Books to avoid like a bookworm on a diet

black #8

I tried reading a james herbert book once, and i got half way through it, and then had to give up. i just couldn't stand his style - it seemed so stupidly childish, despite the fact that the character was a detective...

can't remember the name though!

also, i really liked the crow road by iain banks, but i just could not get into the wasp factory by him, despite it being a favourite book of a lot of people... maybe there's something wrong with me!

stovelid

Karlusss wrote:

I found Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to be astoundingly poor.

++

Prozac nation - Elizabeth Wurtzel

Still Life With Woodpecker - Tom Robbins

Another bull**** night in suck city - Nick Flynn

Extreme-LoopZ

Wha?! you didn't like Nick Flynn's memoir? I thought Another Bull**** Night was great! why didn't you like it?

stovelid

Extreme-LoopZ wrote:

Wha?! you didn't like Nick Flynn's memoir? I thought Another Bull**** Night was great! why didn't you like it?

Sure. Each to their own.

I guess I thought the writing was substandard and the whole thing meandered.

Also: maybe I'm being harsh but I find those trite 'lowlife' by proxy stories (my father as alcoholic, absent and deviant backdrop to my life ) irritating and self-indulgent. I always end up wanting to hear from the object of the story (father) rather than a version of it refracted through Nick Flynn for his own purposes.

Like Wurtzel, you just want to say; your story is in no way unique and only really appeals to people who cherish their own 'inner pain' as somehow different to that suffered by everybody else.

That's just me, mind. The book was highly recommended by friends but I just didn't see it.

nonamemark

The Bible, passed through a few hundreds of years by a big game of Chinese whispers, makes you think, eh?

lbourkey

I really like Lolita and Dickens but worst book ever...... The 5 people you meet in Heaven. Fookin shocking.

Extreme-LoopZ

lbourkey wrote:

I really like Lolita and Dickens but worst book ever...... The 5 people you meet in Heaven. Fookin shocking.

True. I also thought Tuesdays With Morrie was a let down. Maybe I just had unreal expectations coz I'd heard it was brilliant from quite a few people. It was a good book, but didn't deserve the credit it got.

Hivemind187

Anything by any of the following;

Tom Clancy
John Grisham
JK Rowling
Dan Brown
Whoever wrote "Lodestone" EDIT: W.A. Harbinson
Stephen King (post "The Stand" or "IT")
David Badiel
Frank Skinner

There are many, MANY, more affronts to good writing.

--Kaiser--

I'm sure this has been posted already...but it's a long thread

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

Without a doubt the worst book I have ever read (seriously, if you haven't read it, don't)

theCzar

Hivemind187 wrote:

Anything by any of the following;

Tom Clancy
John Grisham
JK Rowling
Dan Brown
Whoever wrote "Lodestone" EDIT: W.A. Harbinson
Stephen King (post "The Stand" or "IT")
David Badiel
Frank Skinner

There are many, MANY, more affronts to good writing.

This list confuses me.

Grisham/Clancy are fair enough, holiday-by-the-beach thrillers. Brown, enough said. King has written a lot of tosh but imo Rowling doesn't really belong with those, there are better books in the genre but I find it hard to believe anybody interested enough to read them at all would find them bad, let alone an "affront to writing". My first impression then was that you were a bitter purist, someone who takes it too personally when better writers enjoy less popular success/renown/acclaim than what are judged to be inferior writers.

Then we have Badiel and Skinner, not exactly best sellers, upsetting the trend and I must wonder, what you thought you would get from such books before you started? Considering from the other authors listed, you (appear to) have an extreme dislike for -for want of a better word- lightweight writing? Also, you listed them as separate authors, did you read a book by each of them? That would be stranger still, but I presume it was co-authored!

I AM intrigued.

loumac

So awful, the title escapes me. I was backpacking when I was unfortunate enough come by it. You would think it would be funny. Trying to travel light and was weighed down for two attempts of the first two chapters. Gave up and left in a Hostel! Awful, egomaniacal stuff.

loumac

Must agree with the post re Rowling not belonging on the trash list. Her books have dual appeal for both the adult and younger reader. She creates a wonderful escapist world in tandem with moral themes relevant to real life.

She does not shy from exploring the natural things in life such as mortality. I wish she was around when I was a kid! I was mid-twenties when I read the Philosopher's stone. Some titles are better than others, as is usually the case with a 7 part story. The first film is good, but steer well clear of the rest of the movies!!!

ZorbaTehZ

I remember reading a good point by some professor at some New York University who proposed the following; consider your child reading any of the Rowling books - do you really think that it will instill in them a respect for literature, that say for example reading a children's novel from Kipling or Dumas would? People always seem to talk about how it's good for children (and adults alike) in that it encourages them to read, but imo it has a detrimental effect in that the simplistic nature of the HP books is what children come to expect from a book, or that it is the only type of writing that they find interesting.

I would agree that they are to be avoided, but maybe not "like a bookworm on a diet".

O and don't get me started on Dan Brown. All of his books should be incinerated.

norrie rugger

ZorbaTehZ wrote: »

I remember reading a good point by some professor at some New York University who proposed the following; consider your child reading any of the Rowling books - do you really think that it will instill in them a respect for literature, that say for example reading a children's novel from Kipling or Dumas would? People always seem to talk about how it's good for children (and adults alike) in that it encourages them to read, but imo it has a detrimental effect in that the simplistic nature of the HP books is what children come to expect from a book, or that it is the only type of writing that they find interesting.

