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Straight in at No1 spot is Naked lunch by William Burroughs. A mate raved about it and lent it to me. Just bored me like nothing else. I think it seems worse after the glowing write up it was given.
Jane Eyre - my English teacher excitedly announced she had arrange for my class to study this during my GCSE English course. It was the book that had meant a lot to her and with the benefit of hindsight, what a nice thing to do. Sadly at the time as a 15 year old boy it couldn't have been less engaging. I struggled to get through the study guide.
I picked up a Dan Brown book on holiday once. Feel dirty thinking about it (not in a good way).
The Dirk Pitt book by Clive Cussler I read once was jaw-droppingly awful, painful to finish but I hate giving up on a book, even a bad one.
Ridiculous characters and plot, like 1970/80s Bond films, and he writes himself into the books as some kind of chiselled swarthy hero.
Utter tosh!
When they were popular, I gave 50 shade of Grey a go to see what it was like. I forced myself to endure maybe a 3rd of the book and left it in the Queensferry bothy of the Forth Bridge. Maybe some track worker is busy enjoying it now. The writing was terrible and the characters were limp (maybe not in all senses of the word).
And Down and Out, because Orwell’s just such a bloody tourist and hypocrite
Is it any worse than sleeping "rough" for charity? Different times.
Ursula Le Guin.
Urgh, more social science fiction, admittedly that was one book but I really never enjoyed Four Ways to Forgiveness.
Glad I'm not the only one who has struggled with Catch 22. Can't decide if it's beyond my level of satire or just right up its own arse.
Satanic Verses, Rushdie's most notorious book, is bloody awful, turgid stuff. Only the fatwa made it famous. Read it after loving Midnight's Children, which is a masterpiece.
There are plenty of absolutely terrible books out there, the disappointment is when you get one which is suprisingly awful, given the author's reputation or previous work.
For example, Philip Pullman - loved the Northern Lights trilogy (OK, the third one was slightly overblown), was bored senseless by his first follow-up novel. Can't even remember the title, something boaty.
Most stephen king stuff, it’s like he gets to the end and thinks how am i going to finish this, ooh, i know a giant spider, or whatever.
Again, loved his earlier stuff, picked up a couple of recent ones (Under The Dome) - it was a dreary idea for a short story stretched out well beyond breaking point.
Oh damn, just remembered the Dark Tower series. First few books were decent enough if long winded but the last ones just felt rushed and long for the sake of it rather than story telling.
Kite Runner - utter tosh.
The Remains of the Day (unless anything actually happened in the last third of the book that I didn't bother reading).
Hobbit / Rings / Tolkein - Why? Just Why? I cannot bring myself to concentrate sufficiently to try and extract any content from the whimsical shite.
(Quite like Catch 22, but it was a bit of a cult thing at the time. Also Catcher in the Rye is OK, and quite liked Birdsong, but not any of his others.)
robinson crusoe is the worst in recent memory.
i liked the jason bourne books, although he does go off topic for 200 pages in the second or third book
Hobbit / Rings / Tolkein – Why? Just Why? I cannot bring myself to concentrate sufficiently to try and extract any content from the whimsical shite.
It beautifully written ( IMO of course) and paints a lovely set of pictures with words. Its a good v evil parable with side excursions into greed and avarice. Its an adventure story. It has a lot of depth to it.
When they were popular, I gave 50 shade of Grey a go to see what it was like.
At last someone has actually been able to give the definitive answer to what is the worst book ever written. Someone bought it for me as a joke, I read quite a lot of it because the pleasure of hating something so much was addictive. Truly the most talentless writer ever to be published, 99.999999% of the population would write a better book if they were sat blindfolded at a typewriter wearing boxing gloves!
Philip Pullman – loved the Northern Lights trilogy (OK, the third one was slightly overblown), was bored senseless by his first follow-up novel. Can’t even remember the title, something boaty.
Yeah, picked that one up last summer, made it to the end but god it was crap. The ones I generally end up hating are those billed as "literature" (as opposed to genre), where a beautiful use of language neatly conceals a piss-poor plot. Birdsong, Oscar and Lucinda, The Magus, that kind of thing.
I absolutely loved Robinson Crusoe when I was a kid but like a number of the books referred to, I liked them when first read/I was younger but can't get on with them now. On the Road and Catch 22 being two of them but also as non-'classic' I tried re-reading some Flashman books and they were just dated dross.
Books I felt were rubbish rather than just not liking them were 50 Shades of Grey, The Da Vinci Code and most recently the autobiography of that bloke from Eurythmics.
It's not often I don't finish a book, but two I haven't managed to get past the first 50 pages or so are:
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
Should I try again?
P.S. I love The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - some great characters along with the adventure (also IMO).
gormenghast, wasp factory and into thin air, all utter utter crap in their own joyfully @@#$ way.
Lee Child's Jack Reacher books. The same story written 30 times over.
I’ve never touched Lord of the Rings books since I changed schools at about 11 years old and my new class were having The Hobbit read to them by the teacher. It made no sense and just sounded stupid to my Commando comic reading self. donner und blitzen! I knew it was only for dirty collaborators and not my type of thing at all.
