The 10 Worst Books

[layers]

Originally Posted by missimpossible

9. Twilight: eugh. I know it's the standard thing to hate on, but seriously, what's not to hate?

10. I actually can't think of a tenth one.

Your9. Right. I remember when vampires used to be in horror stories. Why are people getting so perverted nowadays?

Your10. I'll do it for you - Lord of the Flies. Why would you read that? And why would you give it to teens out of billions of other books?

[rkomar]

Originally Posted by layers

Your9. Right. I remember when vampires used to be in horror stories. Why are people getting so perverted nowadays?

Your10. I'll do it for you - Lord of the Flies. Why would you read that? And why would you give it to teens out of billions of other books?

I agree with the vampire point. They used to just be creepy, dangerous, and hard to kill when I was in my formative years. About as cool as cockroaches. How times have changed.

As far as Lord of the Flies goes, it is reasonably well written and carries a very important message. Children should be exposed to that message, although it's clear from many adult's behaviour that it doesn't always sink in during studies.

[straygator]

Jude the Obscure gets my vote for most unreadable Hardy novel.

I like most Hemingway, but I couldn’t get through The Green Hills of Africa – page after page of “While the porters set up camp, we hiked over the ridge, shot 14 ibex, then hiked back in time for Mama to serve us gin-and-tonics.”

Bridges of Madison County – the ‘heroine’ has an affair, stays loyal to her husband aaaand everyone lives happily ever after. Huh? And the protagonist moves like a panther . . . no, a tiger . . . no, a panther . . .

Shardik – unappreciated, largely forgotten and deserves to stay that way. Painful going for the first 100 (1,000?) pages of stream-of-consciousness narration from the bear’s POV. Then it gets confusing.

[missimpossible]

Originally Posted by rkomar

I agree with the vampire point. They used to just be creepy, dangerous, and hard to kill when I was in my formative years. About as cool as cockroaches. How times have changed.

As far as Lord of the Flies goes, it is reasonably well written and carries a very important message. Children should be exposed to that message, although it's clear from many adult's behaviour that it doesn't always sink in during studies.

The vampires in Twilight were just boring.

Also, I've never read Lord of the Flies! They didn't seem to teach it much at our school for some reason. I will probably give it a read eventually :P

I've just thought of another couple I could have stuck at the end of my list, actually: Little Women and Anne of Green Gables. I found both books utterly insipid, but it must just be something I'm missing.

[CazMar]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins was just awful. The story makes little sense.

I am glad to see I am not the only person who loathed this so-called classic - boring, boring, so very boring!
I can't remember most of the awful books I have abandoned after a few pages but here goes (and they are in no particular order):
The woman in White as above
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (But the TV series was good). As for the book, I couldn't WAIT until the main characters all got killed off - and finally gave up about 3/4 of the way through.
Dan Brown books - I read one about a massive computer (??) can't remember and it was a boring hack effort.
Anything where people fly about in space ships, fight with swords and have names like Garthwen or Ordvic. (Space stories should have laser rays and characters called Fred or Susy - technology and Beowulf are a bad mix!)
Anything where the main male character is called Brad and uses any opportunity to get his shirt off. And is usually as thing as a brick and has the conversational skills of a goldfish.

So glad to see thins thread revived - a lot of fun reading the MR members' hate lists!

[pilotbob]

Originally Posted by CazMar

I am glad to see I am not the only person who loathed this so-called classic - boring, boring, so very boring!
I can't remember most of the awful books I have abandoned after a few pages but here goes (and they are in no particular order):
The woman in White as above
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett (But the TV series was good). As for the book, I couldn't WAIT until the main characters all got killed off - and finally gave up about 3/4 of the way through.
Dan Brown books - I read one about a massive computer (??) can't remember and it was a boring hack effort.
Anything where people fly about in space ships, fight with swords and have names like Garthwen or Ordvic. (Space stories should have laser rays and characters called Fred or Susy - technology and Beowulf are a bad mix!)
Anything where the main male character is called Brad and uses any opportunity to get his shirt off. And is usually as thing as a brick and has the conversational skills of a goldfish.

So glad to see thins thread revived - a lot of fun reading the MR members' hate lists!

Wow, remind me to ignore your recommendations. Pillars of the Earth is one of my favorite books. The TV Series was dreadful for the most part and you lost most of the story and the depth of the characters which was so well done in that book.

Have you read Hal Spacejock... yes, his name is Hal, and there are lasers... but he does seem a bit thick. Of course, it is supposed to be humorous.

BOb

[Koobe]

Several tons of books written by Swedes. Like wading through pointless treacle.

The Swarm: Frank Shat-that-one out. Oh the dialogue!

No Visible Horizon: Joshua Cooper Ramo. Very poor indeed.

Flying The Alaska Wild: Mort Mason. Mason! NO!

This is too depressing to continue...

[yvanleterrible]

If I were able to change this thread's direction I'd ask anyone blasting a book to suggest one instead of it...

Like any politician knows you just can't please everyone. There is no pure evil and no pure good but everything in between. My favorite saying is the one I used to sign with: "No shades of black, no shades of white. Only passionate shades of grey."
Yuno Wataï Minh

[Koobe]

Good idea Yvan.

