[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Harry001

to montsnmags
Hi Marc, I had read Garp allmost 20 Years ago, I think, and i didn't get it. Maybe because it was translated to german. The only thing i remember was that car eccident in front of the house.

It's hard to know if it was translation. It could just be that you wouldn't have liked it in any language or with any translation. That's a perfectly reasonable response. The book I think others would strongly disagree with me about, and that was on my list of "worst" books, was The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch. Certainly most critics would disagree with me, including those behind the Booker Prize. I'm okay with that though...I still found it frightfully dull and pointless.

The same was with child of circus. It was also translated to german and was highly recommended - but i didn't like it.
That was my experience with Irving.

Well, I certainly wouldn't continue to torture myself if I'd read two books by an author and not enjoyed either (I'd probably give up on the author after just one!).

i like Mika Waltari, Tom Clancy, Ken Follett, the earth children (Ayla) from J.M.Auel (but not the last book, that sucks).
i read them all in german and most of them in english - what is a lot better.

I do not know the first author (but I will google for the name). I quite enjoyed Tom Clancy's earlier work - particularly the "boring details" which he tends to be quite thorough with. I've yet to read a Ken Follet, though I've Pillars of the Earth around here somewhere. I've never read J.M.Auel, though I know my mother loves them (I have a feeling she said the same thing about the last book).

Thanks for the response, Harry.

Originally Posted by June

...
So my list of worst books includes:
- Satanic Verses by Rushdie (I keep going back and starting over, thinking I must be missing something, since it raised such a lively debate worldwide, but just can't get past the dark cloud)

I've started it a couple of times. I really enjoy the writing, but something keeps making me put it down. That was a few years ago now though; maybe my more relaxed state of mind will give it another chance.

I've been told Midnight's Children is the much better book to start on with Salman Rushdie, so I'm thinking of giving that a go first.

Cheers,
Marc