The 10 Worst Books

[Patricia]

Originally Posted by Roy White

Tell you what Patricia. I'll make a deal with you. I'm going to download the Dickens book you recommend in your reply, and give it a try. I promise to stick it out for at least 100 pages with my reader set on 'medium'. ARGGH I have a feeling I'm going to regret that. Maybe now I'm older I'll like it. So fire away. what will it be?

Oh, Roy, that is a responsibility. You would be better off consulting HarryT, who is a Dickens expert. I think I'd recommend 'A Tale of Two Cities' for a first Dickens. It is relatively short yet has a lot of action.

[Roy White]

Patricia. I'm on it! just as soon as I finish The Lord of the Rings. I started it for the 17th time just last week. I know, its an lifelong addiction.

I'll be sure and let you know if it does it for me or not.

[mjh215]

Originally Posted by Roy White

Patricia. I'm on it! just as soon as I finish The Lord of the Rings. I started it for the 17th time just last week. I know, its an lifelong addiction.

Perhaps if each time you picked up the books you simply started at a different point? It may lead to some confusion but eventually you'll have read the full texts. Now whether or not your brain puts the pieces in some sort of order afterwards is debatable.

-MJ

[Dr. Drib]

My literary tastes have certainly changed as I've gotten older; or perhaps, I should say my tastes have broadened and now include a diverse array of literary works.

I still read "shumucky" horror and Sci-Fi and find them enjoyable and fun. I also read horrible pulp fiction and love to laugh.

Not all are disposable, of course. Occasionally, a work becomes timeless because it deals with questions about what makes us human and/or why or how we go about discovering our humanity. I'm thinking, for example, of Flowers For Algernon (both novel and novelette), by Daniel Keyes.

Feel free, of course, to add your own title. You don't have to accept my title. We can disagree on titles. But one must ask: Why do I think the way I do? Why do I dislike this book? Why am I defending this work, to the possible exclusion of other works? Certainly many of us have emotional ties to works we like or dislike. We've seen this happen with whatever Reader we own.

Now, let's talk about books and settle down and have fun agreeing and disagreeing on titles AND WHY WE THINK THE WAY WE DO, BUT LET'S DO IT WITH RESPECT AND WITH ABLE COMMUNICATION SKILLS.

(Parenthetically, I might add that to be a successful communicator one has to develop communicagtion skills. This is not meant to be a tautological statement. Communication involves the practice and development of learned skills. One of the most successful ways to argue persuasively on a text [and thus creating a position that engenders respect for an opposing view ] involves the ability to inquire, present, persuade and, I would add, to meditate upon that which is being discussed. Primarily - to repeat - one must respect the other's position, to acknowledge that a different position exists which may be different than our own.)

Don

[Patricia]

I didn't think that Lord of the Rings was too bad. The endorsement of conservative and traditional values (as opposed to urban and modern ones) is something I can live with - after a war I expect that Tolkein wanted the security of tradition.
The book gets a bit more interesting if you read it as a nuclear thriller. The ring is too dangerous to keep, and difficult to destroy. And it gives its wearers symptoms compatible with radiation sickness.

[lmarie]

Just caught up on this thread, and have to jump in on The Two Towers (sorry, vivadrules!) I'm with DixieCat and Junkml on this -- I dropped the series for about 25 years, until the movies were due out. All because of what I called the endless over hill and dale nature of the description. Argh! I couldn't continue to slog through it -- friends were amazed that I could leave the series hanging for so long. To answer Patricia, yes, my lists have changed, and when I reread the whole LOTR I greatly enjoyed the whole thing, including Two Towers.

However, a brief encounter with The Silmarillion sent me scurrying hastily away...



Lelah

[Razi]

Anything by William Faulkner, specially As I Lay Dying. Had to read it for my course work, what a punishment. I can't stand most English and American novelists (sorry folks) apart from George Eliot, Jane Austin, Henry Fielding, John Cowper Powys, Nabokov and more recent writers like DM Thomas, Rushdie, Walker Percy, John Kennedy Toole etc. I don't like Dickens, but then I was brought up on Russian and French novels which are, by far, superior. I admire English humor:Fielding, Swift (Irish) Wodehouse, Jerome K Jerome, Wilde (Irish) the list could be longer, but for serious novel, I choose to look elsewhere.

[Donnageddon]

I can't stand most English and American novelists

Razi, don't hold back, buddy!

I was brought up on Russian and French novels which are, by far, superior.

Perhaps it is a case of poor upbringing?

