movie

The moviie was based on a short story. When no one could figure out what happened in the movie, Clarke wrote the book to help explain the movie.

[edbermac]

78. Actually the book was written beforehand from some Clarke short stories

I've read a few Kubrick bios and he and Clarke wrote a novelization, then he began filming. He apparently did not want Clarke to publish the book long before the film came out so people would not know what the film was about. He kept asking Clarke for minor revisions all over the place and was "satisfied" with the book coincidently right after the film came out. A bio by Vincent LoBrutto on SK delves into this.

[bif]

97. Not to drag this out, but here's what i found

Sir Arthur C. Clarke Kt. (born December 16, 1917) is an author and inventor, probably most famous for his science fiction novel 2001: A Space Odyssey. It is loosely inspired by Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", but it became its own novel while he was collaborating on a screen play with Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick approached Mr. Clarke about writing a novel for the express purpose of making "the proverbial good science-fiction movie", and the novel was still being written while the film was being made. This resulted in one of the truly unique collaborations in media history.

[Fenris]

6. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" by Thomas Hardy

400 pages of incessant whining and Victorian pretention.

[skygazer]

72. I'd go along with that

I had to read it in high school and it was dreadfully tedious. And I can read about anything.

[BigMcLargehuge]

7. I read The Count of Monte Cristo as an adult

and it skyrocketed to the top of my list of favorite books. Dumas has such a flair for action and adventure that even the slower parts of the book kept me frantically turning the pages.

[underpants]

9. I saw the film

The highly detailed part of his years in jail were just too much for my 12 year old brain to take in.

Again I think the timing of reading it had a lot to do with how it was perceived.

[BigMcLargehuge]

29. that's entirely possible

also, being 12 I doubt you'd understand the depth of his lust for revenge or grasp that in pursuing and manipulating his enemies, he becomes worse than they are.

I grew up on classic lit, I read some of Dumas' other work as a kid, The Three Musketeers etc... so I sort of understood where Dumas was coming from with Count of Monte Cristo. I don't know if it would have made as big an impact.

[redstateblues]

8. Tom Clancy's Last Book-Can't Even Remember the Title

[Mizmoon]

85. he doesn't even write them anymore

the last one I got was such a pile of crap that I will never buy anything with his name on it again.

[bobbobbins]

10. Tale of Two Cities

It was the worst of times.

[mosin]

37. It was the best of times.

I loved "Tale of Two Cities."

[tarkus]

108. This is one of my favorite books of all time!!! NM

[Richardo]

11. Dickens' "Hard Times"

Wow was that a tough slog. :boring:

[AntiCoup2K4]

26. Yeah, I gotta admit I liked the RUN-DMC remake better....

:evilgrin:

[Twillig]

56. I enjoyed the movie...

:evilgrin:

[trigz]

12. Sense and sensibility

Brontë is dead boring and utterly overrated.

[noonwitch]

16. Jane Austin wrote "Sense and Sensibility"

Emily Bronte wrote "Wuthering Heights", my choice for most boring book.

Charlotte Bronte wrote "Jane Eyre", which is not a boring book, but a strange one.

[Richardo]

17. Mark Twain on Jane Austen:

"I haven't any right to criticise books, and I don't do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticise Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can't conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Everytime I read 'Pride and Prejudice' I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone."
- Letter to Joseph Twichell, 9/13/1898


:7

[Richardo]

18. And this gem:

"To me his prose is unreadable--like Jane Austin's . No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death."
- Letter to W. D. Howells, 1/18/1909

[pansypoo53219]

27. HA!

he should talk. i forgot THAT book. i tried to read a collection of his short stories on a plane and it was awful. gimme austin ove twain anyday.

[Lavender Brown]

34. That's rich, coming from Twain

Of course, I'm biased. :)

[Richardo]

36. I am too, that's why I think they're funny quotes...

...Twain is my literary hero :loveya:

[Lavender Brown]

39. Well I've always liked him

I just think he's wrong about this. :D

[Celeborn Skywalker]

Second that

I had to read "Wuthering Heights in 8th grade, and it was the most boring book I've ever read.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

Second that

I had to read "Wuthering Heights in 8th grade, and it was the most boring book I've ever read.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

64. Second that

I had to read "Wuthering Heights in 8th grade, and it was the most boring book I've ever read.

[NoPasaran]

14. "The Serbs and Russian Pan-Slavism 1875-78"

A sedative so powerful that libraries should require a prescription.

[underpants]

33. Surprising....sounds like a real page turner

Just kidding. Wow that's some heady readin'

[NoPasaran]

42. Yeah, that's what I had thought

Imagine my disappointment

[Richardo]

35. Was that voluntary? Or school-related?

[NoPasaran]

41. Voluntary, believe it or not

Twenty or so years ago I was quite interested in what used to be called the Balkan Question. If you ever need to know about the Sanjak of Novipazar, I'm your go-to guy.

[Richardo]

44. Damn! I lost a bar bet over that last weekend!

If only I had known....

[underpants]

48. Really? Okay what is Pat Sajak's favorite color?

and what does he REALLY think about Vanna?

:shrug:

Sorry I couldn't resist.

