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Something Happened - Joseph Heller
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime - Mark Haddon
Anything By - Andy McNab (sorry I have to admit trying once)
Moby Dick. Its just awful. WOrst book Ever!
I didn’t get catcher in the rye at all , I didn’t read it till my early twenties so I don’t know if I was the wrong age but it didn’t do much for me .
'Glamourama' Bret Easton Ellis. Threw it across the room
The Motley Crue biog everyone raves about, just appalling writing
Most "bestsellers", Like an Andy Mcnabb thing my mother gave me. 😛
Moby Dick. Its just awful. WOrst book Ever
"He piled upon Killer's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."
any of the Robert Ludlum Bourne books, the films are great, the books are incomprehensible nonsense.
I had to read Dombey and Son by Dickens at school. It was utter bilge. Full of characters with stupid names like Mr. Bumblytrump and Mrs. Snatchweazle.
Pretty much anything by Dan Brown belongs on the list.
And I read "Ready Player One" ahead of the film release, but thought it was total pants, the most basic writing and structure. The film was actually better than the book, but really not by much.
Catcher in the Rye would be close to my top 3 favourites ever!
I really couldn't get going with anything by Anthony Burgess other than A Clockwork Orange.
I'd definitely put On The Road by Jack Kerouac in there....I just didn't get it at all.
Also, anything by Jane Austen!
The Long ______ - Terry Pratchett & Steven Baxter; protagonist is an utterly unlikable twunt, long drawn out and goes nowhere.
The Last Theorem - Arthur C Clarke & Frederik Pohl; As above really, utter drivel that never really gets started and ends out of nowhere. A lot of WTF plot holes as well.
2312 - Kim Stanley Robinson; supposedly science fiction, I'd go more social science fiction with none of the characters being in the slightest way likeable. Includes an excruciatingly long chapter about people walking along a tunnel whistling.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
I thought that was good but I can appreciate why some folk wouldn't like it.
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantell. Got to page 100 couldn’t take the present tense third person narrative any longer
Any of the Morse books by Colin Dexter
Both of these had tv productions that were far superior to the written narrative in my view, especially Wolf Hall.
+1 for the Bourne books
The Chain by Adrian McKinty
Just about anything by Ben Elton - Popcorn and Stark in particular.
The only book I've ever given up on was American Psycho. Got about 3/4 of the way through and... gave up.
Mind you, I've just been given a book called "Enemy of the State" a Mitch Rapp book which shows every sign of being an absolute turd. And I'm 10 pages in...
How late it was how late.
I barely understood a word of it and just thought the bloke was a bit of a d***...
Catch 22
Hitchhiker's Guide (could probably do with revisiting)
Hamnet - much raved about, I got *checks Kindle* 28 pages in and gave up, unconscious.
+1 for Moby Dick
I don't remember reading anything that left me thinking WTF was that rubbish, but that's probably because I used to deliberately seek out books that would be a bit WTF-ery. So clutching at straws, and all my books are packed away, nor read a book for years.
Can recollect that Prometheus Rising by Robert Anton Wilson didn't lead me on to reading anything more by him, just didn't do it for me. Attempted reading Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon at least four times but never succeeded, too many unknown words in every sentence. Practical Common LISP a programming book, not practical, or common, and I'm not brains enough.
Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast
by Charlie Connelly
Absolutely terrible terrible book. Quite the worst I've ever read.
The bible and other religious fiction books.
Anything by Thomas Hardy. I find his prose to be tedious at best.
Catch 22. 3 attempts, 3 failures. Also, most Jo Nesbo ‘thrillers’ have been anything but.
Something Happened – Joseph Heller
I came here to mention this. What a load of shite.
It's like he wrote a book that was deliberately designed to play a shit joke on the reader and wind them up but without Heller being there to see the punchline. I'm sure it's a book as art or something but it's by far the worst thing I've ever read.
Catch 22
You see, I read that and enjoyed it and went on to read Something Happened which I detested.
I also gave up on Black Spring by Henry Miller but I think that probably says more about an 18 year old me than it did the standard of the book.
Lanark by Alasdair Gray.
It's clearly not rubbish but it was a big WTF for me.
Lord of the rings and the hobbit. Shite.
