What is the most tedious book you have ever read?

The Historian defeated me. I finished it but it was a struggle. I should have enjoyed it, it had all the ingredients of a good story but it didn't work for me.

I loved The Historian!

Atonement - I couldn't finish it.

The Name of the Rose -turgid. Also Midnight's Children, Lorna Doone, the Children's Book....

Oh Duchess...I just dislike Austen in general really. One of my favourite periods of literature but...no. Just can't get into her at all.

Oh Whitecandles - I loved Persuasion, but maybe that's because I haven't had to study it in depth

Moby Dick. Clearly I am a philistine but I just couldn't manage it, page after page saying not much at all, intolerable.

I finished Jonathan Norrell and poisonwood bible but found both really bloody tedious and was just relieved they were finally over

The Historian, however, is one of my all time faves, and the book thief, life after life, labyrinth

Persuasion by Jane Austen.

Even the fact that it was required reading for university didn't encourage me to finish it.

Moby Dick.

Capn do try and finish We Need To Talk About Kevin.
Like you I found it tedious but a friend encouraged me to persevere.
It was worth it. There is a twist.

Hated -
The Slap
The Secret History
Wolf Hall
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
The Hundred year old Man
Americanah didn't get past the first chapter
Gone Girl ( but loved her other books)
The Casual Vacancy
The House of the Mosque
The Book of You
Before We Met
Atonement ( but LOVED the film, only example of the film being better than the book imo)

Loved -
We need to talk about Kevin
The Poisonwoon Bible (I read it at least once a year!) can't believe it was described as unreadable

Unusually, I saw the film of Cloud Atlas before reading the book. Loved the film - hated the book! Tedious is exactly the word I would use to describe it.

Started We Need To Talk About Kevin but have abandoned it now. I can tel something has happened but the style of writing is so dull I can't be bothered finding out what.

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad and Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie. I have tried (and failed) on several occasions to read them but found them stultifyingly dull.

Forget my earlier comment about The Handmaid's Tale - I've just finished reading How to be both. What a load of pretentious crap.

YY to The Children's Book.
Couldn't get anywhere near the first few pages of The Book Thief.

Another vote for Life after Life.

Sebastian Faulks: Human Traces.

I forced myself to finish it but it is without doubt the most tedious book I have ever read. And I've read a few.

Only read a fraction of this thread & recognise many familiar faces...
Catch 22, struggled through but just didn't get it.

Heart of Darkness, first term at uni, who would have thought such a short book would be so hard to read to the end?

The Waves by Virginia Woolf. Gave up when I'd got right to the end. Just couldn't take any more.

Shelter by Jayne Anne Philips. A really dull, plodding book about two girls on a summer camp. Looked like it was going to be some cool rites of passage Stand by Me with girls type book, but it was just dull dull dull.

Jonathan Strange I definitely didn't get the hype. I really wanted to like it but just got bored by it. It won me over a bit with the ending though, which was surprisingly moving.

Loved Wolf Hall. Loved the Luminaries too, though the first half was better than the second. I liked the set up and the build up of the story rather than how she ended it - not quite as thrilling as the first half promised it would be.

Books that were tough but worth the effort:
The Master and Margarita
The Golden Notebook
Crime & Punishment
Lempriere's Dictionary
Loved Possession & the Children's Book but not the bloody Frederica Quartet.
Loved George Eliot in my 20s but don't bother with Daniel Deronda, it's deeply dreary.

Am sure there are more but I'd have to browse my bookcases for a bit...

Another one for Wolf Hall, I've tried to read it twice but find it so tedious. I absolutely loved the tv adaptation so may try it again.

Labarynth- so bloody boring, I couldnt finish it.

The Hare With The Amber Eyes. (Or something like that?) so tedious I can't even remember its name.

I'm amazed at the number of posters who find Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies dull. They are so vivid and dazzling imo. And I'm surprised that some readers have been bored by The Name of the Rose, which I think is a cracking read.

Villette, I agree, desperately tedious.

The second Donna Tartt (Little Friend?)- so, so boring.

Couldn't get through The Corrections.

I had a crack at a Jo Nesbo recently as I like a good murder. Couldn't finish that- can't even remember which one it was. Dull.

Henry James. Oh my Lord. Tranquilliser dart.

When my DC's were little my mother wouldn't read the Rev W Awdrey Thomas books to her grandchildren as she found them so dreary. She said it was like reading a Haynes manual.

Fascinating how different we all are. So many of my favourite books obviously did nothing for lots of people - Room, Cloud Atlas, Cold Comfort Farm, Jane Eyre. I'd hate to live without these!

I'll nominate The Alchemist by Paul Coelho, lent to me by a very dear friend, and I thought it was a pile of crap. Utterly tedious.

Oh I'd forgotten about When God Was a Rabbit. Definitely one of the worst books I've read.

'One Day' and 'When God was a Rabbit' !