I couldn’t get through a condensed children’s version of Moby Dick. Granted, I was about 10, but still.
For a really depressing/awful book, try Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome. 117 pages of depressing whining about how much Ethan loves some nitwit teenage girl. Depressing from start to finish. And not a good way either.
Another one for Gravity’s rainbow (abandonded after around 50 pages) and I also highly recommend JR - didn’t come as far.
Try@Proust’s Remeberence of Things Past. OMG, it has got to be the most boring book written (and I also kinda liked Moby Dick). When I attempted, I had the idea that all really well-read people have read Proust (said in a really snotty voice). The pace is glacial and NOTHING happens…
This is the book I detest the most in the world. I can never recover from
the world’s stupidest method of committing suicide. Sledding into a tree?!? They deserve to suffer.
May I suggest War and Peace, or will I get tarred and feathered for that? Boring doesn’t even begin to describe this book.
Steinbeck? I agree he can be depressing (in a good way), but he’s not boring, is he? I’m reading The Winter of Our Discontent right now, and I’m rather in thrall.
Now Hemingway, on the other hand, writes beautifully, but he really does demand patience from his reader.
Gadfly, intellectually speaking, Borges’ fictions are some of the most dependable legal highs on the market! Even if they start to tax your brain, few of them are over 20 pages long. It took me three attempts to make it through “Tlon, Uqbar, and Orbis Tertius,” but OMG, the vistas that story opened when I made it through!
The key to reading and, yes, enjoying Moby Dick is to skip all the crap that Melville thought was fraught with significance, like the various names for “whale” in different languages and the carving of masts, and just concentrate on the story, which is an entertaining read.
And I find Proust to be enjoyable, but oinly under special conditions. You ned to be away from distractiosn and interruptions, and just sit down and immerse yourself in the story as if you were sinking into a frothy meringue. His prose is so dense and demanding that you have to stick with it for long stretches of time. And having a couple of madelaines and a pot of lemon tea wouldn’t hurt.
Specifically The Red Pony. If you don’t want to either cut your throat or maim small children at the end of that story, you’re not human.
I tried to kill myself with The Life of Samuel Johnson, but apparently I am made of stronger stuff than 1200 pages of someone idolizing a jerk who only wrote one worthwhile book. Pity.
Way ahead of you, I only carry paperbacks above my head 
Thanks. Just goes to show you the shoddy level of journalism you can expect on the local level. They very definately said he died, which is clearly not the case.
I’ll second that. Ficciones is quite possibly the best collection of short stories ever written, and short in the bargain. Pure mind-expanding goodness.