The 10 Worst Books

[BenG]

The problem is that a lot of people read The Silmarillion expecting a novel like LOTR and are disappointed
When it's read on its own terms it can be enjoyable.

[HarryT]

Yes, it's most certainly NOTHING like LOTR. The story of LOTR occupies about half a page in the Silmarillion. The S is the "big picture".

[Monty Grue]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The most effective horror is the stuff that happens in our own heads. I think modern writers in several genres err by showing their hand too soon.
[/b]

I think movies are largely to blame. Horror writers are often guilty of putting the movie into the book. What works on the page doesn't always work in a movie and what works on a movie will not always work in a book. The most recent example I can think of was The Hollower by Mary Sangiovanni where there was a monster in the characters head, but she turned it too quickly into run away from the movie-type monster.

Lovecraft was never guilty of that kind of mistake. Of course, he lived in a different era.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by BenG

The problem is that a lot of people read The Silmarillion expecting a novel like LOTR and are disappointed
When it's read on its own terms it can be enjoyable.

Anyone coming to the Silmarillion expecting a narrative with continuing characters telling a single story will be disappointed.

I tell folks to imagine they are in the Hall of Fire in Rivendell, listening to the loremasters recount tales of the Elder Days. The stories will vary in style and tone, varying with the tale and the teller.

Approach the Silmarillion for what is, and it can be wondrous.
______
Dennis

[Barcey]

Additional trivia on the Silmarillion.

Christopher Tolkien invited a university student he'd met in Manitoba to come to Oxford and help him compile his father's fragmented works into the Silmarillion and that was Guy Gavriel Kay. GGK credit's that year for influencing him to become a writer which is a great thing... especially because the alternative appears to have been a lawyer.

I enjoyed the Silmarillion as well but when I read it I had already read the LOTR five times so I was very interested in some of the references. It's definitely not for everyone.

I remember talking to someone that told me he had wanted to read the LOTR because he'd heard so many good things about it. He'd bought the first book and just couldn't get into it. I questioned him further and found out he'd bought the Silmarillion thinking it was the first book.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Barcey

Additional trivia on the Silmarillion.

Christopher Tolkien invited a university student he'd met in Manitoba to come to Oxford and help him compile his father's fragmented works into the Silmarillion and that was Guy Gavriel Kay. GGK credit's that year for influencing him to become a writer which is a great thing... especially because the alternative appears to have been a lawyer.

Thanks for mentioning him. Kay is one of my favorite fantasy writers. _The Fionnavar Tapestry_ is one of the few works in any genre that has made me cry, and _Tigana_ is one of my favorite fantasy novels.
_____
Dennis

[astra]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

_Tigana_ is one of my favorite fantasy novels.

Ditto.

[montsnmags]

Originally Posted by Monty Grue

...

4. The Wolves of Culla by Stephen King: This is what happens when an author gets hit over the head with the retarded stick and is allowed to publish the results.

The Wolves of the Calla and Wizard and Glass were, for me, the two books I enjoyed the least. I probably disliked Wizard and Glass more than Wolves because I had to reread it twice, as new books came out (I start the series again). For me, the strongest book of the series is The Gunslinger, followed by The Drawing of the Three. I reread the former several times, as with Wizard and Glass, but it was never a chore.

...
7. Queen of the Damned by Ann Rice: I so sick of super sexy vampires.

I loved the Vampire Chronicles up to and including Queen of the Damned. I found The Tale of the Body Thief to be a sequel-for-the-sake-of-sequel, and, though I think I read Memnoch, the Devil, I don't really remember anything about it. I've read nothing after that, and The Witching Hour was something I plodded through, so that was the end of Anne Rice for me.

8. Harry Potter and Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling: The Emperor has no clothes: Dull, dull, dull.

Oddly, this is one I probably liked the most, in that I hated reading it (I dislike unremitting despair, and this book had it in spades, but I realise that doesn't preclude satisfaction in reading it). However, I've heard others have the same reaction as yourself.

9. Color Purple by Alice Walker: College professors in the early ‘80s discovered substitutes for dead white men, but early adapters of new literature can be just as wonky as new technology.
...

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the above, but I am disappointed. Not in you, of course, but rather the potential for this not to be a good read. The movie is a favourite of mine, and it's a book I've always been meaning to read. Still, if we disagree on books above, perhaps we might disagree on this as well, yeah.

Originally Posted by Taylor514ce

I had understood the Simarillion to be Tolkein's own work product, a work to provide a mythology and framework for the LOTR stories and characters, much as the Bible (The Old Testament) does for Judaism... one doesn't typically read the Bible for a good narrative "story", but to get at an underlying philosophy or principle.
...

I get what you're saying (and Dennis, and HarryT), and it'll certainly serve me (since I have the book sitting in a pride-of-place spot on the bookshelves). Perhaps though, if one at first hasn't approached it in this manner, the restarting of it still begins with [starts reading]..."The Silmarillion....[thump....snoooooore]" in much the same way that the meal you had before becoming sick can put you off the ingredients for some time, even if they weren't to blame (and especially if they were).

