50 tough books for hard-core readers

Interested in measuring up your bravado as a reader? Or finding some new literary challenges to tackle? Check out this list of the 50 toughest books to read. I like that they chose books which are tough for different reasons: some are bleak and disturbing, whereas others (like House of Leaves, pictured above) have challenging narrative structures. And others are just plain boring.

Image courtesy Flickr/Alan Trotter