Anything by Dan Brown, they’re all bilge, really really awful writing. How the **** are they best sellers
another vote for On The Road and the Robert Ludlum Bourne books they are just unreadable nonsense.
the Jam: our story written by Foxton and Buckler, just a horrible bitter polemic about Paul Weller.
+3 (or whatever we're up to) for Moby Dick. 500 pages and the bloody whale only appears in the last 20 pages or so.
Lord of the rings and the hobbit. Shite.
+1
Another vote for Moby Dick, Dan Brown and the Bourne books. I’ll read pretty much anything and still think they’re crap. I’ll probably get grief for this one, Grapes of Wrath, starts really well, but just dwindles in to monotony.
Does this mean that we can rubbish stuff that we just ‘didn’t like’ (or even get) or does it have to be a vaguely qualified drubbing of books more objectively awful as opposed to ‘not my cup of tea’ ?
Oh gosh yes! The Bourne books. Eric von Lustbader as writer. Impenetrable bollocks.
While I'm on that, Sherlock Holmes. Read the whole lot - not impressed.
Glad I'm not the only one who thought On The Road was terrible.
It's reads like it was written in one sitting by a pretentious narcissist who was high on speed.....oh, wait.
May get flamed here but anything by Tolkein.
Just can't get into the writing style, seems way too obsessed with inconsequential details that fill up pages of useless & boring description.
I love Terry Pratchett but have to agree about the Long Earth series of books. Have read a couple of them but and they have huge potential but the stories just don't seem to go anywhere.
Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is another one. I know so many who have raved about it but just don't get it.
1984.
WTF was that last chapter all about?
I think he must have been under some pressure from his publishers so thought 'f##k it, that'll have to do'.
The Night's Dawn trilogy.
I tried. I made it through the first book by skim reading it, but the second book just killed my soul. I could not finish it and left the third book un-touched. They are long, complex and have many, small typefaced words in. Avoid.
In a similar vein, the Mission: Earth tripe that L. Ron Hubbard wrote. It's shit. Avoid it.
Great expectations. Really enjoyed David Copperfield but this one just dragged on and on. I gave up before the good bits by the looks of it.
The chimp paradox. I just couldn't buy into it.
Sapiens. Still muddling through it but definitely not living up to its hype.
100 years of solitude. Wolf hall. Grapes of wrath East of Eden
To much for me, don't get how people really enjoy that kind of thing
The girl on the train - Probably the first book I have given up on in thirty years due to complete lack of interest in the plot, characters, or anything else about it.
The Road - Completely over hyped, unnecessarily grim
Anything by Will Self - I am not interested in how clever Will Self thinks he is
hundreds of pages of utter bilge
Only read one Dan Brown book, Digital Fortress. Utter balls.
Does this mean that we can rubbish stuff that we just ‘didn’t like’ (or even get) or does it have to be a vaguely qualified drubbing of books more objectively awful as opposed to ‘not my cup of tea’ ?
That's up to you, do what you like. There are no rules in Book Club.
Zen And The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
If you you think you get it then you are not.
Sapiens. Still muddling through it but definitely not living up to its hype.
or to give it it's byline, Man states bleedin' obvious
Battlefield Earth. L Ron Hubbard. Scientology. Really, truly a terrible book. Not quite as bad as the movie, though.
Exodus. Leon Uris for its prejudices.
The Silmarillion. Because it started the trend for dead author's estates publishing shit that was best left unpublished, and pushing it to unthinking fanbases.
Dan Brown - Da Vinci Code was nonsense, so quite why I wasted time on Angels+Demons I have no idea, cos that one was complete and utter nonsense.
LOTR - just goes on and on and on and ariston and on and on - could easily have abridged it to cut out all the waffle and just get on with a bit of story and get it over and done with in a fraction of the book. And 1 DVD rather than a 3 double sided DVD box set for the movie version.
Did try out a Pratchett book once, but gave up on about page 6 cos it was rubbish too. Forget which one, but must have been one of the first.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
I quite liked it
Birdsong, derivative pap not even engagingly written.
Another vote for On the Road, The Road and The Catcher in the Rye. Plus I'll throw in The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, described by one review as a 'spirited and exhilarating read', two words that simply do not describe the author's aim to try and put the most obscure words in a sentence.