Books to avoid like a bookworm on a diet

Mrs. MacGyver

The latst Alice Seabold Novel
The Gathering
Vernon God Little

youcancallmeal

John Grisham - The Broker
Just read the reviews on amazon to get an idea of how dismal this book is. Its the first Grisham novel I have read and probably the last.

theCzar

youcancallme>al wrote: »

John Grisham - The Broker
Just read the reviews on amazon to get an idea of how dismal this book is. Its the first Grisham novel I have read and probably the last.

The broker is pretty crap, distressingly, I thought it better than many of the ones that preceded it.

Grisham used to be pretty good, his books like The Client, Runaway Jury, Rain Man and The Firm were all decent legal thrillers

Morlar

The da vinci code - total drivel. The Myths of Zionism - one sided anti jewish propaganda imo. That whole book felt like a leaving cert essay by someone who is not very bright.

DaveyGem

Paradise City-Lorenzo Charcatera

Its a far cry from Gangster and Street Boys which were both outstanding

casey212

The Wandering jew - Eugene Sue

Goat Mouth

Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

Heard rave reviews about it... this happens too often.

EamonnKeane

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?

Because it's absolutely brilliant?

buck65

- A confederacy of dunces is a masterpiece, and Life of Pi is a great read too.
Don't be put off, readers!!

markw999

RonMexico wrote: »

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.

I really liked Pale Fire. Wonderfully pretentious.

skybluejay

Terrorist by John Updike. The man completely sacrifices characterisation at the altar of zeitgeisty social commentary. I thought it was quite poorly written too, but strangely enough there are quotes on the back praising the writing style in particular. Hmm.

Also, State of the Union by Douglas Kennedy. Sorely in need of editing and the writing is bad enough to make you wince.

jcatony

catch - 22 by joseph heller.
found it tedious and over rated, donated it to oxfam after 100 pages.

youcancallmeal

jcatony wrote: »

catch - 22 by joseph heller.
found it tedious and over rated, donated it to oxfam after 100 pages.

I totally agree. I think the so called "Humor" was more suited to the era it was written in.

Valmont

markw999 wrote: »

I really liked Pale Fire. Wonderfully pretentious.

I'm nearing the end of it now, it is just like all Nabokov's work I've read, absolutely brilliant. He's in a fortunate position to completely overindulge, the man had a remarkable command of the English language and becoming immersed in all the layers of style he wraps his stories in is great.

While I accept differences of opinion, I call for a vote of no confidence in this thread. First Lolita was mentioned and now this.

Edit: I really liked John Shade's "Pale Fire":D

Valmont

Missus Pongo wrote: »

I've been reading it for months and I don't know why. Kind of like saying your prayers at bedtime long after you've stopped believing in God.

haha, I've read a few books like that.

buck65

Generation x - D Copland

now that's pretentious ****e

Jack Sheehan

jcatony wrote: »

catch - 22 by joseph heller.
found it tedious and over rated, donated it to oxfam after 100 pages.

I disagree, I think the rest of his books were utter **** but catch 22 was great. Then again I do have something of a weakness for war novels.

BurnsCarpenter

The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro.
I'd recommend any of his other books but this is the literary equivalent of one of those annoying dreams where you can't seem to get to where you want to go.

Zaph

buck65 wrote: »

Generation x - D Copland

now that's pretentious ****e

I hate pretentiousness more than anything, but I love Coupland and certainly wouldn't use the word to describe his books. However I can see how they wouldn't appeal to everybody.

Gowranistan

Catch 22 is possibly the best book i have ever read. I thought Catcher in the Rye was very dissappointing considering all the hype,although reading it directly after guillivers travels did give me a cynical attitude to pretty much everything. I read all of the dark tower series and while I thought the story was fantastic, including himself as a character and the whole deus ex machina thing really annoyed me. The ending was a serious let down too.

monkey9

Gowranistan wrote: »

Catch 22 is possibly the best book i have ever read. I thought Catcher in the Rye was very dissappointing considering all the hype,although reading it directly after guillivers travels did give me a cynical attitude to pretty much everything. I read all of the dark tower series and while I thought the story was fantastic, including himself as a character and the whole deus ex machina thing really annoyed me. The ending was a serious let down too.

