I can blame most of my English teachers for making books seem boring. All the analyzing and crap made reading seem like a real chore. English teachers don't believe in reading for pleasure. I read "Lord of the Flies" on my own and thought it was a great book, but I read it as an adventure novel. Later, I had a teacher who said "If you read it as an adventure novel, it stinks. You have to read it for the symbolism". We analyzed the daylights out of it, and it sucked.
Fortunately, I had an English teacher in 8th grade who was also a history buff. He did an incredible job of bringing old novels to life, especially Dickens. He was full of little details about everyday life in Dickens time. Because of him, I found those books enjoyable and was able to read most of them later on without being told to.