What's the most boring book you've ever read?

[shrekfan246]

"I had to read it in High School/College and I....."

Makes me stop reading immediately. If you were forced to read a book for a grade, chances are you didn't dig it.

Interestingly enough, considering all of the negative comments about it in this thread, I had to read The Great Gatsby for school and I quite enjoyed it.

Books I didn't like include Black Water by Joyce Carol Oates (interesting premise, but the repetition really drags it down) and Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables (my lord that man had a dry, boring writing style).

Honestly though, especially on a video game-centric website like this, you're not going to find a terribly high number of people who read for fun now that they're out of school. And, similar to films/games, most aren't going to even remember the one or two actually boring/bad books they happen to stumble across because they're almost assuredly going to do heavy amounts of research on something before purchasing, to be sure that they at least should enjoy what they're getting into.

It's a fair point that a lot of kids don't like reading in high school and many won't like even legitimately great books simply because it was assigned reading, but that doesn't automatically discount certain classics from being rather bland or boring now that we can examine them through the lens of time.

 

[sageoftruth]

Another one for me was "Romance of the Three Kingdoms". Essentially the book that inspired "Dynasty Warriors" if you haven't heard of it. It wasn't all boring. It started off pretty good with some interesting characters, particularly Zhuge Liang, but then it just kept on going for another 600 pages. I think the biggest problem was that because it was inspired by actual historic (but also embellished) events, lots of the same stuff happened over and over again. If the books wasn't so old, I'd accuse the writer of copy-pasting segments from earlier in the book into later parts. I saw the same military tactics used repeatedly, particularly that part where an army chases another army, and then the other army suddenly wins the battle by turning around and catching their pursuers by surprise. Kind of like a rock star who doesn't know when to quit, this book continued well past the point where it was interesting to read.

 

[Skeleon]

Effi Briest.
Pissed me right off.
A story about a girl married to an older guy having an affair, then a daughter, then they divorce, her husband kills her lover in a duel and then she dies.

 

[Cookiegerard]

H.P.Lovecraft's works.

Don't get me wrong, I love the universe and setting he created, I'm a keeper for Call of Cthulhu games with my group in college, but I find his actual writing horrible.

I understand that yes, you are meant to use your imagination, that what we create in our minds is way more terrifying than anything that can be written down, but the formula for his stories is always the same.

Build up, build up, build, then we are just about to see the horrifying creature he has been hinting at AND... the main character passes out. The main character represses the memory. The monster is too terrible to explain. The monster is invisible. It is outside our understanding. I have a hardback collection of his works and I've tried to go through it three times now and I just can't. His work is just so bad.

 

[Dante dynamite]

Two the Great Gatsby it was poorly written with a okay story and Atlas shrugged, that book is the embodiment of Mary Sues and TL;DR

 

[Cliff_m85]

The Bible, which is utterly repetitious (Try reading through the commands of how the Tabernacle shall be built).

Other than that, "A Painted House". Total yawn-fest.

You have to keep in mind that the Bible isn't really "a" book, but rather a collection of books, so you have to read them all individually. Obviously some were poetic works of art with some of the best writing I've ever seen, whereas other books are little more than massive legal documents. Each book serves a different purpose. As a result I have to read some chapters as a historian and some chapters as a creative writer.

That's also why there's so much repetition, sometimes different books overlapped on the same event.

The poetry is decent, the story in the OT is utterly horrible. The character development is atrocious. I mean, the exodus made me face/palm so much due to the fact that the Israelites SEE, I mean LITERALLY SEE, miracles....yet still doubt the power of God.... who does present himself in some form and kills disobedient Israelites in front of the doubting Israelites in VERY SPECIFIC ways. The NT is better, but not up to snuff.

Go back and read the instructions for the Tabernacle followed up with how they built the Tabernacle and tell me if it was necessary to write "Build this in this fashion ____ (50 pages)" followed by "We built it in this fashion _____ (50 pages)".

 

[Kenbo Slice]

"I had to read it in High School/College and I....."

Makes me stop reading immediately. If you were forced to read a book for a grade, chances are you didn't dig it.

