The most intellectually challenging book you have read?

[Lando Lakes]

stellaangelo

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.

Seconded. Not a bad read by any means, albeit Rand's "Objectivism" was a little heavy-handed throughout, and it felt not only like she was just writing the book to get her philosophy out there, but she was also running it into the dirt with it...

[Supinelu]

Paradise Lost?
I didn't even read the entire book, and it hurt my head ><
I do not understand any of it. At all.

[Alberic of Krufton]

Jewel of Gardios

Paradise Lost?
I didn't even read the entire book, and it hurt my head ><
I do not understand any of it. At all.

Think you need to be in the proper frame of mind to really get into it. Maybe warm up with some Shakespeare or Dante, or find it on audiobook, if that's even an option.

I really should pick that one up again. Reading it during the school year probably didn't help.

Seeing a lot of Dune, which I guess I can understand. Didn't take me all that long to read, though. Granted, that was actually one of the last books in the series I'd read... Acclimated to the prose, I guess.

Ayn Rand is a tough author to read if you don't have the right mindset. Still about a third of the way through We the Living.

Textbooks in general are annoying because you need to devote so much brainpower to understanding something that's (usually) boring as hell or ridiculously dense.

[SimpleAForApple]

All of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories. The deductions, observations and the conclusions always get my head in a twist but there are always great advice stored in the adventures, sometimes hidden, sometimes noticeable.

It may take me a while to digest the facts, but Sherlock Holmes remains to be my idol.

[vp_sasuke]

The most challenging book to me has to be 'The outsiders' by S.E. Hinton, I really liked it though. xd

[Ravitacus]

Aside from my textbooks? Probably Les Mis.

[Slayer Igraine]

Tautological Tautology

Slayer Igraine

whateverfloats

Not a novel but I'm assuming that doesn't matter.

The Critique of Pure Reason

I got the gist but deciphering his meaning was pretty damn difficult. I still don't think I got most of it. Kierkegaard is also indecipherable. What is it with Germans?

I agree about the Kant, but I thought Kierkegaard was fairly straight-forward. But Schopenhauer can be a bit of headache at times - his essays and aphorisms are simple to understand but the first book of The World as Will an Representation can be a bit of a headache, and I'm quite sure that 90% of the people who read Nietzsche don't understand him anywhere as near a well as they think they do.

Also, Aristotle, Metaphysics.

I found what I've read of Schopenhaur rather easy to read; Hegel, however, is exceptionally hard to penetrate.

In regards to the most intellectually challenging novel it would have to be the things I've read by Gene Wolfe. At times it is almost byzantine, yet you can easily enjoy it and get swept away by it despite being painfully aware that you are missing something.

Like I said, some Schopenhauer is fairly easy going, some is not. However, unless you've read the first book of World as Will and representation you probably didn't fully understand the rest of what you were reading.

I read some of his essays and aphorisms first, found them easy, enjoyable and thought-provoking. I re-read some of them after I'd read WWR and realised you understand it a lot better for knowing the WWR.

[Slayer Igraine]

whateverfloats

Lily Delacroix

whateverfloats

Not a novel but I'm assuming that doesn't matter.

The Critique of Pure Reason

I got the gist but deciphering his meaning was pretty damn difficult. I still don't think I got most of it. Kierkegaard is also indecipherable. What is it with Germans?

I'd just like to point out that Kierkegaard was Danish wink
For me... Well, I've read a Stephen Hawking book from cover to cover, can't rememeber the name though.

Oh, damn. Thanks for the correction.

I don't think Aristotle is all that bad actually. There's a lot to unpack but I never found reading The Metaphysics much of a slog.

Poetics: fine. Politics: fine. Nichomachean Ethics: fine. Physics: fine. Metaphysics: Bleh.

[We who have Fallen]

Read and finished or just read?

I read and finished Charles Baxter's The Soul Thief. That was a good book... I think... Kind of a ********. If you aren't paying attention your brain may explode.

I started and tried to finish C.J Cherryh's Cyteen but it's HUGE. I had to give up after 300 pages because it was wearing me out.

[Flaviiaa]

Everything I have ever had to read for an English class. With the exception of Enders Game heart .

[Abaikgirl]

The 2001 series by Arthur C. Clarke is pretty challenging because of the very abstract and immense ideas and plots he uses. Goooood series.

[MoxiousBabe]

Slayer Igraine

Poetics: fine. Politics: fine. Nichomachean Ethics: fine. Physics: fine. Metaphysics: Bleh.

Motion seconded!

[CullyStrachan]

Still reading it, but Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. There is something to be said for a book that takes the morality of religion, politics, and philosophy and throws it back into society's face. I dont't think he wanted to bash the values of society, just asking you to defend what you believe.

[wolfhawk99]

CullyStrachan

Still reading it, but Friedrich Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil. There is something to be said for a book that takes the morality of religion, politics, and philosophy and throws it back into society's face. I dont't think he wanted to bash the values of society, just asking you to defend what you believe.

Reassessing your beliefs is always important to do.

[MacyGirl12]

wolfhawk99

For me, it was without a doubt the Dune series. Frank Hubert provides us with more a philosophical treatise than a novel. Feel free to share your favorite challenges.

mine was refugees