[NoPasaran]

51. We get that all the time

That's why one of the fellows in Palmerstone's famous saying about the Macedonian Question went mad.

[Dzimbowicz]

106. By any chance were you a history major

or grad student? My worst reading experience was "Nationalism and Federalism in Yugoslavia 1962-1991" by Sabrina Ramet.

[NamVetsWeeLass]

15. L. Ron Hubbard... Dianetics was awful.

I couldn't get the whole way through... This coming from a person that read Stephen King's "It" in three days.

[Khephra]

19. "The Sound and the Fury" or "Madame Bovary"

[Redleg]

86. I tried reading "The Sound and the Fury" but couldn't get past the first

few pages.

[Mizmoon]

103. Everything Flaubert ever wrote

My God, I remember having to read one of his books for a college course. It was a nightmare from hell. It actually made me cry because I had to read the whole damn thing for an exam.

[sybylla]

20. Thoreau's Walden

The subject matter was fine, but the man rambles endlessly and occasionally incoherently.
:boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring: :boring:
I say this as an English major who had 4 literature classes in one semester. I may not be an authority, but I certainly have lots of "literature" to compare it to. It's the only book I didn't read in its entirety for class. Just couldn't make myself finish the daily selections.

[AngryAmish]

21. White zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Noise

I read that thing three times. The second time I was 75 plus pages into it before I realized I read the thing before. The third I was about 90 pages in. What a piece of crap. Delillo is so tedious.

Grisham too is unspeakably boring.

[Emboldened Chimp]

88. I'll second White Noise...

Absolutely nothing of interest happens in this book.

[On the Road]

22. "Foucault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco

It's kind of a historical mystery about templars, masons, and all sorts of religious arcana and hermetic groups. I have slogged about 2/3 of the way to get to the payoff, but it's tough going.

Secret societies and mysticism seems like an interesting premise for a book like this, but it quickly reaches overload. The author is an academic who cannot resist the temptation to put down every detail he's ever read on paper.

I'm sure some people liked it. I liked The Name of the Rose, for that matter. JMO.

[ZenLefty]

25. CJ Cherryh - Fortress in the Eye of, um, something.

Can't remember much about it. But I remember I had heard good things about her as an author. Took me a few years to read her book, as I just couldn't bring myself to turn another page every night. Cured my insomnia, though.

:boring: :boring: :boring:

[bobbobbins]

81. fortress in the eye of time

i read it and thought it was pretty good, then i tried out the sequel, and lost interest.

[Kellanved]

28. Atlas Shrugged

and "Meffert": Marketing.
Come to think about it: all books I had to read for (micro-) economy courses.

[AngryAmish]

32. That must have been written by Boring McTedious

[ismnotwasm]

87. Me too

Atlas Shrugged wins my vote for the all time most tedious, boring waste of good reading hours I've ever experienced.

[Spider Jerusalem]

30. "Silas Marner".

And "The Mill on the Floss", too. Anything by Mary Ann Evans (that's George Eliot, to you). "Pride and Prejudice" is up there, too...Jane Austen is just slightly better, but not much.

[GOPNotForMe]

38. "Snow Falling On Cedars" by David Gutterson

Anything by Annie Proulx comes pretty damn close, too. Crappy modern Literature with a capital L. Prose trying to be poetry, blech.

[legin]

40. Gogol's Dead Souls

It's actually two books in one, so I get half way through and I start thinking "well now the action has got to start" and the book ends.

The basic plot is 'guy wanders round Russia and meets some people'.

Of course maybe the book was too subtle for me which might not be a surprise.

[skypilot]

43. "Dracula"--Bram Stoker

Perfect example of how NOT to write a novel. Boring as hell, told almost entirely in diary entries and news clippings and the title character is hardly in the damned thing at all.

[Z_I_Peevey]

45. So many to choose from, but gotta go with The Iliad.

Madame Bovary comes in second, and the awful dreck that was A Man in Full comes in third. (There was a time in my life when I refused to let a book *beat* me, and I slogged through some doozies. Now I'm older and wiser and leave the dull ones quickly and often.)

Oh, and ...And Ladies of the Club. Forgot that monstrosity.

[Carson]

46. "A Good Baby" by Leon Rooke

I finished only by the power of sheer will.

[pdx_prog]

49. Any of the Left Behind

books. The writing is absolutely horrible!

[JackDragna]

50. Anything by Charles Dickens

The man has a way with words, but he wrote in an era where people were paid by the word as well. "Yes, I get how blearly Victorian London was, Mr. Dickens. You can stop going on for fifteen pages about every single detail of the social detrius around Ebeneazar Scrooge as he walks home from his office."

[non sociopath skin]

63. Hmm. Maybe time to revisit him, Jack ...

... especially the later books like "Our Mutual Friend." Sardonic, almost surrealistic, gallows humour like the bit about Silas Wegg saving up to buy the leg he lost in an accident back from a taxidermist. And total cynicism about the New Capitalists of the time.

Pulp Fiction he ain't!