It beautifully written ( IMO of course) and paints a lovely set of pictures with words. Its a good v evil parable with side excursions into greed and avarice. Its an adventure story. It has a lot of depth to it.
I'm a fan of LOTR, I read it at an impressionable age and continue to revisit it. But unlike some books which I revisit I don't think I'm finding much new in re-readings of LOTR, it's just pure escapism. None the worse for that and I suspect it's something I'll keep returning to for most of my life but I find it a bit one dimensional now.
Embassytown - China Mieville
The Silmarillion - JRR Tolkien
The Bear and the Dragon - Tom Clancy.
The last one is okay, but it takes a bloody long while getting there.
The Dirk Pitt book by Clive Cussler I read once was jaw-droppingly awful, painful to finish but I hate giving up on a book, even a bad one.
Ridiculous characters and plot, like 1970/80s Bond films, and he writes himself into the books as some kind of chiselled swarthy hero.
Utter tosh!
Oh man - my dad used to love 'em, they are truly awful.
The Information by Martin Amis was truly awful.Got a feeling I would really struggle with Ulysses as well.
Embassytown – China Mieville
Glad you said this one! Big fan of CM but I've started this one so many times, thought "WTF?" and put it back on the shelf. I've had it a few years and it's in pristine condition. Might give it another pop at some point but I doubt it.
I once tried a Tom Clancy book, probably in the late 90s, and in the 1st chapter it had the line:
"...Wisconsin bred, entrepreneurial zeal"
I said out loud NOPE, put the book on a shelf and never looked at it again.
Haven't tried TC since.
MrsDeth once read the Hunger Games books and insisted they will change the word (I am exaggerating) and suggested I read them.
I did, and they are not that good, certainly declining quality as the tale trudges on.
I hate these threads, am sorry to say that so much of the above just looks like empty posturing - "ooh look at me, I can dismiss revered classics as 'shite'"
I reckon many of the titles above would not have been suggested if they weren't already famous, e.g. if expectations weren't already high.
I loved Catch 22, but I stopped trying to read it as a story from start to finish and just read it as a series of chapter long picture postcards from a time and place, allowed me to enjoy the imagery, writing and humour without tying myself in knots trying to follow a story.
Virtually every book has its merits, it's the fault of the reader if they can't appreciate them, although I'll concede there is such a thing as the wrong book at the wrong time, I wouldn't take Gormenghast on a beach holiday...
Blimey, I thought this was just a lickle thread about books we didn't like much, not whether we thought the author had wasted their lives writing them.
Got a feeling I would really struggle with Ulysses as well.
If you don't struggle with Ulysses, you haven't read it properly. It's not designed to be an accessible work, although many of the symbols and themes would be instantly recognisable to a classically-educated audience at the time. Not recommended for light-hearted page-turning 🙂
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
I used to browse the local charity shops for reading material, and the common theme was that every one of them had at least one copy of this. 🙂
“ooh look at me, I can dismiss revered classics as ‘shite'”
I totally disagree with that. I read lots and mostly I enjoy everything that I read however sometimes I do not like a book. I am entitled to an opinion on my enjoyment of a book and shouldn't just assume it is my lack of ability, or that I read it at the wrong time or whatever. It's the same with anything that is subjective - music, art, film, food, dance etc etc etc.
It is also interesting that you exampled Catch 22 as my OP lists my dislike of Something Happened which I only read because I enjoyed Catch 22 so much.
It is also interesting that you exampled Catch 22
To be fair I just exampled it because it gets mentioned a lot and I really liked it, maybe just took it personally!
My post was a bit knee-jerk, I have absolutely no problems with people not enjoying books, lord knows there's a stack of half-read unlikely-to-be-revisited 'classics' on my bedside table, but dismissing virtually any book with a one word epithet is just lame, the very fact that this thread is about books suggests it should be attracting people that can muster more than just one-word reviews!
“ooh look at me, I can dismiss revered classics as ‘shite'”
No, trust me, The Jam: Our Story is properly horrid, in a "I've read this, so you don't have to" sort of way.
On LOTR, I can't help feeling that there was a meeting with his publishers after 250 pages or so where the publisher noticed that the Hobbits hadn't even got out of the Shire yet; and had a bit of a rant...After which you can tell the pace decidedly picks up it's skirts and starts jogging for a bit...and you can tell it gets out of breath just as it meets Tom Bombadil....which just seems like JRR's revenge...
the very fact that this thread is about books suggests it should be attracting people that can muster more than just one-word reviews!
Okay then...
Something Happened by Joseph Heller was really very shite and nothing happened.
the characters just miraculously find what they need exactly when they need it. Oh we’re starving and there’s no hope of finding food, oh, here’s some. It lost all sense of jeopardy, which is kind of important.
I liked this - this describes my frustration with 'Stardust' by Neil Gaiman, it just seemed a bit soft and fluffy and dreamlike and easy. But then I remembered my dad had read it and loved it whilst high on morphine and slowly dying of cancer, so I could see the merit of a book that was perhaps without jeopardy... Otherwise known as escapism which is justification enough for most trashy novels I reckon (Andy McNab probably included, not sure I've actually read any of his).