However, since my last attempts were in my teens and early twenties, it's probably something I might have gotten over by now. I'll bring it over to the TBR again, as, with what you are all saying, and with an awareness that my tastes have significantly changed, particularly in the recent 18 months or so, I think I might be rewarded this time.

(I haven't read it through, so I would not have put it in my "Worst Books" list, and I daresay that the pleasure of its language would have put me off listing it, even if I had read it through)

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Thanks for mentioning him. Kay is one of my favorite fantasy writers. _The Fionnavar Tapestry_ is one of the few works in any genre that has made me cry, and _Tigana_ is one of my favorite fantasy novels.

Yes! The Fionnavar Tapestry was...is, a favourite. It should probably be on my re-read pile, but I'm loathe to begin one at the moment.

It's been said before by others, but I really enjoy this "Worst Books" thread. It's interesting to see that some books, even though "great" in some particular sense, are some of the "worst" reads for people, especially when they don't coincide with your own, or even have been your "best" reads. I think I'd put The Sea, The Sea now as my number 1, most likely because high expectations were so far from being met.

Cheers,
Marc

[ChipnDale]

Worst book for me is Twilight...I still can't believe it's popular enough to warrant a movie and a sequel. I found the dialogue boring, Bella an insult to women and Edward dull for an 100+yr old vampire. I have no interest in reading the rest in the series.

Also Wicked: The life and times of the wicked witch of the west. I wanted to like it, I really really wanted to like it...but there came a point where I just couldn't read another word.

The Secret - This book is so funny...in a very bad way. I managed one chapter before giving up.

What I like about Twilight and The Secret is the negative reviewers...they are a hilarious bunch, esspecially the ones for Twilight.

[mgrunk]

I loved to read - read everything I could get my hands on - until jr high literature through high school - absolutely sucked the life out of the books - Charlotte's Web, Tess de Urberville, Wuthering Heights, a couple of Jane Austin, Moby Dick - and I'm still traumatized. I didn't take a literature course in college because I simply couldn't fathom having classics inflicted upon me. The only book that I enjoyed in school was Alas Babylon.

I still have difficulty w/ classics - I studied Russian throughout college, so I am trying Crime and Punishment again but I just lose steam. I also have The Brothers Karamazov on my to be read shelf.

I did like Grapes of Wrath - but I read it after becoming a mother - same w/ Pearl S. Buck's, The Good Earth and they connect w/ me through me being a mother now and the suffering. I think I would enjoy Faulkner since I now live in the south and there's a definite culture here - very distinct (even w/ all us northerners moving here). But, I don't know if I can get through Fitzgerald since we had to read The Great Gatsby.

As far as candy books (my brain is worn out raising a bunch of kids and homeschooling), I made the mistake of buying a bunch of Darrell Bain books and found many of them to be preachy and some were just very unpleasant to read - Human by Choice, A Strange Valley, and The Disappearing Girls. I have 13 on my shelf - that taught me not to buy a bunch "site unseen". I don't know what I was thinking about.

[JSWolf]

I've decided that A Passage to India is one of the worst books ever written. How it can be called classic literature is a mystery we may never solve. It is just boring from the start with too many insipidly unlikeable characters. And the only character we might like gets killed/dies (depends on how you view her death).

[Sparrow]

Originally Posted by mgrunk

I loved to read - read everything I could get my hands on - until jr high literature through high school - absolutely sucked the life out of the books - Charlotte's Web, Tess de Urberville, Wuthering Heights, a couple of Jane Austin, Moby Dick - and I'm still traumatized.

Was it the books, or the teachers?
Some of the books you mention are ones I'd consider great reads.

I was lucky to have some wonderful Eng Lit teachers - they really made the books fascinating, and I'll be forever grateful to them.

Originally Posted by mgrunk

I did like Grapes of Wrath ...

My all-time favourite US novel - heartbreaking!

[ShortNCuddlyAm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

i'm not good at lists. the second i'm asked to list anything (including : "name 2 articles of clothing you are currently wearing, you are allowed to look down") my mind instantly becomes a void so complete it's the next best thing to anti-matter.

but i'll comment on other people's lists, if i've read anything on them.

OK - this might be the oldest reply ever, but SURELY you can name Hugo and Lefty???

[desertgrandma]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've decided that A Passage to India is one of the worst books ever written. How it can be called classic literature is a mystery we may never solve. It is just boring from the start with too many insipidly unlikeable characters. And the only character we might like gets killed/dies (depends on how you view her death).

Mr. Wolf, at the time it was written, it probably had way more relevance. Women DID act like that. Men DID have those attitudes. The English empire DID look on native Indians as inferior.
The scene in the cave probably sent some women into palpitations, wondering what really happened, and using their imagination to fill in the gaps.

Don't get me started on 'worst books ever'. That would have to be Dune.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by ShortNCuddlyAm

OK - this might be the oldest reply ever, but SURELY you can name Hugo and Lefty???

starting from the beginning of the thread, are you ?

you're right though, i can name Hugo and Lefty. i should have said "three articles of clothing." then again, i'm not *always* wearing them ; they do seem to lead rather full lives, you'll have noticed.