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What is the most tedious book you have ever read?

368 replies

Figmentofmyimagination · 26/02/2015 20:12

I am going out on a limb here for my first thread - I am struggling through The Well of Loneliness by Radcliffe hall. Aargh. I read it out of "historical interest" because I was interested by her boldness and by the obscenity trial etc but bloody hell she should have got herself an editor. The writing is truly dire. I am not sure I am actually going to make it to the end.

OP posts:
Quangle · 26/02/2015 23:11

Disappointed by Middlemarch. How can that be the best book in the English language? It was an annoying slog and whatshername was a pain in the backside.

Agree with wordfactory about Cold Comfort Farm - I really wanted to be the sort of person who adored it. But I wasn't.

But most of all The Hare with the Amber Eyes. Please read my extensive journals documenting my family's collection of dull artefacts and my reflections on what this all means and how I express this through the medium of pottery...Honestly the most tedious book ever - fact.

I did enjoy the Well of Loneliness though. Was a teenager when I read it so perhaps more credulous and tolerant of unnecessary nonsense And loved Wolf Hall.

TwinkleThis · 26/02/2015 23:04

One Hundred Years of Let's Call Everyone José, Arcadio, or Aureliano Bloody Solitude.

Feck me, Gabriel.

marceline · 26/02/2015 23:02

Catch-22. And On Beauty by Zadie Smith.

Also strangely The Luminaries. I really tried with that one, but gave up half way. Life is too short.

readyforno2 · 26/02/2015 22:54

Room
Can't even remember who the author. Kept hoping something would happen. It didn't.

FlatCapAndNoKnickers · 26/02/2015 22:52

And Midnight's Children. Five million pages of talking about snot.

funnyossity · 26/02/2015 22:51

I did think about trying Stoner...

Sgtmajormummy · 26/02/2015 22:48
Grin
Pennies · 26/02/2015 22:45

Another vote for Wolf Hall. Utter tedium.

CQ · 26/02/2015 22:44

Stoner

Sgtmajormummy · 26/02/2015 22:44

Too many "just"s, sorry! My vote goes to "Fatty O'Leary...", also because it was the first book I got on Kindle and I couldn't be doing with it!

BOFster · 26/02/2015 22:43

I really liked most of these Grin. I have never got along with Catch 22.

Annbag · 26/02/2015 22:43

This reply has been withdrawn

Withdrawn at the poster's request.

LandUnderWave · 26/02/2015 22:42

Sgtmajrmummy you have made me want to read middlemarch again Grin

duchesse · 26/02/2015 22:41

Labyrinth by Kate Moss. Utter crap. Was recommended to me. Found it appalling.

Anything by Dan Fecking Brown.

In fact virtually anything written in the last 10 years.

Pancakeflipper · 26/02/2015 22:40

Something by Nadine Gordimer. Cannot even recall the title. If it hadn't have been for bloody up its own arse book club I would have given up by chapter 3.

It took our book club 10 weeks to get through it when usually we could churn out reading a book a week.

LandUnderWave · 26/02/2015 22:39

Oh I loved the book thief though - to the point of hysterical sobbing for approx last 40 pages Blush

Sgtmajormummy · 26/02/2015 22:38

Would you keep a promise to your dying husband if you knew he was wrong? Could you forgive your wife if she wilfully went riding and lost your first child? Would you let your blackmailer die if he was left in your care and nobody would find out? Could you respect yourself if you never lived up to your youthful promise?
Just a few themes from Middlemarch which are just as thrilling as any modern novel. You just have to wade through the first 300 pages to get to them. Who cares about career clergymen any more?

anothercantthinkofanothername · 26/02/2015 22:37

Goldfinch.

And Under the Greenwood Tree, but that was when I was 13 and we read it in class so maybe I should give it another try...

ComtesseDeSpair · 26/02/2015 22:37

YY to Labyrinth - I persevered for about 100 pages because so many people had raved about it that they couldn't all be wrong, could they? I maintain now that they all were.

LandUnderWave · 26/02/2015 22:37

The alchemist by paolo coelho
Dh swears this book changed his life - I just thought it was self indulgent wank
Also struggled with 100 years of solitude - sorry mr Marquez

fromheretomaternity · 26/02/2015 22:36

I second Cloud Atlas - seemingly endless book with no characters to care about in the slightest which seemed to be written with the sole purpose of showing how brilliantly clever the author is at being able to write in different historical styles. Whoop de doo. Gave up half way and regretted sticking it out that far.

Loved the Goldfinch though.

ComtesseDeSpair · 26/02/2015 22:35

Markus Zuzak's The Book Thief. It was recommended to me dozens of times so when I saw it in a charity shop one day I thought I'd better give it a go. Couldn't get on with it at all, the narration style was just so awkward and rigid.

mrspink27 · 26/02/2015 22:34

and Labyrinth by Kate Mosse

mrspink27 · 26/02/2015 22:34

A suitable boy - Vikram Seth

Seekingtheanswers · 26/02/2015 22:31

rivercam, I came on to say "Sophie's World" by Jostein Gaarder. I kept reading to the end because I expected something really profound at the end of it, but it was a total disappointment!

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