[Closed] What's the worst book you've ever read, or tried to read?

The Bourne Ultimatum - it's almost unreadable.

The DaVinci Code.

Utter, utter tripe.

A toss up between Ulysses and a Brief History of Time

Probably cos I'm not bright enough innit?

Glamorama, Brett Easton Ellis, The Blackest Bird by Joel Rose, Blood & Guts in Highschool by Kathy Acker.

Joel Rose's first 2 books were fast chaotic thrillers, The Blackest Bird was so dull. I gave up on it last week.

+ someone gave me Perfume, Patrick Suskin - simply crap.

Everyone now and then I try to read Ulysses - supposed to be one of the greatest novels ever but it is hard work.

DaVinci code is pretty bad, though still readable. I've started reading some truly terrible sci fi before but I can't remember any of the names.

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+1 for Ulysses - the wife has had a go at it as well, went to stay with some friends recently and she 'accidently' left it there (she is very dogmatic about finishing books she started), but they posted it back..... 😉

I feel a Ulysses-burning session coming on.... 😉

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant - Unbeliever' or something like that anyway.
Yrs ago i had a thing about epic fantasy novels & a work mate lent this trilogy to me.

Appalling. I waded through three books & the only actual movement in the plot happened about 40 pages from the edn of the third book.

I would happily dig out the authors eyes with blunt spoons & pour acid into the sockets.....

Anything by Ludlum. Or the bible.

I once started Thatcha's biography. Actually hurled it in the bin before the end of the first chapter. I'd imagine Blairs would have the same effect, so I'm saving myself the trouble

The Quran, or is that too inflammatory?

The Magus by John Fowles. Gibberish, pure gibberish. The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart was equally appalling.

If I was on a long train journey and had NOTHING to do apart from read these books, I'd still put them in the bin.

i only really try to read books i think ill like - lilwalls cycling home from syberia i just couldnt get into - its not the trip its not the content just the way its told does my head in ! ive managed 4 chapters before moving onto another book , ill give it a go again after ive finished rosie swale popes "just a little run round the world" which im enjoying lots

Black Spring - Henry Miller

Something Happened - Joseph Heller

Pratchett (dunno which one - only book I never made it past about page 4!)
or
LOTR (never got more than half way - blimey it doesn't half go on a bit!)

High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. Vom-inducing chick lit.

naked lunch - burroughs

"The games People Play" by Eric Byrne (sp?)

Even the simplified explanation of each chapter was too much for me 🙁

White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Shite.

Seconded "The Dice man" bored me silly.

Also, "The Catcher in the Rye" I did read it all the way through, but I thought it was pants.

Religious books aren't great either, the Bible and Koran I've both tried to read, but couldn't get past the first few pages.

Catch 22, was pap as well.

I went through a Martin Amis phase when I was younger and read all his stuff. I recently found Other People in a charidee shop for 50p, I coukdn't get past the first 2 chapters. Just bollocks, but i enjoyed it when I was younger. Don't have the attention span now.

edit: catcher in the rye - what's the big deal about that? boring.
double edit - The dice man also had no effect on me.

White Teeth by Zadie Smith. Shite.

I really liked that. "Chief" is such a funny insult.

Moby Dick. Years ago but one of the few books I've failed to read. Maybe I should have a go again.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

Awful.

I was about to type Moby Dick.

First time I read Great Expectations I thought it was a waste of paper. Eight years later it was brilliant.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance.

I just read that while away on a trip and thought it was rather good.
I also (half) read Scarecrow by Matthew Reilly. So bad I couldn't finish it.

+1 for Glamorama, just terrible

I've read heaps of crap - much of which is mentioned here and I'll usually force myself to finish it.

But far and away the worst is Ulysses which is just a huge ****. I have never finished it.

BTW The Diceman is more fun if you read it with a set of dies - to enhance your decision to turn the next page. 🙂

The Algebraist- Iain M Banks, dull, boring sleep inducing tripe. Bit of a surprise that it comes from the same hand as The Wasp Factory...

Nowhere near enough humour in "A brief history of time"

+1 for Ulysses.
Didn't think much of Will Self's Book of Dave either.

pretty much every book written by ian mcewan.

Possibly the book that I disliked the most was "The Longest Crawl". Can't remember the author and can't be bothered to go find it. The author just comes across as a total knob. Seems to feel that writing about drunk driving and illegal drug use shows him to be some sort of renaissance man/rebel. Just struck me as a git. Took me three goes to get in to it and finishing it was really a chore.

