Wow, I am stuneed at some of the books people felt were boring.
For example:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - First of all, this is a short novel, so you don't even have time to get bored before you are finished. Second, there is a plot and it moves along at a good clip, and there are new interesting or funny ideas introduced every few pages. I can understand not *enjoying* the book if you don't like its style of humour, but I find it difficult to imagine being bored by it.
The Cryptonomicon - I can see how non-geek readers might find some of this book to be boring, but on the other hand, I can't see why a non-geek reader might pick it up to begin with
Again, like THHGTTG there are many interesting and original ideas (Waterhouse's sawtooth graph, the partitioning out of the antique furniture [as well, as Randy's more practical use for the furniture], the rate of milk soaking into the Captain Crunch, bicycle gears and cryptography, information theory and how not to use intercepted messages, and much much much much more). The characters might not captivate everyone, but reading about the people in Randy's and Lawrence's social circles made me laugh out loud in recognition more than once. The book even teaches you how to send very difficult to decode messages using a pack of playing cards... How can that be boring???