The most difficult book you've ever read?

[Psychonaut]

Non-fiction: probably a toss up between Heidegger's Being and Time and Whitehead's Process and Reality.

Fiction: either Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or Joyce's Ulysses.

[Zankapfel]

As a child, I found "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman to be very difficult.
Same with "Der satanarchäolügenialkohöllische Wunschpunsch" by Ende, and I have no idea what the book is called in English tbh. The title is a blend of Satan, Anarchie, Archäologie, Lüge, genial, Alkohol and höllisch and it's about a punch that makes wishes come true. I know, lol.
Later, I've found Heinlen's "Stranger in a Strange Land" to be enthralling, but confusing.
"Focault's Pendulum" by Umberto Eco, "The Sound and the Fury" by Faulkner and "One Hundred Years Of Solitude" by Garcia Marquez.
And agreeing with Psychonaut here, certainly "Sein und Zeit" is a book to be taken in small doses ;/
What I read in school I don't find particularly difficult, although I'm told most people do (perhaps Fluid Dynamics and maybe Statistics too). Then again if I didn't have a good grasp of these subjects I would've not chosen this career path.

[Frigga]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, I abdandoned, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, abdandoned, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (damn him into a fiery pit of hell for his deliberate ommission of punctuation! ) abdandoned. There's quite a few more......

[Tabiti]

Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, I abdandoned, The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, abdandoned, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy (damn him into a fiery pit of hell for his deliberate ommission of punctuation! ) abdandoned. There's quite a few more......

I've read a short version of Les Miserables for school in 5th grade. It wasn't the easiest reading especially for 11 year old.
First time I abandoned Name of the Rose (when I was 17) but before 1-2 years started reading it again, finished it and really liked it. Now this is one of my favorite books.

[OneWolf]

Mein Kampf-I don't know whether or not it was due to a bad translation or what but it was like listening to a 3 year old child detail his day at Grandmas.
Don't get me wrong,the book had it's good points,which where dutifully noted.
But honestly most of the book was nothing but inconsistent ramblings.

[Tabiti]

Mein Kampf, I've read only the first chapter. First, it wasn't so "shocking" and "interesting", second it was an e-book variant. I can't read from the monitor.

[Don]

I had difficulties with this one finding the main trama, the great number of main characters makes the reading complex as well as the complexes relations between them... having some relation with cabalistic numbers found everywhere in the book.

Spoiler!

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Tabiti
Mein Kampf, I've read only the first chapter.

I found Mein Kampf generally dull rather than difficult….

If you stick with the math Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality is a real headache.

Nietzsche is difficult from the point of view that he is often misleading and likes to play tricks with you; sometimes I don’t know when he is tongue in cheek….

Kant can put a man to sleep, I not long ago finished The Critique of Pure Reason, the man is not a writer. Hume is probably worse, gods I don’t think I got past page five with Hume’s A Treatise of Human Nature. For some reason I bought Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, ZZZZzzzzzz

Heathen Gods in Old English Literature by Richard North is mind numbingly pedantic at points, true it is an academic work but still….

As for fiction whilst I love it dearly I have always found Lord of the Rings to be tedious in places and shallow in character, I can understand why people don’t finish it. When you compare it to The Children of Hurin or The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun it seems a different author all together.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman whilst not difficult to follow you do feel you have missed some of it somewhere along the line, the style takes some getting used to.

[Eldritch]

American Gods by Neil Gaiman whilst not difficult to follow you do feel you have missed some of it somewhere along the line, the style takes some getting used to.

Good effort by Gaiman, but still deeply flawed. It could have done with some heavy editing, or alternatively Gaiman should have put a lot more effort into it and made into a broader, deeper work, perhaps a series. As it is it seems to fall somewhere in the middle.

[Aemma]

The Holy Bible.

LOL As Eldritch said, no surprise here from you Eoin. The version being read can certainly offer its challenges. The King James version of the Bible, challenging in its right with its flowery language, is much more enjoyable to read as a work of literature than is anything else put out there at this moment though. The one saving grace is that most of us are quite familiar with the various plot lines already.

And Oghren, yes Teilhard de Chardin! I tried reading The Phenomenon of Man yonks ago and just couldn't get into it! I should give it a try again...some day.

One of the most difficult books was The Mayor of Casterbridge in high school. I would probably enjoy re-reading it today and get much more from it now than I ever did back then. But oh my gods, this incredibly descriptive narrative didn't seem to want to end!! Absolutely painful to read when you're an impatient 14 year old Canadian girl with better things to do than read about the English countryside!