"The Beautiful Machine" by Graeme Fife. Not a bad book but again he comes over as another git.

Fiction books - Whit by Iain Banks - just can't get started in to it. Don't know if it's good or bad. I just can't read it.

I think it was called, snow falling on cedars, bored me to tears.

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie - gobbledegook that gets increasingly desperate for a plot.

The Periodic Table, Primo Levi - Self-indulgent twaddle.

Yellow Dog, Martin Amis - Pointless, pretentious rubbish.

There are lots more!

The Blackest Bird by Joel Rose

Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie - gobbledegook that gets increasingly desperate for a plot.

Gave up on this one about a third of the way in. I've read a few of his before and really enjoyed them (The Moor's Last Sigh was really good) but maybe this was one Rushdie too many- just couldn't be bothered with it and found his style really irritating.

Probably the worst book I've ever read was given to me as a sample by the author, a chap who'd written a book and published it himself basically just because he'd always wanted to be a published author. IIRC it was about the resistance after an invasion of Nazi aliens, and it was every bit as bad as you might imagine. Fair play to him though.

Not many i've started and not finished but iliad was mind numbing and one will self book I tried, can't remember which one but after reaching for the dictionary one too many times I scrapped it.

how the hell did catch 22 make it onto this list? overated possibly but still decent I thought. I also read a lot of pratchett but understand how many wouldn't like it, the later stuff is a lot less fantasy with a more mature story.
(yep I'm definitley a low brow reader)

catcher in the rye.

the gulf between the hype surrounding it, and the actual whiney content is huge.

no wonder J D salinger went into hiding, sheer embarrassment...

Snow falling on cedars was a beautiful book.

Chocolat - a load of flowery, over-the-top-prose tosh.

Trust me when I was working 18 hours a day a looking for something to help me escape from work that book was not doing the trick, but horses for courses.

Woeful
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War and Peace. Gave up after about 150 pages (and nearly as many characters) after nothing had happened. Maybe try again one day if I get marooned on a desert island...

Something Happened - Joseph Heller

Should have been called 'Nothing Happened'! Catch 22 was good, though.

I found Carlos Castaneda to be pretty dreadful, too.

Never got very far with Zorba the Greek, either.

Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I don't usually give up on books but I was gone by the first 20 pages. I have been told it improves a lot after the first 100 pages, but I am never going to find that out personally, too many interesting things to do.

"A Confederacy of Dunces" by John Kennedy Toole.

Great title but utter pish.

Another vote here for Naked Lunch. Just finished it, what a waste of my time. Less a book, more a collection of random words thrown on a page.

I really liked White Teeth, but my girlfriend just struggled through it and thought it was dull.

Worst I read to the end is probably Celestine Prophecy - tripe.
Didn't get far with The Silmarillion.

+97 for Ulysses - had a couple of goes but never got very far. (Initially had trouble with Dubliners but perservered and enjoyed it).

Read 'Snow Falling On Cedars' when it first came out and enjoyed it - was not really aware of the whole Japanese in USA thing even though I knew the Billy Bragg song on a similar theme.

don simon - Member
The Algebraist- Iain M Banks, dull, boring sleep inducing tripe. Bit of a surprise that it comes from the same hand as The Wasp Factory...

Yep loved The Wasp Factory.. different author couldn't finish Glue by Irvine Welsh

 

With you on "The 7 Habits". Utter gibberish. Had a boss once who used to tell us to "make sure we read it". Did not improve my opinion of him.

Fiction, "Popcorn" by Ben Elton. Definitely the worst book I've ever finished.

[i]Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

I don't usually give up on books but I was gone by the first 20 pages. I have been told it improves a lot after the first 100 pages, but I am never going to find that out personally, too many interesting things to do.[/i]

the (Swedish) film's very good though. Please please please don't let the Anericans remake it

anyway, for me, the hardest thing I ever tried to read was Lorna Doone. The words are English, but...

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks - dreadful LOTR rip-off.

I read it when I was around 14 and remeber thinking "this is bobbins"

Snow falling was a great book, makes you think about the folks who are emmigrating all round the world now following war and famine etc and how they are received when they turn up in a new country.

