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

nickf – Member
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 liked both those, particularly John Fowles.

Also Midnights Children was awesome.

Agree on Moby Dick though, recommend you do not try again

Have to agree that Mr Banks does seem to have blown his wad. Managed to get through Algebrist and Matter but wouldn't say they were memorable. But IMHO not horrendous either. Really struggling with his standard fiction though.

I've just read 'Ghost' by Robert Harris. Found it very pedestrian & predictable.
I've never read any of his books before, but had had built up the impression that he was a really good writer.

Is his other stuff any better?
Really like the idea of 'Fatherland' and enjoyed the film of 'Enigma', but can't be bothered reading them if they are as poorly written as 'Ghost'.

Howard Jacobson is another I struggle with – I like his columns in the Indie, but found 'Redback' unreadable. He's up for the Booker as well.

Michael Marshall Smith has some great ideas, but reading his books are like listening to a boring cokehead at a party.

Carl Fogartys 'auto'biography… manages to insult your intelligence and sense of decency, amongst other things. Only got as far as the first couple of chapters before feeling like I needed a wash. Confirms whatever views you have of him.

Like many others comments from ^ Catch 22 was one of those books that I abandoned. I also usually hate to leave a book before finishing it but Catch 22 was one of them. Also many years ago started an unofficial biography of Bruce Springsteen which was utter, utter bilge. The writer seemed so far up himself and determined to write some sort of literary tome of written work that he completely lost sight of what he was supposed be writing about. By far the worst book I ever tried to read.

I read Catch 22 and Moby Dick and enjoyed them both.

Worst book I read recently was the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, someone bought it for my wife, just utter tripe. The Bourne Ultimatum was a terrible book as well, pretty much unreadable, one of the few cases where the film is genuinely better than the book

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Slow, slow, slow and (even if I do say so myself) my vocabulary's not bad but it had me reaching for the dictionary too many times. I'm told it gets better after half way through, but couldn't be bothered to find out.

You've just mentioned Foucault. I almost had a mouthful of sick then 😆

Foucault, another tosser who writes complicated gibberish that makes people go "there must be something in that".

I'm halfway through the 2nd book of 'The Border Trilogy' by Cormac McCarthy – perhaps the most over-rated novel I've read for a while.

The first story took ages to get into then fizzled out. The 2nd story is just bobbins.

I've got this far into the book and don't like it, I guess there's no point carrying on.

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco.

I'd forgotten about that pile too! Couldn't understand why it was so popular.

Another one I forgotten "The Divine Comedy" seems to be responsible for a lot of interesting ideas and spawned some other good works by other writers, but just couldn't get into Dante's stuff. Probably a bit highbrow for me though.

That one about the bloke who works in a record shop or something by Nick Hornby. It's the only book I've finished and thrown straight in the bin – absolute p1sh.

I love a few of the books mentioned on this thread though – Foucalts Pendulum and the Dice Man for starters.

TS

Eco Rocks!

Seconded Moby Dick. I really wanted to like it and struggled through to about halfway but decided that in the end life's too short.

Also tried "English Passengers" which won the booker prize some years ago. Again, I really wanted to like it – I made it halfway but I don't know how it ends and don't really care.

Another vote her for Something Happened – Joseph Heller

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

My thinking once I'd read it was that must have been why he called it that. Something did happen, it's just he couldn't remember what it was.

Hah! You're all wrong, as a joke a mate gave me this:

If you think he's talented at filling 4 hours of radio with absolutely nothing, well, get this and see how well he transfers this skill to paper and ink.

Also tried "English Passengers" which won the booker prize some years ago. Again, I really wanted to like it – I made it halfway but I don't know how it ends and don't really care.

Lucky escape – the second half was much worse!

"catcher in the rye" and "on the road" are the two rated books that i could not stand.

oh yes and "the life of pi"

Irvine Welsh's Filth.

I also didn't see why people raved about Ayn Rand's 'Atlas Shrugged' – and I followed it up with 'The Fountainhead'

Also hated Alan Davis's autobigraphy and now can't watch QI any more as I think he's a tit 😥

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco. Slow, slow, slow and (even if I do say so myself) my vocabulary's not bad but it had me reaching for the dictionary too many times. I'm told it gets better after half way through, but couldn't be bothered to find out.

It's a book you read to feel smug with yourself for having finished it. It also came in terribly useful when you wanted to poo poo the literary banality that was 'The DaVinci Code' by writing it off (pun intended) as a blatant, populist, poor man's rip-off of Foucault's Pendulum.
It doesn't really get better half-way through, just less of an intellectual excursion and more of a story. It even has a plot and narative towards the end.

There are a lot of books on here that I've tried to read and didn't really enjoy but I wouldn't put them in the junk pile (Catch-22 for example); there's a difference between a book you just don't enjoy and one that's just badly written.

Chocolate was patheticly written IMO but the worst case of bad writing I've come across was 'Perfume' by Patrick Suskind. I got the impression it was a translation that had been done using Babel Fish or something.

Of Mice and Men.
It was the cynical exploitation of plus the inducing of a complex in and then the shooting of Lennie by George that made it a nasty story.

Between a rock and a hard place By Aron Ralston.
The one where the guy is trapped by a fallen boulder on his arm and (finally) decides to cut his arm off to escape his predicament.
I couldn't have cared wether he lived,died or stayed stuck.

