What is the most tedious book you have ever read?

Disliked Never Let Me Go but loved Remains of the Day. Tried Cloud Atlas twice but never got further than the part where some kind of strange language took over. Time Travellers Wife bored me stupid. Loved War and Peace with a passion. Read it as a teenager when I was in love with Peter Basoukov! Read it again recently and still loved it. You don't have to be in a hurry with Tolstoy because he wasn't. He will stop in mid story to give you a lecture on war or take you on a hunting trip which he loved. His books are really about himself and all his self examinations and recriminations.

We Need to Talk about Kevin is my 2nd most hated book. I couldn't get through it. Its entirely expositional - no live action - and its artless. It maybe page turning pulp for some readers, but I think its a load of poop.

I usually finish books even if they are shite, but I completely gave up on The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, The Little Friend by Donna Tartt and Gone Girl. All were dull and boring. In the first two, absolutely nothing happened, even after about 300 pages.

I must be really strange, I love Middlemarch (although I prefer The Mill on the Floss) but Moby Dick is amazing, love it and read it yearly! However I loathe Dickens!

Lionel Shriver wasn't a good writer in We Need To Talk About Kevin; it was the subject matter that carried her through. The idea behind Double Fault was good, I thought, but the way she wrote was just so boring. She is boring, too, when she's interviewed. Boring and narcissistic, I think.

Don't think I'll bother with The Goldfinch then ??

Ladydepp - also loved Tenderness of Wolves

Lionel Shriver's "Double Fault." Potentially an interesting book but so fucking boring. She's a dreadful writer. Mind you, when you hear interviews with her, all is explained.

Classics: Villette by Charlotte Brontë; To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Wanted to throw them at the wall! Gave up on Wolf Hall. Hated Dragon Tattoo - wasn't about her at all. Original title is Men Who Hate Women - explains the misogyny! Like some well-written romantic fiction as an escape; much of it is tosh eg Cecilia Ahern & Jill Mansell. Ahern's PS I love you - crap- terrible grammar & sentence structure. Mansell's writing is trite & boring! Haven't even tried 50 Shades on principle. Picked it up in the library & laughed out loud at one of the rude bits! Love this thread. Seen so many "It's not just me "moments!

Someone has already mention The Old Man and the Sea up thread. This I remember as being utterly utterly dull as man is pulled across the sea by big fish caught on fishing line.

I haven't read the Goldfinch yet and am a bit reluctant as I hated The Little Friend having loved The Secret History.
Gave up half way through Lord of the Rings. Endless descriptions of who was son of who not helping.

On the other hand I like both Our Mutual Friend and Bleak House and have read them more than once.

How funny, I was utterly gripped by We Need to talk about Kevin.

I also liked The Tenderness of Wolves...

I forgot to mention how tedious NW by Zadie Smith was, just terrible.

Haha. I never tried Moby Dick.

The Tenderness of Wolves. First quarter of the book was great, but then there were so many characters and other plots and it lost me entirely.

Fizzycola I'm with you on Tristan Shandy.
Nearly as bad as Moby Dick.

I struggle with Hardy, Dickens, Lawrence. I sometimes think I should give them another shot now I'm older, but I can't really be bothered.

I hated Shantaram and A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Pretentious tosh.

The Life and Times of Tristan Shandy. University set text. Satire. Deeply tedious.

Otherwise I don't read boring books, I chuck them to one side asap and move on.

Lord of the bloody rings. I was so so bored.

The hare with the amber eyes
We need to talk about Kevin
The goldfinch
The sea
Jonathan strange
Suspicions of mr whicher
Catcher in the rye
Anything by Henry James
God.....loads....

I just started A Quiet Belief in Angels and I can't believe it came up several times on a thread about tedious books. I'm totally hooked. I love crime novels though, so might be biased.

Cactus .yup, I can sort of agree. ( am also a Ulysses fan).

Moby Dick I resorted in part to audio book in the gym.

Time Traveller's wife, just a non event. Adequate short haul reading.

Catcher in the Rye, agreed with Ds who said puerile and no excuse for boring bad language.

Les Mis. So much better as a musical.

I enjoy Middlemarch though like Jude and Emma it's full of characters I loathe and social embarrassment at which I shudder.

Tess of the Durbeyvilles. Unreadable.

Arcadia. Don't even try. Was once in a seminar with John Carey where we agreed it was truly awful and the rest of the group loved it. Only time I've ever agreed with him.

Much of Our Mutual Friend. Saved by Lizzie.

Did I say The Magic Mountain?

But Clarissa and Arcadia, comprehensible and turgid, are tops.

I think there's an awful lot of 'emperor's new clothes' about a lot of books ( and art)

Effnjeff if you could steel yourself to go back to 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' it's worth it to plough through as it has a twist.

Wolf Hall - just about slogged through to the end.
I found Zadie Smith's On Beauty a bit tedious although it picked up towards the end.
Middlemarch.
The Accidental.

Some of these I can hardly remember anything about other than that they were hard-going. It's funny how tastes vary as I've enjoyed many of the books in this thread even if some were the literary equivalent of junk food.