Funnily enough there were quite a few books I had to read for school that I loved. Lord of the Flies and The Notebook (by Agota Kristoff) are two of my favorites that I had to read.

 

[sageoftruth]

Atlas Shrugged.
Its very interesting from a philosophical standpoint (not that it represents my philosophy), but Rand is just a bad writer. The characters are one-dimensional and everything is so obvious and clichee....
Also Lord of the rings....I like the hobbit, but LOTR is just too much.....filler.

I still admire you for finishing Atlas Shrugged. I tried to do that, but Ayn Rand's barely disguised conceit was too much for me. I quit after the part when Ms. Taggart recounts her past growing up as a brilliant, gifted and intellectually superior child. It wasn't hard to see that Ayn Rand was talking about herself.

 

[Skeleon]

His work is just so bad.

There's a lot of quality inconsistency with his works.
Some are truly amazing, some I can completely agree with you on. I really loved The Mound because he managed to create an entire other civilization of sorts. I also have extremely nostalgic memories of The Thing On The Doorstep, but that might just be because of my childhood, although I do think the concept is great for a very different kind of horror than he usually employs. Hm, what else? Shadow Over Innsmouth is great and the character only faints after describing the horrors. And the twist ending is just awesome. Similarily, I loved The Horror In The Museum for its build-up and nice (albeit a bit predictable) ending.
Eh, I can't fault you for having sort of given up on Lovecraft's stuff, having read a lot of his awful stuff myself, but there are a lot of great stories, too. Buried in the rubble, I suppose.

 

[sageoftruth]

The Bible, which is utterly repetitious (Try reading through the commands of how the Tabernacle shall be built).

Other than that, "A Painted House". Total yawn-fest.

Of course! I forgot about the bible.

"Heart of Darkness" is by far the most boring book I've read. It's a whopping 70 pages, and it took me two whole weeks to finish that rubbish

Was that a typo or was it just so thickly and densely written that even 70 pages was too much?

 

[Godhead]

A day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich bored me to a near catatonic state when I first read it. Which is weird, because looking back on it I feel that now it's one of my favorite novels. Much like what happened with The Stranger.

 

[Skeleon]

Funnily enough there were quite a few books I had to read for school that I loved. Lord of the Flies and The Notebook (by Agota Kristoff) are two of my favorites that I had to read.

Agreed. We had to read Brave New World and it turned out to be one of my favorite books. Just because it was required reading doesn't mean we wouldn't enjoy it.

That said, had I made the curriculum, I'd have put Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett in there somewhere to be sure.

 

[sageoftruth]

Candid by Voltaire. What a lame book. The entire premise was supposed to be about a guy who does not care at all and is the epitome of apathy around others. He gets into a relationship, he doesn't care. He goes to jail, he doesn't care. He eats a salad, he doesn't care. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever care about this book.

That... is not at all what Candide is about. It's about, in part, a man who finds the philosophical teachings of Optimism (that this is the best of all worlds, and everything that happens is the best thing that can possibly happen) to be the only way to look at the world and life. He then suffers a series of increasingly devastating events (most of which are hilarious) until he meets a man, Martin, who does not share his views of the world and in fact thinks everything is shit and finally Candide gives up on his optimistic (both the modern usage and the philosophical teachings) ideals.

Are you sure you mean Candide?

You should still see the musical/opera. It's hilarious.

 

[the doom cannon]

"Heart of Darkness" is by far the most boring book I've read. It's a whopping 70 pages, and it took me two whole weeks to finish that rubbish

Was that a typo or was it just so thickly and densely written that even 70 pages was too much?

No typo. This thing was stupidly dense and it required a very concerted effort to finish more than a couple pages at a time. I just double checked and Amazon says 72 pages.

 

[sageoftruth]

I've read a lot of boring books, considering I was an English major with a Lit. emphasis, but the one book that I could never force myself to read past the first ten, grueling, soul sucking pages was The Poisonwood Bible. It has used as a spacer between my couch and the wall for the past seven years while all my other books are kept dusted and well maintained on my bookshelves.
Most boring that I've finished would probably be The Sun Also Rises. I've just never been able to quite enjoy Hemingway's writing style.

