# What was the most boring book you were ever forced to read for a class? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 22, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373 "2013-04-22T02:35:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Hottius\_Maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3ab097/32.png) [@Hottius\_Maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hottius_Maximus)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/1 "2013-04-22T02:35:10Z")
I thought “Animal Farm” would be entertaining but I found it very dull and disappointing. Any thoughts from the SDMB members? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/2 "2013-04-22T02:40:36Z")
**Being And Nothingness** , Sartre. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/3 "2013-04-22T02:44:54Z")
Can’t decide if it was **Moby Dick** or **The Scarlet Letter** , neither of which I completed more than a third of the way through. That whole swath of time was just so verbose and turgid. ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/4 "2013-04-22T02:52:14Z")
“A Wrinkle in Time” comes to mind. I was too young to get it, I suppose, and I’ve never been a sci-fi person. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/5 "2013-04-22T02:58:18Z")
**Lord Jim.** It took the guy four pages to take off a boot. I gave up halfway through and took an F on it rather than finish the damn thing, and I let the teacher know I was doing it, and why. ---
**Author:** ![Ranger\_Jeff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranger_jeff/32/2065_2.png) [@Ranger\_Jeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranger_Jeff)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/6 "2013-04-22T03:03:07Z")
**Canterbury Tales** and **The Scarlet Letter.** The OP is about novels, not non-fiction like, say, any chemistry text book I was ever issued? ---
**Author:** ![Pai325](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c68b51/32.png) [@Pai325](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pai325)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/7 "2013-04-22T03:12:02Z")
Heart of Darkness. Conrad. ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/8 "2013-04-22T03:15:20Z")
Dear God, yes, **Heart of Darkness**. I never got anything below an A in English class except for the two weeks in which we read Heart of Darkness, and I got so bogged down in it that I simply gave up, accepted my D- on the test with pleasure, and waited til the next unit. ---
**Author:** ![jehan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f6c823/32.png) [@jehan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jehan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/9 "2013-04-22T03:16:57Z")
I liked most of the fiction I had to read in high school- I did struggle with “The Sun Also Rises” though. For non-fiction- I think I retained about 2 words of the over 900 pages of Karl Marx’s “Grundrisse” that I had to read for a Marxism course in university. Coma inducing. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/10 "2013-04-22T03:18:55Z")
I just came in to see how many times one of my favorite novels was mentioned. I’m gratified to see there is only one mention of _Moby Dick_so far. Most of the boring books I was forced to read are so forgettable that they are hard to bring to mind. I do remember a trilogy I was forced to read in a college Soviet Literature class. I don’t remember the title; only that it had something to do with Russian forestry practices. By the third book I was only reading the first paragrapgh of each chapter. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/11 "2013-04-22T03:23:10Z")
I liked quite a few of the books mentioned so far. My vote for most tedious book will go to Margaret Laurence’s [The Stone Angel](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Stone_Angel). I remember almost nothing about it, and I’m not sure if it’s because it was so boring that I blocked it out, or because I couldn’t even finish it, or both. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/12 "2013-04-22T03:25:41Z")
The Bible, closely followed by \*The Great Gatsby \*and _Crime and Punishment_ ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/13 "2013-04-22T03:52:39Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Most of the boring books I was forced to read are so forgettable that they are hard to bring to mind. Yes. For example, my answer to the OP would be “a novel with the word ‘Owl’ in the title”, because that (and how boring it was) is precisely all I remember about it. ---
**Author:** ![percypercy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8baadc/32.png) [@percypercy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/percypercy)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/14 "2013-04-22T03:53:52Z")
Another vote for Heart of Darkness. I’ve been assigned it in two different classes and didn’t enjoy it either time. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/15 "2013-04-22T03:57:51Z")
[No Highway.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Highway) I almost failed grade 10 English because of this book. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/16 "2013-04-22T04:05:07Z")
**Middlemarch** in college. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/17 "2013-04-22T04:23:04Z")
A Death In Venice - I never got past the beginning. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/18 "2013-04-22T04:37:18Z")
The only one that comes to mind for me was _David Copperfield_, and it probably wouldn’t have been so tedious for me if that edition had been annotated so I wouldn’t get stopped dead every other paragraph by an unfamiliar word or phrase. I could probably read it _now_ without problem, except that my mind would probably constantly wander to the _South Park_ version of _Great Expectations_, which had robot monkeys and such. ---
**Author:** ![Reyemile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/46a35a/32.png) [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/19 "2013-04-22T04:41:19Z")
_Le Morte D’Arthur_. It’s possible my teacher just assigned us terrible sections, but I remember literally paragraphs listing what random knights went on what random quests. Dry as a textbook. ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373/20 "2013-04-22T04:49:46Z")
**The Pearl**. Ugh. **Heart of Darkness** , too, but I read less of that than I read of **The Pearl** (I was awesome at Cliffs Notes). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-most-boring-book-you-were-ever-forced-to-read-for-a-class/656373.md?page=2)