The other I hate is the Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys.
Was made to read it at A level. It was supposed to be some steamy story about Mr Rochesters mad wife in the attic before she went mad.
Utter drivel.

agreed on between a rock and a hard place, blah blah blah skip to cutting of arm, throw away.

+ however many for 'Naked Lunch'.

It's just dreadful. Made me want to travel back in time and punch Burroughs in the face for writing like an idiot.

I hate to abandon a book.. but catch 22 was pants.. I feel I may have appreciated it when I was 10 years old.. but I was leant it by a catch 22 fan at the age of 30.. so boring

the first time I read any Irvine Welsh.. I think it was the ecstacy collection.. I actually went to the trouble of writing him some hate mail.. I never actually sent it…

once my delicate sensiblities had adjusted to acommodate his black humour and foul-mouthed outrageousness he went on to become a firm favourite..

The Da vinci code was pretty poor.
The girl with the dragon tattoo does take a long time to get going but it's still not spectacular once it does.
1984 was a bit crap too.

but these are all books that were very bad in comparison to their review level, i.e. they're normally rated very highly.

If I was to choose the worst book I've ever read per se, it would have to be Men are from mars, Women are from Venus. Seriously condescending crap, to both sexes. The guy who wrote it comes across as nasty, manipulative misogynist in my eyes. It's effectively a book telling you how to sucker women while at the same time deliberatly pigeonholing all men and women into neat and (completely untrue) little categories. Utter bilge.

Next time somebody tells me the idea that people have shorter attention spans in the 21st Century is rubbish, I will point them to this thread.

I really enjoyed the Algebraist and read The Naked Lunch many years ago and remember enjoying that too. Gave up on Moby Dick tho !

Da Vinci code has to the be worst book I ever read, it trucks along nicely but the plot is so ludicrous it needs burned.

Next worst books have to be all the Virginia Andrews "Flowers in the Attic" pulp I was forced to read by peer pressure in my early teams. All that vampire nonsense "Twilight" etc is the modern equivalent. Sexist and harmful and any adult who reads them or lets their daughters read them should be ashamed of themselves.

Nobody mentioned The Bible yet?

Foucault's Pendulum

Enjoyed that one, although I had to read it twice before it made real sense…

Personal bilge list:
* Oscar and Lucinda – Peter Carey
* The Physician – Noah Gordon
* The Magic Circle – Katherine Neville

Gave up on White Teeth halfway through, but I wouldn't class it as rubbish, more that I couldn't be bothered.

I'm surprised anyone had an allergic reaction to Of Mice and Men. Or Zen for that matter.

Two books I remember not finishing. The Crow Road by Iain 'whatever' Banks first. But the prize winner must be The Vanishing Face of Gaia by James Lovelock. How that tripe gets a foreword by Lord Rees is beyond me. My problem is not with the science though, I'm a fully paid up climate change believer, and as such this book should have been easy for me to digest. But the Lovelock-as-prophet theme, and the earth as a religion thing fully switched me off. If the book is a crusade to convert people to believers it wont work, it'll alienate people, as many people including me gag on any religious aping ideas or themes. Some of the images are laughable too – lifeboat earth my arse.

And then, to top it off, Richard Branson gifts Lovelock a flight into space. Can't believe he accepts that. Over consumption of resources with a capital O, C, and R.

To the people who said of Of "Mice and Men" and men was the worst book they read at school then they must have been very lucky with the teachers choice of book at school.

I really enjoyed reading it at school because it was the only book I read at school that was nt either Shakespeare or some feminist dribble about how their life had been ****** up by men !

I reckon school could ruin any good book. If I get a book, and I'm enjoying it, I could be through it an afternoon. If you're reading it in school, it's so drawn out…

Gorky Park (can't even remember who wrote it) is the only book I've ever started and couldn't be bothered to finish.

I gave up on The Age Of Reason by Sartre on any number of occasions over a 20 year period. Then I picked it up again while running a particularly dull conference where I spent all my time just waiting around in case any one had any problems and I read it over 3 days and really enjoyed it.

Ulysses, life's too short.

Really suprised about the reaction to Catch 22. Admittedly it was years ago that I read this but I remember laughing out loud on the bus

I was hoping someone might say this before me but I've never read a novel… I feel quite ashamed by it & I have thought about trying it but never got that far.

I've read lots of technical books for uni & lots of manuals but never a novel. I'm very sorry 🙁

Never read a novel??? 😯

Did you study engineering?

I kinda agree I've gone off reading novels.

I'll do it occasionally, but if I want some fiction I'll watch TV. The advantage watching stories/comedies on TV is I can rest while I do it or more likely fall asleep which I often do when I start to watch TV.

The problem with reading novels is it still requires putting some effort and normally a lot of time in to read the book, if I'm going to do that I'd normally rather read about something real rather than fiction.

I once tried to read "7 Habits of Highly Effective People". Utterly unreadable – literally gibberish.

I read that about 4-5 years ago and it was perfectly readable – so much so that I used a fair amount of it in a course I was developing. Not sure why you think it's such hard work?

Worst book I've tried reading is some inanely weird Will Self b0llocks about 10 years ago – complete sh1t. Can't remember the name.