"The Most Boring Book" I read or tried to read

[Tatise]

Anything by any of the Bronte sisters. I struggled through Jane Eyre and then attempted "Wuthering Heights".

I honestly tried to read it three times, only managing to get to page 10...

And A Passage to India...what a looooong boring read.

[desertgrandma]

"Dune"......

[NNolan]

I second the previous nomination of "Dahlgren" as an incredibly boring read. In addition, I've never been able to get past page 150 in "Titus Groan", the first book in the Gormenghast trilogy. It was an awesome BBC miniseries, though; the set and costume designers actually proved that a single picture is worth a thousand (or more) of Mervyn Peake's words.

[Daephex]

I'll probably end up going back to it, but I had a hell of a time with Gogol's "Dead Souls."

At the time, I was trying out DailyLit, which e-mails you a short section of a book every day at a scheduled time. This is not a very good book to read in this fashion!

[megthered]

The stand is the most boring book I have read. I tried to read it years ago, when it first came out and got about 50 pages and fell asleep. I now have it on my Nook but can't finish it. It doesn't grab me, I find my mind wandering. My husband and many others have told me to keep with it, but there are too many books I want to read and I don't want to waste my time.

[James_Wilde]

No contest. "Austerlitz" by W G Sebald. A hot candidate for the worst book ever written, where the field is very strong, and a favourite for the worst book ever published. They say Sebald was up for the Nobel prize when God saved the world and killed him - I can understand why; I would have done the same if I were almighty - which says much about the Nobel prize in recent years.

A good runner-up is probably "Wuthering Heights". I gave up on the book a few weeks ago, and last night I gave up on the film. Not even the combined talents of producer, director and screenwriter could find anything worth saying in the book.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by Vaseline

Pride and Prejudice

I only read it the whole way through because it was for school.

That's as close as you can come to blasphemy in my book!

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by HarryT

That's the problem with force-feeding "adult" authors to teenage children - it just puts them off the "classics" for life.

You got that right, Harry. Get 'em reading first, even if it's a vampire book. They'll find the good stuff later, when it has become a habit.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by Ea

Hitchhiker's Guide was originally a comedy radio series. Douglas Adams developed in it into the book trilogy later.

Now _that_ explains a lot, Ea. Thanks. I enjoyed the TV series, but I don't think I've actually read the book.

[SpiderMatt]

This has probably been said already, but I'll add it for emphasis: The Da Vinci Code. Bunch of horribly written drivel.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by RWJ

Oh yes! Dan Brown novels fill this niche for me. They're execrable on a number of levels, but at the cottage a few years ago I went through all of his novels. They're amusing, but the prose is hammy and purple, the characters two dimensional when not one dimensional, the history is ghastly, and the basic premise is usually ridiculous. Terrible, but oddly not at all boring.

Dan Brown - and for that matter, John Whatsisname, the lawyer who writes about lawyers - don't write novels. They write screenplays and disguise them as novels. I think the average length of a DB chapter is between two and three pages.

[Figlilly]

Great thread.

For me the most boring book I ever read was A Room With a View by EM Forster. I was staying in a boring place, alone and lonely for three days and all I had packed was that book.

This would not happen now that I have my Kindle.

[James_Wilde]

Originally Posted by Requiem

And why hasn't anyone mentioned the dictionary? It's a boring read, let me tell you....

The story's ok, but the author explains each word as he goes along. Still, it's much better than the telephone directory: too many characters, not enough action.

OK, so they're oldies, but then, so am I.

BTW, I think this must be the longest thread I've found so far. Obviously popular stuff.

[Anarel]

Bleak House, Charles Dickens.

Even with the threat of a twelve page paper, I still couldn't finish that..... thing.

[Kiwimick]

Having looked through this thread I find it incredible that "American Physco" by Bret Easton Ellis hasnt already been mentioned.
It is without doubt the most boring book I have ever read, what with the constant description of clothes and the designer gear that everyone was wearing just drove me mad