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

[Mare of Earth]

Boring? Can it be both boring and Horrifically bad?

Any book in Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series after the initial trilogy. It just keeps going into more and more of her super-duper-complicated personal life, her angst over completely throwing away her morals for power, and a horrendous amount of written porn. Not even well-written porn. Gah.

I also agree with adding the Outlander series to this list - I remember reading it in high school and just loving the epicness of the main characters love, however, having tried to re-read it, I just couldn't stand it.
(SPOILER)
The entire first book is basically about how she ends up married to this young innocent highlander who ends up trading a one night stand with the Evil Gay(!) Englishman in order to save her sorry ass. I mean - come on! Reality needed here!! He ends up being poor dutiful self-sacrificing husband cause she's Miss Time Travelling Thang.
The later books also seem to change the poor guy's profession every book, and have his time-travelling wife drop in on him and he drops his current relationship to take up with her again, cause she's his "One True Love" (need a vomiting smiley to insert here).
(END SPOILER)
Overall, the whole series not only draaags on, but the plot line is ridiculous unless you are an over emotional naive teen! (Twilight fans would probably love it!)

Has anyone read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies yet?

[cbarnett]

Like some others here, I've found Dan Brown to be the best cure for insomnia I've ever come across. The Da Vinci Code was awful. I wanted to like it, so much, yet it plodded along and was a real chore to finish. It's the only one of his books I've ever read, as I couldn't bring myself to touch another.

[kad032000]

Originally Posted by mores

most boring I tried to read: The Picture of Dorian Gray.

I was forced to read The Picture of Dorian Gray in high school, and even then I couldn't get all the way through it.

[nietzschedanced]

Many years ago while caring for an ill parent I subsisted on one shopping bag of books per week. I hauled home a bag apiece for my mother and self.
Only in reader forums will people understand ONE shopping bag of books a week is quite limiting.

One week I chanced on a ten book series of SF from an author I was unfamiliar with. All that week I forced myself through one boring misadventure after another. Only the colorfully perverted attempts at lewdness gave any (very very little) relief.

I can attest by virtue of 61 years of reading and an English degree that L. Ron Hubbard invented a religion as useless as his prose.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by nietzschedanced

Many years ago while caring for an ill parent I subsisted on one shopping bag of books per week. I hauled home a bag apiece for my mother and self.
Only in reader forums will people understand ONE shopping bag of books a week is quite limiting.

One week I chanced on a ten book series of SF from an author I was unfamiliar with. All that week I forced myself through one boring misadventure after another. Only the colorfully perverted attempts at lewdness gave any (very very little) relief.

I can attest by virtue of 61 years of reading and an English degree that L. Ron Hubbard invented a religion as useless as his prose.

Ouch!!! A deceased friend of mine told me he had the issue of the science fiction mag in which the pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard bragged that he could invent a money-making religion. Unfortunately, he died before ever showing it to me.

BTW, Patricia's not the only one who likes your user name!

[GlenBarrington]

Any book in that series. I've tried a couple of times on a couple of the books. I just don't get it.

[cbarnett]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Ouch!!! A deceased friend of mine told me he had the issue of the science fiction mag in which the pre-Scientology L. Ron Hubbard bragged that he could invent a money-making religion. Unfortunately, he died before ever showing it to me.

BTW, Patricia's not the only one who likes your user name!

I recall reading an article years ago that stated the whole Scientology religion was made by Mr Hubbard in response to a bet between himself and Mr Heinlein as to who could manufacture the strangest religion. I believe Mr Hubbard won.

Sadly, this was quite a few years ago now and whether it's a legitimate claim is anyone's guess. It certainly sounds like it could have happened!

[Daephex]

I seem to remember willingly failing a whole section of grade-school reading class due to being forced into reading "The Long Winter," by Laura Ingalls Wilder. As a straight-A student, this was the closest I'd ever gotten to complete sedition, haha.

And aside from some Tolkien (and the CS Lewis stuff I dug as a youngster), I can't stand fantasy novels. Once people start dropping in fairies or elves, or going on quests to retrieve a mystical crystal sword, I just tune out completely. How people manage to read an entire series of this sort of thing is beyond me!

[JerseyBiker]

Like they say you can't judge a book by it's cover. I searched the free books on B&N for my Nook and found one titled Joy Ride. The cover showed a guy on a bike. My biggest pleasure is motorcycles and I thought that would be a good book to check out. It turns out it was a book about a couple of gay bikers. Luckily it was a very short story, only 45 pages. I read it anyway and felt kind of weird about it. I have absolutely nothing against gays but that short story was very boring.

~eddie

[0utis]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I'm a fan of James Joyce, but when I studied Finnegans Wake at the University, I found this massive tome to be quite boring. When compared to the beauty of Ulysses or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Finnegans Wake is not a novel one reads for excitement.

I can't agree with you more. Lord, it is unreadable, in a literal sense. I can read just about anything but I couldn't deal with Finnegans Wake. Years ago, I met a professor who was working on a translation into Spanish.... I am positive he has gone raving mad.

Add me to the list of Moby Dick haters. It's funny, my 6 year old nephew loves the abridged version, specially the end, he always sniggers when Ahab dies and loves that Ishmael survives clinging to a coffin. Boys...

This thread is amusing, many of my favourite books are on it . I am just waiting for Proust... Anyone?

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by GlenBarrington

Any book in that series. I've tried a couple of times on a couple of the books. I just don't get it.

Completey OT:

I'm seriously frightened by your photo!



Don

[Kanlee]

It has to be A Buick 8 by S.King,I just could not finish it.I kept trying til I got about half way then just gave up.I;d remembered my first reading of Ivanhoe and that was pretty boring for the first hundred pages then got pretty good,that is why I made it as far as I did in A Buick 8.I just could not take any more though.

[Vector]

In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books (12/17/09) John Lanchester describes Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil as "a strong candidate for least readable alleged masterpiece in the European canon." He does not elaborate.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Completey OT:

I'm seriously frightened by your photo!



Don

That's not me, that's my evil twin, Skippy.

[GlenBarrington]

Originally Posted by Vector

In a recent issue of the New York Review of Books (12/17/09) John Lanchester describes Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil as "a strong candidate for least readable alleged masterpiece in the European canon." He does not elaborate.

Sounds like a pretty boring review! On average, that quote had WAY too many syllables per word. And the use of the word 'canon' in this context tells me this guy can't ride a motorcycle.