The 10 most difficult books to finish – in pictures

Plough through these challenging works and you'll be doing well. Nominate your favourites in the comments section below

• As chosen by Robert McCrum
• The Observer, Saturday 3 November 2012 

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Umbrella
by Will Self

A high-spirited footnote to the modernism of James Joyce, this fascinating literary experiment came tantalisingly close to winning the 2012 Booker prize. Self, who has always been a hierophant in the temple of difficulty, never flinches from exercising his readers. Umbrella is one of the most exhilaratingly “difficult” books published for many years. Dr Zack Busner is on a quest for the meaning of the past as he awakens his “post-encephalitic” patients, victims of the 1918 sleeping sickness epidemic. Rarely has a historical novel provided such a challenge

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