I read that once long ago. Can't remember much about it, but what made it so bad that you quit after 10 pages? I guess it was kind of a downer and the father deserved worse than he got.

 

[Fox12]

The Bible, which is utterly repetitious (Try reading through the commands of how the Tabernacle shall be built).

Other than that, "A Painted House". Total yawn-fest.

You have to keep in mind that the Bible isn't really "a" book, but rather a collection of books, so you have to read them all individually. Obviously some were poetic works of art with some of the best writing I've ever seen, whereas other books are little more than massive legal documents. Each book serves a different purpose. As a result I have to read some chapters as a historian and some chapters as a creative writer.

That's also why there's so much repetition, sometimes different books overlapped on the same event.

The poetry is decent, the story in the OT is utterly horrible. The character development is atrocious. I mean, the exodus made me face/palm so much due to the fact that the Israelites SEE, I mean LITERALLY SEE, miracles....yet still doubt the power of God.... who does present himself in some form and kills disobedient Israelites in front of the doubting Israelites in VERY SPECIFIC ways. The NT is better, but not up to snuff.

Go back and read the instructions for the Tabernacle followed up with how they built the Tabernacle and tell me if it was necessary to write "Build this in this fashion ____ (50 pages)" followed by "We built it in this fashion _____ (50 pages)".

I understand what you're trying to say, but you can't read every book like a piece of Romantic Era poetry, which is why it's so difficult for people to get into. I'm a double history and Lit. major, so I understand that there are parts that have to be read in a historical context and there are parts that are meant to be poetic. When you're reading about the building of The Ark of the Covenant, or about certain periods of Hebrew history, it needs to be read from the point of view of a historian. Those particular parts weren't concerned with entertaining people, they were Israels attempts at recording their history. From a historians point of view all those minute details actually matter quite a lot. Other parts were meant to be more poetic. There's also a lot of depth in the stories, but you have to really pay attention to detail in order to get it. The New Testament is better though, I agree.

I actually really liked the Bible, but the way it was constructed can make it very difficult for some people to get through. One moment you're reading something meant to be poetic, and the next you're reading a dry account of political or legal history.

 

[CatComixzStudios]

Oh god where do I begin?

Romeo and Juliet: I understand that it's better read as a tragedy than a love story. But the characters aren't making small mistakes and learning from them. They're doing absolutely stupid shit that makes things worse for everyone. Whatever hate-boner the families had for one another, it was dumb, that was likely the point. I guess I just wish I were more invested in the characters so the bigger message would be more effective to me.

The Great Gatsby: The only people who seem to like the book like it for the setting. I think the theme was meant to be that money doesn't buy happiness and/or money won't make life exciting. True, but I've seen so many more stories where that concept was done much better. But I don't like stories where every character is an idiot or an asshole.

To Kill a Mockingbird: I hated the first half. Fuck's sake I get it, the children are all innocent look at how innocent those kids are. I did enjoy the trail part. Injustices like racism piss me off in a way that gets my attention. I just wish I didn't have to sit through the first half of the book to get there.

A Raisin in the Sun: I kind of liked this book. Up until the ending. Black family chooses to stick it to the white man and move into a white neighborhood. Awesome. But then it just ends. It doesn't show the consequences of their choice. It doesn't show how it effects them. That pissed me off. I think the story would have been better if it started there. If it showed their struggles but that they didn't back down. But nope.

I found Beowulf, Lord of the Flies, and Macbeth enjoyably goofy, so I couldn't really get pissed at them.

The Divine Comedy, Don Quoxte, The Phantom of the Opera were too boring for me to finish.

 

[Linksmash]

Starship Troopers.
Man, I never expected to find a case where the movie was way better than the book.
It's just a lot of talking, politics and boring patrols. There's not even a single battle against the arachnids!

Personally i really enjoyed it, found the politics and philosophy in it quite interesting (i'm not a fascist though!)

II've found plenty of books boring, after about the third discworld novel i read any more would put me to sleep. I don't often give up on books, but recently i tried to read The da vinci code and abandoned that about a third of the way in, as his writing style was atrocious.