[irishjew]

Originally Posted by Roy White

The Lost World by Crichton. Liked Jurassic Park alot. The Lost World lost me big time. The Velociraptors went from being ultra cool villians with no fear and almost infinite cunning, to hapless sheepdogs a little kid fools by throwing a steak into a walk in fridge then slamming the door on them.

I might be wrong about this, but I thought that happened to the boy in the first book? In the kitchen scene?

I have to add "Absurdistan" to this list. As someone who's really interested in globalization and current events, I was incredibly disappointed by this book. It becomes a few hundred pages of descriptions of a grotesquely fat man having intercourse and talking about his private parts [I could go into details, but I'll spare you all]. That, coupled with a pretty horrifyingly irresponsible and unrealistic [yet inexplicably tolerated] conspiracy theory and arrogant humor, makes for a pretty unpleasant book.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Patricia

Oh, Roy, that is a responsibility. You would be better off consulting HarryT, who is a Dickens expert. I think I'd recommend 'A Tale of Two Cities' for a first Dickens. It is relatively short yet has a lot of action.

I'd go for "Great Expectations". It too is relatively short, and has great humour and characters.

[Lobolover]

razi-sorry to ask,but Nabokov is an american/english novelist?

mjh215-yes.not to mention all the hairs I had to dig out,it (once or twice) sudenly stoped writing-or made letters do a "windows search".

[hidari]

Well, It is interesting that you taught Ruissian and Russian literature for many -years. I lived in Russia for 7 years- Until last December- I defend a lot of Russian literature that tends to get a negative review because the person read it at too young an age- i.e. In secondary school- or they have not read enough good Russian literature to counter authors they do not like. As for a great book to start with I always recommend Master and Margarita by Mikael Bulgakov. Many people in the west have never heard of it or only heard of the book. Most of my Russian friends say this is the best Russian novel ever written. I tend to agree.

Speaking of Russians. Ayn Rand should have stuck to Philosophy and shorter pieces of fiction. her "Anthem" is not bad and quite autobiographical. I think here philosophy also interesting to read. However, Atlas Shrugged- I
won't even go there. Poor is a nice way to start.

Harry Potter/Davinci Code- Never read it- Never will- Life is short enough and there are too many good books out there. Interesting point-
Most Russians and Japanese who bought Harry Potter books in English never read them. In fact most of my friends in Japan and Russia could not get through the first few pages. However- Sales were huge.

Sales were huge for Titanic too.. Does that make it an Epic for all time?

Originally Posted by radleyp

You can't "test" a book to determine whether it's "good" or "bad", you can only express your opinion of it and that's what we're doing here. I don't know if that's a worthwhile exercise, since it's too easy to take potshots at what we don't like (it was W.H. Auden, I think, who said he didn't review books he didn't like for that very reason). I taught Russian language and literature at a university-level for 20 years: that does not make me an "authority", but simply a better-read judge (at least where Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc... are concerned). And I do disagree with many of the opinions expressed here: Da Vinci, to me, was a very good thriller, the Harry Potter books (which I listened to, in recordings by Jim Dale) were delightful, L.Ron Hubbard absolutely unreadable in the way Tom Clancy and Ayn Rand are - use maximum verbiage for minimum content, a common ailment in SF books which is why I rarely read them.

The expression is "de gustibus non EST disputandum".

And congratulations to those of you who have responded to Lobolover: I can't, since I don't understand most of what he wrote, save that he is in strong disagreement.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

razi-sorry to ask,but Nabokov is an american/english novelist?

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977). Originally a Russian novelist, later emigrated to the USA and wrote in English. His best-known novel is "Lolita", published in 1955.

[Razi]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899-1977). Originally a Russian novelist, later emigrated to the USA and wrote in English. His best-known novel is "Lolita", published in 1955.

Just like TS Eliot is an English poet!

[Razi]

Originally Posted by Donnageddon

Razi, don't hold back, buddy!



Perhaps it is a case of poor upbringing?

Another proof that education can not undo the effects of 'bad upbringing'. English/American literature was hammered into me. Though I loved drama and even poetry but couldn't bring myself to like the novel. It all started with reading A Hero of Our Time (Mikhail Lermontov) at the impressionable age of ten and after that it was a slippery slope!

I knew my post would cause controversy but Nabokov's American citizenship was far from my mind when I wrote it. Obviously he is very, very European. Still the fact remains that he became an American and wrote in English. These people always cause confusion (Eliot, Auden, Nobokov etc).