What is the most tedious book you have ever read?

[Figmentofmyimagination]

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.

Oh Puddings you had three of my favourite books on your hate list.

fizzy might be an idea to put the rest on a wishlist

I loved The Historian!!

Happydays - I felt exactly the same about Ishiguro. Remains of The Day is in my top 5 books ever. NLMG was blah.

Loved Cloud Atlas though...

Oh no Puddings, I have already read the others and agree with you - awful.

Hated 'Gone Girl' and 'Never let Me Go'.
And I don't much care for 'To Kill A Mockingbird' either.

Loved Never Let Me Go and Middlemarch and all of Jane Austen
I liked WH and BUTB but they're not THAT good- I actually thought the TV adaptation was better
Simply could not get beyond the first chapters of Catch 22 and Moby Dick
Read the whole of Catcher in the Rye because it is short but can't see the point of it. Also not keen on To Kill a Mockingbird
Struggle with Chekov

Children's book winner has to be "Duck in the Truck". soundtrack in head would be muttering "fuck the duck in the truck" throughout

Atonement by Ian McEwan. I honestly couldn't stand it. I wasted many hours on that book. It was the one book I started and gave up on. I even finished 50 shades of grey!!!!

Life after life sorry

The Woman who went to bed for a year......what the fuck was that all about???

Labyrinth is appalling.
The Historian
LOTR and sequels

I love H is for Hawk and Name of the Rose. And I like Wolf Hall.

Can't fucking stand The Glass Menagerie (if we're allowed plays). We had to do it for A Level and it made me think pulling out my own fingernails with tweezers would be more fun.

I can't get into Susan Fletcher's 'Corrag'. I loved her first book, but this one just isn't doing it for me. Also 'Island of the Day Before'. I've read everything else he's written in terms of fiction and enjoyed most of it.

Also, I really don't much like Chaucer. Meh.

Moby Dick is the only book that I have given up on (approx ten years ago) - May have another go at it in the future!

Quangle you've actually quite upset me just be mentioning the Hare With the Amber Eyes.

It was so tedious that I've tried to wipe it from my memory.

Agree with Lord of the Rings, tried twice and it really was just as bad the second time.

We are all completely beside ourselves and Gone Girl. 50 shades is by far the worst though.

The Historian and Kate Mosse's Labyrinth. Both containing great swathes of history dissertation where the authors have completely forgotten they are writing fiction or are meant to be in character.

The Slap - although I persevered until the end. Tedious and hateful.
Everything is illuminated or some such tosh - didn't get past first chapter.

And ANYTHING BY RICHARD SCARRY. DS loves his books but the text is so cringeworthy and tedious to the power of 10.

Couldn't finish Jonathan Strange but am v proud to have struggled through The Children's Book by AS Byatt. Was exhaustingly academic, felt like I'd sat an A Level in fin de siècle sociopolitical history - won't be reading her again.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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...