I would agree that they are to be avoided, but maybe not "like a bookworm on a diet".

O and don't get me started on Dan Brown. All of his books should be incinerated.

When I was younger (pre-teens) I read my fair share of Dickens, Dumas, Verne, Kipling and Tolkein. All of the above I really enjoyed, yet my favourite author by far was Dahl. Scores of children have read his books, would you consider them to have lost out for doing so?

J.K.R. is to this generation what Dahl was to mine (and previous).

youcancallmeal

Insomnia - Stephen King
Seriously what was this book about? Possibly one of the most ridiculous and unrewarding books I have ever read.

The Bourne Identity - Robert Ludlum
Thought I would give this a go after enjoying the film so much. Terrible prose and a storyline that only a 5 year old would find plausible. I think he actually gets shot about 20 times throughout the book and there is still not a bother on him

Also stay away from anything by Clive Cussler

Mr. Bones

anyhow....back to the subject of the thread. Avoid like the plague the following:
- Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes - a reviewer on Amazon said that after reading this bulls**t he felt like suing Barnes for wasting his time, i know how he feels (loved History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters though).
- Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum, like youcancallme, i read it having watched & enjoyed the films based on the Bourne books, but this was sooo bad, ridiculous plot, dodgy writing
- Gangs of New York by Herbert Asbury. Again read it cos of the film, to which it bears little resemblance. there's a quote from Scorsese on the cover saying he read it in one go, i'll bet he did ("mmm, Gangs of New York, that'd make a f**ckin great title for a film, whaddya think Leo??")

sugapot

BopNiblets wrote: »

Doris Lessing - The Grass is Singing.

Depressing bore fest.

This is brilliant! Such great characterization!

MizzLolly

Pamela - Samuel Richardson

Seriously, avoid like the plague! In fact avoid all 18th Century Literature for that matter, full of moaning idiots!!

(Except maybe Burney's Evelina)

Fletch123

On Beauty by Zadie Smith. I just don't get her books. I know she's trying to be witty and clever, but it just doesn't work for me. And for anyone else I know who has read On Beauty or White Teeth...

Kaiser_Sma

buck65 wrote: »

The Dante Club - Matthew Pearl

seconded

it was excrutiating, great tracts could have been cut out, the end result would be an intriguing short story/novella

also
Lunar Park - Bret Easton Ellis. After reading American Psycho, this was a complete anticlimax.

Noam Chomsky - Interventions. Series of essays, no foundations, few refernces, nothing new, repeatition. Only for Chomsky fan boys as a collectors item.

markyedison

loumac wrote: »

So awful, the title escapes me. I was backpacking when I was unfortunate enough come by it. You would think it would be funny. Trying to travel light and was weighed down for two attempts of the first two chapters. Gave up and left in a Hostel! Awful, egomaniacal stuff.

seconded. worst book I ever had the misfortune to read.

also there's a biography of the Pixies called Gigantic. I think it was by Mendelson. Absolute crap. It reminded me of Bart Simpson's biography in an old episode, Half the book was about someone else.

Nightwish

Since its in the news at the moment, I should suggest High Society by Justine Wilson Delaney. Its crap and boring with the same stories repeated ad nauseum - "I'm middle class, I snorted coke..I got addicted...my life went tits up...went to rehab"

buck65

My life went to tits? that's a classic line love it ha ha ha

RonMexico

Possession - A.S. Byatt

Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov

Overindulgent tripe that made me want to kill the bastard that assigned them at college. A complete twat by the way.

youcancallmeal

Cinderella Man, I got about a 100 pages in and gave up. It was like reading a book on statistics from boxing matches in the 1930's

"He fought this guy and won in the 10th round by knock out and then he fought another guy and he won in the first round etc etc etc"

portomar

any book i have read thats a recent winner of the booker prize has been complete and absolute garbage. "life of pi" and "vernon god little" the most striking examples. by god how these people win awards for this crap. "memoirs of a geisha" was so bad i was more annoyed at myself for reading at than at the author for apply it to paper

flibbertyjibbet

I remeber reading a synopsis of a book called 'Lolita' and it was about a man who became obsessed with a 12 -year-old girl and wants a sexual relationship with her..is this the same book as the one that was being discussed earlier? Why is this book defined as a classic?

Jesus Wept

flibbertyjibbet wrote: »

I remeber reading a synopsis of a book called 'Lolita' and it was about a man who became obsessed with a 12 -year-old girl and wants a sexual relationship with her..is this the same book as the one that was being discussed earlier? Why is this book defined as a classic?

Are you suggesting that the subject matter means the book can't be well written enough to be considered a classic?

Read the book, not a synopsis. Then decide what you think.

Karlusss

He doesn't just want a sexual relationship with her, he has a sexual relationship with her.

And it is a great book. Nabokov is a prose poet, that's enough before the subject matter even starts to come in. What was that quote about "the recalcitrant stuff of life"?

flibbertyjibbet

The-Rigger wrote: »

Are you suggesting that the subject matter means the book can't be well written enough to be considered a classic?

Read the book, not a synopsis. Then decide what you think.

I described the synopsis I read to see if it was the same book that was being discussed before. I haven´t read the book, and I was merely asking why it was considered a classic. I am not ´suggesting´ anything.