Gulliver's Travels...is that any good? I read it when i was i was younger. An abridged version obviously. But how good is the original unabridged version??

skybluejay

Gowranistan wrote: »

I thought Catcher in the Rye was very dissappointing considering all the hype

Hype wrecks books... I appeciated seminal-type books like that so much more when I was about thirteen and I hadn't been told for years that I HAD to read them...

Gowranistan

monkey9 wrote: »

Gulliver's Travels...is that any good? I read it when i was i was younger. An abridged version obviously. But how good is the original unabridged version??

It's not great.... I just read because it was in the house. The storyline is basically a conduit for Swift to satirise the problems with the world as he sees it. He keeps changing the setting so the reader gets a different perspective. It's more about the message that Swift is trying to convey than a story.

bogman44

I hate not finishing books and i used to try and finish whatever i started. But Kate Mosse's Labyrinth made me realise that there are far too many good books out there to be wasting time on bad ones. Although i did read all 700+ pages of it. what possessed me?

zorkmundsson

"the line of beauty" by alan hollinghurst(?). won the booker prize a few years ago. spectacularly rubbish.

hornby's "how to be good" is awful aswell. "high fidelity" is the only one worth reading, i reckon.

also, anyone dissing "atomised", "lolita", or pratchett is more than welcome to step outside.

randomguy

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - the first half is interesting, but his trite epiphanies, self-proclaimed profundities and half-baked philosophy all become way too much to be bothering with about half-way in.

If they did an abridged version, just the narrative of him examining his own insanity - the story of him, his son, and the bike - I'd read it.

clicli

The Wheel of Time series, I nearly lost the will to live while trying to read that rubbish recommended to me by a lot of friends!

Dashticle

clicli wrote: »

The Wheel of Time series, I nearly lost the will to live while trying to read that rubbish recommended to me by a lot of friends!

I thouht the first five or so were good, the next nine completely unnecessary, and the last whatever two or so were complete ****e. I still bought all of them though, thinking I wanted to see it out to the end, then the author goes and pops his clogs. Thanks a lot, asshole.

The worst book I ever read was one part of a series called Gor which there was some controvery about a while back.

Acacia

Also started the Wheel of Time, one of my friends loves it, I wasn't too pushed. A book to avoid is Dave Pelzer's memoir trilogy 'My Story'- 'A Child Called 'It'' is okay, but the other two just rehash material from the first. And it's poor quality writing- it seems very artificial ( not fake, just seems like he thought about making every detail as dramatic as possible). It's also full of clichés. I know the man had it tough, but everything he writes is either him praising himself for overcoming his childhood, or someone else is telling him how brilliant he is. And the end of the book is so syrupy- his wife just goes on about him for four pages- what a fabulous person he is, how nobody can come close to the excellence that is Dave, yet he's so modest. *puke*. I admire him, but it's all a bit too much frankly.

Lockstep

Lord of the Rings is doubtless a book with load of potential and had magic, mystery and action.

It was also incredibly, mind numbigly boring. I forced myself to read it and can't rememeber any of the last book except for "Sam forced Frodo to eat a whole wafer of their precious lembas bread" or something. It was just overly detailed which took away from the essential action of book.

First few chapters was Frodo just humming and hawing about whteher or not he should leave.

I loved the Hobbit, it was far less cluttered with description. Most of us only need the bare bones of a description and we can compose the rest ourselves in our heads.


If anyone is planning an abridged LOTR let me know, otherwise I'll do my best never to open the book again.



Enid Blighton books are painfully transparent claptrap.




I expected Pratchett to be a lot more "balls out humour" but his style is far more subtle. It makes it easy to read.