Without a doubt 'Angels and Demons' was the biggest load of tosh for me. I finished it simply so I could bitch about how bad it was without anyone telling me 'oh you didn't finish it, it has a great twist' Shite, wouldn't even use it to wipe my arse.

[b]saxabar[/b] the Quran...

A book by Eddie Shsh (remember him, Today newspaper and all that)can't remember the name of it but it was utter shite, along with the book by the vicar from Yorkshire G P Taylor Shadowmancer complete tosh.

Another vote for The Naked Lunch. Incomprehensible ramblings. Awful.

bought my blind mate a cheese grater last xmas
he phoned me up on boxing day thanking me for the present
and said it was the most violent novel he had ever read

Catch 22 - I know others will love it, but I really tried to get into it and got about half way before giving up. Utter dross imho!

The communicative turn in planning theory and its implications for spatial strategy formations by Patsy Healey

I can guarantee it is way more boring than anything else on this thread!!

I quite like a medium-trashy easy to read book for when I am on nights, either for the quiet 3-5am bit when your concentration isn't at its best, or to get to sleep in the morning.

I liked all the other Louis De Bernieres stuff, partiucularly the south american ones, but i found 'Birds Without Wings' really hard to get into: gave up after about 100 pages.

'A suitable boy' by Vikram Seth was also too much for me. I don't think I get on with 'sagas'.

We did Ferdinand Céline's alleged 'classics' entitled 'Death on the instalment plan' and 'Journey to the end of the night' in a literature module at university: couldn't get into either of those in French or English.

Halfheartedly chugging my way through 'interzone' by william burroughs this month: thank god its in short chapters/segments! Ideal toilet book!

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Utter Arse!

and total bilge below:

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awww, I love both those books! ^^

The comments about The 7 Habits of Highly [b]D[/b]efective People does explain why deffective people recommend it.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is a puzzling thing, what is it about nothing happens there is nothing in it. Time spent reading it is time that you will never get back again

bellerophon - Member

don simon - Member
The Algebraist- Iain M Banks, dull, boring sleep inducing tripe. Bit of a surprise that it comes from the same hand as The Wasp Factory...

Yep loved The Wasp Factory.. different author couldn't finish Glue by Irvine Welsh

If you mean Iain M Banks and Iain Banks are different authors, they aren't.

 

Finnegan's Wake. But I'm not sure it was intended to be readable.

Had to read 'Of Mice and Men' at school. Never been more bored by a book.

'Heart of Darkness' was like wading through Treacle. I did finish it but it was both one of the shortest and longest books I've ever read.

I'd second 'War and Peace'. The war bit was ok but the peace bit (and the people in the peace bit) was soooo dull. Gave up.

Iain (M) Banks has really lost his touch. I loved his older stuff, with and without the M. I thought 'Matter' was a return to form but it ended very abruptly and in a way that made the preceeding couple of hundred pages pretty pointless.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

If you google the author, he had some pretty heavy mental health problems. Explains the contents of the book a bit!

Another vote for catcher in the rye. total mince.
Read an awful book called "white crosses"- virtually nothing happens in it.

cycling wise Chasing Lance is a hard going read

"Had to read 'Of Mice and Men' at school"
same here.
And its probably put a lot of people off reading for life.

But for a bike book that has less to it than meets the eye

some of the pictures are OK.

"Had to read 'Of Mice and Men' at school"
same here.
And its probably put a lot of people off reading for life.

I love "Of Mice and Men". Maybe try reading it again - the language is wonderful.

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OMG. 😯

I've never given up on a book - I just can't, its like leaving food on my plate - it just pains me.

However, Catcher in the Rye, Slaughterhouse 5 (in fact anything by Brett Easton Ellis), and beloved by Toni Morrison stand out as painful.

Just reading the everyone's choices above, one thought strikes me is that there is a large amount of "stream of consciousness" writing that people dislike. I think that personally, I prefer to be told a story, than inhabit the characters' thoughts and mindset.

I've never given up on a book - I just can't, its like leaving food on my plate - it just pains me.

A few years ago I'd have agreed, but these days I don't have so much time for reading and life's too short.

Slaughterhouse 5 (in fact anything by Brett Easton Ellis)

BEE didn't write Slaughterhouse 5 😕

Any of the books "written" by Lance Armstrong.
Alan Robbe Grillet has always been a challenge that I've been unable to meet.

Oops Kurt Vonegut - I meant less than zero for BEE.