The Atlantic

Readability Is a Myth

There aren't "difficult" books and "easy" ones. There are books that are difficult for some people, and easy for others.
Source: Tim Chong / Reuters

What's the most difficult book you've ever read? For me, at least within recent memory, there's no question—the book that was hardest for me to slog through, the book that I would have put down if I didn't have to read it for work, was E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey.

is not the sort of book that most people think of when they think of difficult books. Instead, when thinking about books that are challenging, or hard to read, most folks' thoughts turn to imposing modernist book stops like (which I haven't (which I did read, long ago.)

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