The Skin

[FunBobbyMucha]

52. Don't hate me, but "The Bluest Eye."

Dear Christ on a cracker! Bare minimum, I need a plot. Just three tiny acts. A conflict, and a resolution. Pretty please? This book was like listening to a stammering four-year-old try to give directions.

[tjdee]

55. That book irritated me, but it wasn't boring.

I might have thrown it against the wall, but it didn't bore me.
Partly, because I stopped reading it.

Toni Morrison. An acquired taste alright.

[GOPNotForMe]

69. Awww, I love Toni Morrison

[JohnKleeb]

53. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot

I had to read it for 10th grade summer reading, I said fuck this shit and read the Longest Day, the rest they say is an A on your first english essay of sophomore year :) and I now only all of Ryan's books on WWII including A Bridge Too Far and The Last Battle.

[Arkana]

57. "The Sound and the Fury," by William Faulkner

That "stream of consciousness" writing style drove me buggy.

[sangh0]

58. Don Quixote

.

[Arkana]

60. I actually liked Cervantes...had to read Don Quixote for a class

[sangh0]

75. I liked it at first

but then it turned into more and more of the same.

[Emboldened Chimp]

89. No effin way!

That's my favorite book of all time. The interactions between Don and Pancho are hilarious, particularly in the second half.

[sangh0]

101. I never got that far!!

(hanging my head in shame)

[non sociopath skin]

59. Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France"

Not just the politics, his style makes Henry James sound like Dr. Seuss!!!

He deserved everything that Tom Paine threw at him!!!

The Skin

[AVID]

62. Golden Bowl? Henry James

[tarkus]

107. I was worried that someone would try to bring up my favorite author here

You can't deny that "Beast in the Jungle" is one of the best stories ever written though.

[jmm]

65. Democracy by Henry Adams

One of my college professors assigned it the first day of class on a Thursday and said we had to read it by Tuesday. Then on Tuesday too many people complained aout not finding it in time so he said to forget about the assignment so I read it for nothing.

It's a story of love and politics in the 1800's as only could be written by a historian and professor in the 1800's :eyes:.

[Beware the Beast Man]

66. The Iliad

And I was a fan of Greek mythology even. I read it four different times for four different classes, and it never got any more exciting.

[ProfessorGAC]

67. A Tie For Me

House of the 7 Gables and Ulysses. Dreadully slow paced books. At least Ulysses is adventerous in its approach to literature. Just very wordy, fractured, and long.

7 Gables just is not a very good book. I don't understand why that's one of the touchstones of American literature.
The Professor

[ScreamingMeemie]

68. Babbitt.

Horrid,horrid book. A day in the life of a businessman...how exciting. :hi:

[catzies]

70. From Dawn to Decadence. I love history but the book was a crashing bore

Never did anyone take such an intersting subject and flat-out kill all desire to read it. But read it and finish it I did.

[Fuzz]

71. The Bible

[HEyHEY]

73. Crime and Punishment

I'm sorry it put me to sleep

[bobbobbins]

82. wow, thats my favorite book

[bloodyjack]

95. You should check out The Brothers Karamazov

Non-stop action (I'm serious!). One of my all-time favorites, but the ending isnt as satisfying as that of Crime & Punishment

Such a sick, gruesome story as only Dosty could tell it. Ah, for the days when writers were would-be prophets and visionaries instead of stylistic masturbators. Not that I was around to remember those days, God no.

[redqueen]

76. Battlefield Earth n/t

[Emboldened Chimp]

90. You actually read that?

[redqueen]

100. Yes

I like to finish what I start. That was some test of my resolve, though.

[Tafiti]

77. Oliver Twist.

[deadparrot]

79. Walden

[yewberry]

80. Conrad's "Secret Sharer" or "Moll Flanders" n/t

[prayin4rain]

84. Anna Karenina ... I know it is supposed to be great but it bored me!!!

[Ron Green]

91. Does is really count when your most *BORING* book was one from

the 8th or 10th grade? I mean, I hated most of what has been mentioned here, but I was STOOPID then. And upon revisiting these works as adult, I realized the truth and grace of them, available only to one who has done some thinking and some living.

[underpants]

93. Lemme check

Yes. Yes it does.

I was already reading Vonnegut and other books at the time so it wasn't like I was reading "The Pet Goat" before that.

[lil-petunia]

92. No hobbits? No Tom Sawyer? No Canticles? No Brave New World?

damn. what is this world coming to?


I just reread Count. Still love it.
La Mancha might work.

[liontamer]

94. robinson crusoe

but I should admit that I hated the book so much I couldn't stick to it till he go to the island

[clover]

98. The Bible. sorry but it's true

[BurtWorm]

99. Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

There's a part of that book that is almost entirely a mass, I think. I can't remember exactly what the hell it was, but it was so incredibly, excrutiatingly boooooooooring! I don't think I will ever put myself through anything as painful as that even if James Joyce himself comes back from the dead and begs me to.

[Bossy Monkey]

102. Contact, Sagan (ducking, running away) n/t

[Dalvis]

104. A Separate Peace....

...I can't believe no one has mentioned that pile of garbage yet.

[scarlet_owl]

105. Pride and Predjudice by Jane Austen.

From what I could tell, it was about some "vexed" rich people.