Most long and boring book ever written

[Siwi]

Done Proust. Done Nelson Mandela autobiography etc.

The Silmarrillion.
Every Damn Page.

Best revenge ever.

Don't even go there with The Book Thief. It is actually fantastically emotive and satisfying.

The trick with Catch 22 is to read it in one sitting and to have an understanding that the story will jump around and isn't linear.

It also helps if you are serving in the RAF when you read it, and it is all too bloody real and strikes a chord.

It was given to me by a friend wth the words - here have a book I hate and can't read. I have a feeling you'll love it. He wasn't wrong.

OP - what about the full set of Arabian Nights, while quite a good read, it takes all eternity as all the tales start to interlink and you need to go back to remember who is who and there is no putting it down as you can't remember it enough to carry on without going back. It's the book that just keeps giving because you have to read it 10 times to follow what is going on. Many years later, only a third of the way through volume 1 of 4 and I'm going to have to start again. Again.

I've got.the Zen book somewhere. Could tinsel it up.
Wtf was that about.
?

Zen for mum. Other one for Dad.

Cheers guys. Shortlist now in.

The person who said Don Quixote is funny and not at all boring - is that the full 800 pages that you've read?

But actually I agree with the person who suggested Twilight that if you want to punish them you need to think more creatively. I'd suggest Digital Fortress. It's Dan Brown's first novel, from long before he reached the dizzy literary heights of The Da Vinci code.

H is for fucking Hawk. Jeeesus. If it wasn't for book club, I'd have given up. As it was, I read another book in the middle of it.

Any Henry James.

Buddenbrooks

I'm struggling through Crime and Punishment at the moment. God, somebody give me the will to carry on. I seem to have been forcing myself to read it forever and nothing has actually happened yet, he's just wandering round in circles of malnourished misery. Tell me: should I persist?

A Little Life is v looong. Unnecessarily so.

Also (tried to) read a biography of Alan Turing before the Imitation Game came out. That was super long and incredibly focused on mathematical minutiae. It drove me batty. Will look up the title (maybe it's even called the Imitation Game). Almost put me in a coma.

If you find out Devora, wiould you let me know? I remember doing the same years & years ago. I never did finish it. Woody Allen made a shit film based on it round about the time. My only memory of Crime & Punishment is alleyways. Hiding round them/sneaking down them, etc

Has anyone mentioned The Slap ? What a nasty, mysogynistic, jaundiced piece of going-nowhere shit that was. If I could get hold of the bastard who gave it a good review in the Grauniad (his mother?) I'd happily strangle them. Or better still, make them re-read it.

Oh shinyshies 1984 is one of my favourite books. I read around about 1984 and often think how much closer we're getting to what Orwell saw. It was so prescient.

I should have read this thread before I posted on it because it's mainly about the classics, innit?

It's not about classics. Appears that my DP have read most of boring Dickenst crap.

Only exceptionally boring and obscure classics.

Def Picardy.

Nice one.

Which picketty?
Just googled.

I recently read Two Cities and was moved to tears. Love GE, David Copperfield. Haven't read much of the rest. Have I only read his best then? I thought Little Dorrit wS supposed to be lovely.

I second Henry James for turgid.

The Kills, Booker long listed last year, 1000+ pages. No fucking clue where it's going. Managed about 100 pages.

And I made it through (and loved!) A suitable boy.

I have saved a suitable boy thru 4 house moves and got rid. And that is now the book that I want. Never read.

Infinite Jest by a long shot. This makes me sad as I adored Consider The Lobster. I even joined an online support group to try to get through I.J.

Tony Blairs autobiography is zzzzz. It should be good but needs a decent edit, it's just so verbose.

"And Quiet Flows The Don" by Mikhail Sholokhov

accompanied by his

"The Don Flows Home To The Sea"

would finish most people off.

Vladimir Dudintsev "Not By Bread Alone" is a page turner.

As is "Children of the Arbat" by Anatoly Rybakov.

Soviet literature has many such crackers

The Hare with the Amber Eyes - gets really good reviews but no one in my Bookclub can fathom why.
Pretentious, tortuously written, one bit just lists the contents of a room. I think there would be an interesting book in there with some very heavy editing but in its current state it would be hard to find.
I am a voracious reader who has never not finished a book but this one nearly broke me.

Love this thread and the hole revenge boring book idea!

Any,thing by a s Byatt is a yawnathon

Or, could you go in the opposite literary direction perhaps? Biographies of Katie price and Simon Cowell?

Niall Fergusson has just released a biography of Henry Kissinger. 1008 pages. And that's volume 1 of 2 .

Clarissa. The perfect combination of tiresome characters, objectionable attitudes, appalling misogynist plot and flowery tedium. Also if you get the Penguin Classics edition, it summarises the entire plot on the back cover, just to ruin any possible element of suspense.