[beatonl]

I don't think I've got 10 of them - but let's see how we go

1) The Sun Also Rises - Hemingway: How many times can you use the single adjective "lovely" I wish someone had bought him a thesaurus

2) The Old Curiosity Shop - Dickens: some Dickens is great - I loved "A Tale of Two Cities" but (in the words of Wilde) I defy anyone to read of the death of Little Nell without crying - from laughter.

3) Any of the Piers Anthony where it's OK for a 60 year old man to have sex with a 14 year old girl - because she really wants to,

4) Satanic Verses - Rushdie: Again - I liked 'Midnight's Children" but I just found SV almost impossible to follow and I just didn't care enough

5) Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence: NewsFlash! Sensitive artistic son of rough miner has conflicted relationship with his mother that screws him up! Oh, and cornflowers are blue! I had to read this for school, so I choked it down in one sitting 'cause I knew if I put it down, I'd never be able to pick it up again.

6) Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: It lost me at "The silhouette of the Albino" How on earth can one tell if someone is an albino from a freaking silhouette?

7) Lord of the Rings - Tolkein: I know they're great books, and many, many, many people love them but around the endless eleven council and Tom Bombadil I decided I *just didn't care*.

8) Madame Bovary - Flaubert. Newsflash!spoiled bored stupid woman screws up own life by making poor decisions! I'm probably being a little unreasonable including this one, because I read it in translation - and everyone says Flaubert's true genius was in his sentence construction.

9) Romeo and Juliet - Shakespeare: Newsflash! Teenagers make stupid decisions ruled by their hormones! This play just fills me with the desire to grab the two of them and shake some sense into them.

But without question the absolute, unqualified worst book I have ever read is "The Castle of Eyes" by Penelope Love. The main character has amnesia, and is unnamed - and remains so for the *entire* book, for no readily apparent reason. The book opens with a prologue that chronologically takes place at the end of Chapter 12 (I think - it's been a while) so when you get to the end of chapter 12 there's a page saying "Here follow the events of the prologue"... I had to finish it because I was reviewing it for a magazine. But if paradise is some kind of Library - Then Hell is a library that only has that book.

Lindsay