The Most Challenging Books You Will Ever Read Pan Macmillan

A list of demanding yet brilliant books that will challenge you in various ways. Be warned, within this list are some of the most challenging books you will ever read. Notorious for having complicated language, being so depressing that readers can’t carry on or simply just really, really long, these books are nevertheless celebrated as literary masterpieces. Including both classics and modern titles, trust us when we say each of these books is well worth the effort. So . .

. are you ready for a challenge? Have you tackled Europe's first 'modern' novel? Don Quixote, a profound yet hilariously tragic tale, charts the quixotic quests of an eccentric knight and his faithful squire in sixteenth-century Spain. With its intricate narrative over 1,000 pages long and satirical take on romantic tropes, Miguel de Cervantes' seminal work may be a demanding one. However, its timeless humor, inventive storytelling, and incisive social commentary ensure that the endeavor is highly rewarding, affirming Don Quixote as an enduring master of literature.

Part tightly plotted murder mystery, part biting condemnation of the corruption at the heart of English society, Bleak House follows the inheritance case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The case has been drawn out for generations, and we’re introduced to myriad characters from all walks of life. There’s Esther Summerson, Dickens' feisty heroine; Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, cocooned in their stately home in Lincolnshire; and Jo, the penniless crossing sweeper. With some of its 1296 pages narrated in the third person and other parts by the main character, and the entire first chapter essentially being a description of London's fog, Bleak House is not... With its extraordinary intensity sustained by mischievous irony and moments of exquisite beauty, Moby-Dick is both a great American epic and a profoundly imaginative, yet challenging, literary creation. On board the whaling ship Pequod a crew of wise men and fools, renegades and seeming phantoms is hurled through treacherous seas by crazed Captain Ahab, a man hell-bent on hunting down the mythic...

Herman Melville transforms the little world of the whale ship into a crucible where mankind's fears, faith and frailties are pitted against a relentless fate. With an unconventional structure, experimental styles and long digressions and ruminations from the central character, there is plenty for readers to unpack. If you've made it all the way through any of these, give yourself a pat on the back. Bonus points if you actually understood what you were reading. What makes it challenging: There's no clear plot — it's all stream of consciousness, filled with idiosyncratic language, free association, and an overall attempt to capture the feeling of dreams. After seven decades, Joyce scholars continue to argue over what it all means.

Excerpt: "Sir Tristram, violer d'amores, fr'over the short sea, had passencore rearrived from North Armorica on this side the scraggy isthmus of Europe Minor to wielderfight his penisolate war: nor had topsawyer's rocks by... What makes it challenging: The style is stream of consciousness with three different narrators and one third-person section. The first narrator is mentally disabled to the extent that he cannot process linear time and jumps between past and present mid-sentence. Excerpt: "Caddy held me and I could hear us all, and the darkness, and something I could smell. And then I could see the windows, where the trees were buzzing. Then the dark began to go in smooth, bright shapes, like it always does, even when Caddy says that I have been asleep."

As Emily Dickinson famously said, "There is no Frigate like a Book / To take us Lands away," but sometimes you get halfway there and are all "Frigate, WTF, where are we even going?"... Maybe the authors of these hardest books to read are laughing at all of us right now, or maybe they didn't even mean to make the book so tough, but here we all are,... Hard books to read run the gamut. Some are just too long, like War and Peace. Others are just perplexing and no one will ever know what's really going on in them, even that kid in your Honors College literature class who thinks he is so cool. Still others of the most difficult books ever written aren't even really that complicated, they just happen to be as boring as listening to anyone, anywhere, at anytime, talking about traffic.

What books have you put down after just one chapter? What books sit proudly on your shelves, 90% unread because life is more than sticking it out with a book that is just too much? Sure, a lot of these books you are never going to actually read are classics, written by famous authors and some of the most influential writers of all time, but let's get real, Jonathan... sign up for your weekly dose of culture! Ever been halfway through a book and wondered if your brain had just quit on you? We’ve all been there, frantically flipping back pages, trying to figure out where the plot went or if we missed a crucial detail.

Well, if you think that’s bad, let me introduce you to a whole new level of literary brain-benders—books that are famously hard to read. You know, the type of books that make you question your life choices, ask yourself why you’re reading them in the first place, and yet, when you finally close that last page, you feel... Have you ever noticed that some of the world’s most celebrated works of literature are also some of the most complicated books you can read? Let me be the first to admit that I’ve slogged through a fair few classics in my time only to give up without ever finishing them. Stumped by complex prose, puzzling metaphors, and unfamiliar language, I’ve cut my losses and switched to an excellent, easy read to soothe my tired brain. But some books are worth the struggle.

Suppose you see yourself as a heavyweight bibliophile and you’re not afraid to tackle some challenging reads. No list of complex books would be complete without this infamously baffling novel by Irish writer James Joyce. It took Joyce seventeen years to write Finnegans Wake, and I’d hazard a guess that it’s taken some people just as long to read it. A significant reason is that much of the narrative is defined by a stream of consciousness that refuses to be hemmed in by any definite structure. Plus, the story begins mid-sentence and ends in the middle of the same sentence, which should give you a good idea of what to expect from this erratic tale. When Reading Feels Like Climbing a Mountain

Here is a small list of the most challenging books which gave me hard time to reach last page of the book. No matter how hard your heart wants to read these challenging books till the end but at certain point your mind will take over the will of your heart and convince it to drop... These challenging books will test your patience and control over your mind. Give yourself a round of applause if you’ve also made it through any of these books. And if you get it what was written or what you’ve read then you deserve a standing ovation. Why is it included in the most challenging books list: Few family sagas stretch as wide as that of the Buendía clan – there are seven generations depicted here.

As if that’s not confusing enough, names are frequently repeated (basically ever character is named Aureliano). And oh yeah, try reading it in Spanish. Excerpt: “He sank into the rocking chair, the same one in which Rebecca had sat during the early days of the house to give embroidery lessons, and in which Amaranta had played Chinese checkers... Why is it included in the most challenging books list: The stuff about the white whale is fine, but there are several chapters — seriously so many — dedicated to whales and whaling. In high school, your teacher might let you skip them, but you’re not really reading Moby-Dick until you know how spermaceti is gathered. The Modern Novel home page » Their Lists home page » Lists of Most Difficult Books

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