Same reason I will re-re-re-read virtually any of the first 15 of the Discworld Novels, they're popcorn, like re-watching Bojack Horseman endlessly. Some nights I'll want intellectual and literary stimulation so will pick up Danubia by Simon Winder, other nights I just need to rest my eyes on something familiar, colourful and funny e.g. Discworld.
...And TBH, some 'classics' are properly rubbish. Many many were reviewed and promoted by friends of the authors or reflect the zeigiest of the time, and these days are pretty much unreadable. Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" falls into that category, as does fashionable (at the time) stuff like "On the Road" To us it feels as clunky as your dad saying "Cool" in an un-ironic way...Plus for that book in particular; the main character is a total shit to everyone he meets, and as that's Jack himself...you do start to form an impression of the man...
Most stephen king stuff, it’s like he gets to the end and thinks how am i going to finish this,
Funnily enough, the book of his I enjoyed most (read it in a day) was Green Mile.
It was written as a serialised novel, so every 1/4 ish of the book there's a climax... so it keeps you hooked. Maybe I should read more of his other stuff.
Maybe I should read more of his other stuff.
I used to read loads of his stuff as a teenager and there was some pretty gripping stuff but his later work really does get a bit samey.
Most stephen king stuff, it’s like he gets to the end and thinks how am i going to finish this,
See "It"...so wait, this is an multidimensional being and it's deadly foe is a (world creating) Turtle from an alternative universe?...OK Stephen
Catch 22 for me also, but I was about 15 so probably worth another shot.
I read Catch 22 in my teens and thought it was utter bilge, reread it again in my late 40's and thought it was really good.
Jodeph Heller served in a B25 squadron in Italy in WWII, and started writing the book around 10 years later. He was probably writing from the point of view of someone that had had experiences that had aged him prematurely. I think that is when you have to read it, when you're older and more jaded and cynical.
I thought the film was rubbish, and still do. The TV series from 2019 was a different matter though as that was very good, it caught the spirit (and ridiculousness) of the book brillliantly!
He was probably writing from the point of view of someone that had had experiences that had aged him prematurely. I think that is when you have to read it, when you’re older and more jaded and cynical.
Yep, when you work in construction and have to sit through meetings reviewing trackers of reviews of trackers of reviews, your thoughts immediately turn to Catch 22!
The TV series from 2019 was a different matter though as that was very good, it caught the spirit (and ridiculousness) of the book brillliantly!
I need to binge watch this some weekend, loved the first episode but am such a lazy TV watcher I never got round to watching any more.
Stephen King is great at writing characters I think, but falls down on plot two thirds of the way through 90% of his books. Never understood why he’s classed as the king of horror either. I’m a big fan and most of his books aren’t remotely scary.
When it comes to people not liking ‘The classics’ I think it comes down to a lot of them being of the time and written in a way that just doesn’t work for a lot of people now. I downloaded loads of them for free when I first got a Kindle. Only managed to finish Treasure Island and Heart of Darkness. Others such as Frankenstein, Sleepy Hollow, Grapes of Wrath etc were just hard work and/or extremely boring to read.
I’m also not a fan of Pratchett, Tom Holt or Catch 22. Humour is difficult to hit in a novel and I just don’t find any of them remotely funny. I do love Jasper Fforde though. Mainly because he writes a bloody good story that happens to have some humour. Where’s the sequel to Shades of Grey Jasper?
Wuthering Heights is the best bad book for me. I tried twice and didn't get past page 30. Indulgent, wordy drivel.
Labyrinth by Kate Mosse
I used to browse the local charity shops for reading material, and the common theme was that every one of them had at least one copy of this. 🙂
Thanks martinhutch. Probably quite telling. 🙂
Some of the classics are hard work for sure - don't know how widely read Henry James is these days but I found his novel The Ambassadors absolutely brutal. Each page felt like a heavy bench press. Very straightforwardly written as well but just a suffocating style - wouldn't call it rubbish, I'm sure there's a great inner book there, I'm just not interested in finding it.
I thought Nabakov's Pale Fire was rubbish. An early example of metafiction, it's probably one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, by an acknowledged master, so it's just barely possible I might be missing the point with it. But I thought it read like a giant nerd gotcha joke - ball-achingly smug and self-satisfied. To give a sense of this people argue over whether the central poem is either brilliant in its own right (it's obviously not), shite (it is), or deliberately shite as a key to unlocking the book's mysteries.
I thought the film was rubbish, and still do.
I’d agree, apart from the mass B25 take-off scene. That’s wonderful, but only about two minutes of the whole two hours.
Stephen King's problem is that most of his books go:
Beginning
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Middle
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End
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This only gets worse as his books get longer, he just pads out the middle even more.
I might be missing the point with it.
theres so many ways of reading it (and the literary arguments have apparently split life-long friendships). I think you have to understand Nabakov’s own life to “get” it ( the exile, the mistaken murder and so on)... I can’t decide if it’s genius or like you, I’ve been had...
What about Italio Calvino? Anyone think any of his books where shite? (I didn't I enjoyed Numbers in the Dark).