I've yet to come across anything I've liked written by a Swede - though I'm told Jens Lapidus' 'Snabba Cash' is good (even though the film was appalling).

For an environmental read, 'The Unnatural History of the Sea' by Prof. Callum Roberts is excellent.

Flying books? There's loads. Hard Landing by Thomas Petzinger makes a dry subject fascinating. Carrying the Fire (Mike Collins) and Man on the Moon (Andrew Chaikin) are great Apollo books; and for bush flying Bush Pilot with a Briefcase (Ronald Keith) is hard to beat. And combat? Palace Cobra by Ed Rasimus.

I could list tons more covering a wide range of subjects and genres, but I figured I'd just match my worst list as I need to get some reading done.

[BenG]

Originally Posted by Nyssa

The Witching Hour by Anne Rice - I had such high hopes and expectations, and was thoroughly disappointed. I did not finish the book.

The sequels get much worse.

[straygator]

Originally Posted by yvanleterrible

If I were able to change this thread's direction I'd ask anyone blasting a book to suggest one instead of it...

Fair point. Alternate suggestions for the few ‘worsts’ I listed above:

Hemingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls in place of The Green Hills of Africa. Yes, the “thees” and “thous” can be off-putting, but they serve a purpose, and there are so many things going on in this book, woven together brilliantly.

Thomas Hardy – Not a huge fan of Hardy’s novels, but I do like his poetry, which is not nearly as depressing or filled with powerless victims.

Richard Adams – I liked Watership Down. I enjoyed Plague Dogs and The Girl in a Swing. I can step back and appreciate the artistry of Shardik and what Adams was doing through the story, but I didn’t enjoy the book and couldn’t get through it despite three tries.

Robert James Waller – Hmm. Drawing a blank here.

[ametzler]

Let's see whether I can come up with 10 books I really did not like:

Area 7 by Matthew Reilly: Really awfully bad. I do not know another author using italics to emphasize the enormous coolness of the bloody whole story. I am sure the characters could not think without moving their lips.

S M Stirling's Emberverse II series. (The Sunrise Lands et al.) Endless walking/running and eating. Plus some talking about the benefits of frugal life. The author surely is paid by line. According to Wikipedia the series is now planned for 6 novels! Stirling has gone from guilty-pleasure-SF to boring-as-hell-fantasy.

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. It is not a bad book at all, however I wish I had not read it. Some of the brutality stayed much too long with me. For quite some time after finishing my thoughts accidentally stumbled there and I had to force myself to think about something else.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight (Dragonlance: Chronicles) by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman: Shortlived was my joy upon finding a cheap omnibus edition of a a trilogy with dragons. What a generic poorly constructed bore.

McCaffrey's Dragonrider books (I have "only" read original and Harper Hall trilogies.) I had great expectations for this one (acclaimed classic fantasy! Dragons!), the idea for the general setup of the world is great, but somehow the novels were pretty forgettable, neither a mighty thrilling story nor much more than paper cut characters.

The Stars' Tennis Balls by Stephen Fry: A Count of Monte Cristo remix. I guess it mainly hurt so much because the Dumas original (actually I have only read the German translation, I cannot read French) is intelligent, the revenge there is very elaborate and complicated, while this one seemed to be driven by choices like "Should I first kick him in the balls and then break his finger or the other way round."

Chronicles of The Black Company by Glen Cook: I cannot remember another book that defeated me that early, I think I barely got to page 30. (While we are at it: I really wonder why I bought and read multiple volumes of the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.)

Something by Tom Holt, I think it was My Hero: I had already seen the major theme (bookworld characters in real world and vice versa) executed so much better by Jasper Fforde.

I could mention some stuff I had to read at school (e.g. Peter Camenzind or Catcher in the Rye) which mainly gets points because I was supposed to like it. (Nobody is surprised that not all must-reads are enjoyable, but not enjoying something I was supposed to like is kind of memorable.) However I think it is not fair to add them here, without having re-read them later. I will keep the list at 8 entries for the time being.
cu andreas

[banjobama]

Originally Posted by ametzler

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. It is not a bad book at all, however I wish I had not read it. Some of the brutality stayed much too long with me. For quite some time after finishing my thoughts accidentally stumbled there and I had to force myself to think about something else.

This exact thing happened to me after reading this book... it gets pretty gross at parts. Thankfully I read it >5 years ago so I've mostly forgotten it.

[replica145]

Originally Posted by banjobama

This exact thing happened to me after reading this book... it gets pretty gross at parts. Thankfully I read it >5 years ago so I've mostly forgotten it.

It's definitely the sickest popular work ever. I say that as someone who is not easily perturbed. It's a shame because there is some really clever satire and a nice use of an unreliable narrator. But most people will never get past the truly disturbing violence.

[tecweston]

Originally Posted by CazMar

Dan Brown books - I read one about a massive computer (??) can't remember and it was a boring hack effort.

Dan Brown books are one of those very few things that I know are awful and yet I read all of them. They're juuuust interesting enough to make me want to keep reading, even though I know they're garbage. I am part of the problem.