Which classic author or book can you not stand, and why?

[Caligulights]

Following on from what your favourite book is, who or what do you find unreadable?

Mine are DH Lawrence and Ernest Hemingway - turgid, turgid, turgid, and I've never been fond of the Brontes who strike me as depressing - the only one I like is Anne. I've always hated Charlotte since I found out she dissed Pride and Prejudice and since I tried to read Villette and failed.

but WWB is in honourable company dior - as Charlotte Bronte famously didn't really fancy Pride and Prej much

Thomas Hardy, Far from the Madding Crowd, had to read this at schoolzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

What is with you Forster haters? I loooooooooove his work across the board.

But James Joyce's Ulysses--yuckety yuckety yuck. Rubbish. However, Virginia Woolf's stab at 24 hours in the life of someone, i.e. Mrs. Dalloway, is one of my favourite novels. Apparently she wrote it in reaction to Ulysses, which she also detested.

I really want to like Moby Dick, but I just can't get through it or anything else by Melville or Hawthorne. I'm not wild about those 19th c. Americans. . .much prefer the Brits.

Dior - I know all about the fact that Austen is meant to be full of ironic wit and humour. I just didn't enjoy it or feel it was particularly witty or insightful.

Sorry if I flabberghast you by my obvious lack of culture and appreciation of one particular author .

Peasant!

(I did say horses for courses though!)

That's easy: Charles Dickens wrote the most tedious drivel of anyone I can think of and I have never completed one of his books.

Also, still ploughing through Middlemarch and wishing I hadn't bothered starting. Don't know why I am continuing to be honest.

LonelyMum - 'Our Mutual Friend' is lovely though. Most Dickens books are full of coincidences that finally bring the characters together. I think he is a bit like Stephen King in that his books make great television/films, but are not very reader friendly.

No Our Mutual Friend was my A level text and I preferred to be forced to write essays on Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton rather than read more than ten pages of it.

Hmm....maybe 10 pages wasn't giving it much of a go?

It's lovely, heartwarming, and the baddies get what they deserve! Helps that I loved the BBC production, AND it had two of my fave men in it! (Paul McGann and Stephen MacIntosh)

Well I would watch Paul McGann watching paint dry so maybe I would give it a (the TV programme) a go if I came across it again, but never the book. Sorry.

Moby Dick, Catch 22 and The Three Muskateers. Have tried many times over the years but they all went to the charity shop recently. Was so disappointed in Catch 22 after hearing people (mostly guys, I admit) rave about it.

Oh the Three Musketeers is lovely (though perhaps when you are a teenager and into chivalry and wise-cracks. I stayed up night after night until one in the morning reading that book.