Anne Rice's 'Beauty' series was about the most boring porn I've ever read. I will also add to the list: Frank Harris, My Life and Loves, and anything written by the Marquis de Sade, especially the unfinished 120 Days of Sodom. All train wrecks. Give me Anais Nin for a nice bit of entertainment any day. Oh, yeah, Henry Miller's Under the Roofs of Paris....trite money making crap. Oops, am I talking about porn again?
Probably the book I most virulently hated was, "Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus", for a book club. I was like literally pacing around and swearing at the author for being such a derivative, psuedo-science idiot. (What had merit was lifted from Deborah Tannen sans attribution, everything else was dreck.)
I was very, very disappointed with "Fury", by Salman Rushdie, though. It was Salman Rushdie, I love him, it had its moments, but a really hastily-done mishmash of a book. (Discussed it here, nimh came up with some interesting evidence of HOW hastily done it was.)
The thing is, I don't remember that I have ever just stopped reading a book, even if I was swearing at it. I seem to have a need to find out what happens, no matter what.
Oh, totally agree about Anne Rice. "Interview with a Vampire" (is that it? the first one) was cool, a bunch of other stuff was really badly written.
Ggh... book groups get you reading the worst things.. we had to read something by 'Anonymous,' and basically it was bad dialogue worked around bad sex scenes... and my ass could have written a better book.
When I was younger, I read everything Robert Ludlum wrote. He was Tom Clancy before Tom Clancy was Tom Clancy. After his good(?) days were over, I discovered that he had written a couple of books as Jonathan Ryder. "The Cry of the Halidon" was bad and "Trevayne" was worse. However, I couldn't not finish these last two books after reading his other 2 dozen. The only silver lining is that I do own stated first printings of each and they'll probably be worth more to my benefactors than even my signed copies of his mainstream books. Oh boy, Joy Joy.
I'm in the same shape as sozebe when it comes to finishing books save 2; I couldn't (wouldn't) get through the rape scene in Grisham's "a time to kill" and I'm not sure I'll ever be able to finish Laszlo Polgar's "CHESS". Has anyone finished CHESS?
From A buick 8 by S King , really sucked. Also the C ivil War tril;ogy by Bruce Catton. of hisfacts are disputed by more serious scholars.
Tom Clancys later stuff starts getting derivative like Stephen King
Oh, Sozobe I hated "Men from Mars yada yada ...
I did the same thing, but I just couldn't get through it and along the same line, someone bought me "The Rules" I wanted to scream but the big printing made the time go superspeed.
I think the most contrive book I ever read was the "10th propehcy or insight" or something, I can't remember the name but it was a best seller that tanked for me.
I didn't dare even pick up "The Rules", I hated the concept so much. I was worried that if I looked at it in the store I would be compelled to rip out pages and stomp on them, but then the whole "you break it, you buy" it thing would mean my money would go to those complete airheads...
I'm not usually proud of schadenfreude (or however it's spelled) but I was SO happy when one of them got divorced right before their "Rules Guide to Marriage" or whatever was published. Ha!
Both Colorbook and Wilso were disappointed with....
Quote:The Old Man and the Sea, in high school. Oh god it was boring.
Maybe that's because you were in high school and didn't appreciate great literature because all the peripheral activities disrupted the concentration process.
I read
The Old Man and the Sea about a month ago and loved it. And, I have about twenty pages left in
A Farewell to Arms as we speak. Not quite as good as
The Old Man and the Sea, but it definitely has its moments.
Hemingway isn't for everyone, but I certainly wouldn't consider him boring.
Garrison Keillor...... now
that's boring.
Garrison Keilor. Hes a really good story teller but his writing . OY
Hes one of those who feels that his writing must first impress you, then he follows up with a feeble attempt at communication.
talent in one mode of expression doesnt always translate to another medium.
In my science literarture, Steven J Gould is (was) a real consolidator of theory. However, he couldnt give you the correct time in less than 20 minutes of ireelevant drivvle.
So Much Awful Reading We did!
It is so interesting to read different people's *awful* reading experiences, the books the writers and the reasons.
When Guatam posted, {referring to differents books, of course!} "Quite a few - which I picked up because of their reputation, but just could not make it till the end.. It made me think of the cliche, "one can not judge a book, by its cover".......or evidently its 'reputation' = "MARKETING"?
As far as Hemingway is concerned, it must be that he is a writer for men????? Although I consider him a fair story teller, I find his writing, tedious. & I forced myself to read more than I should...I kept thinking, "OK, the next one of his books that I read will change my mind". Gave up. Although I must admit, one of the most moving films I saw was made from his writing. The movie was "Island in the Stream". Correct title?
I am going to go out on a limb and compare Hemingway with Capote....in this manner. They were writers. Good? Fair? Excellent? Their commonality was, in ways that could almost be not more opposite, they were outrageous in their lives. It seems to me, that they took pleasure in the celebrity of their outrageousnous. It was their Celebrity Status that was the cause of them selling more books than better writers???
Vivien, "Animal Farm" was my #2 pick, as the most awful {required reading}, after my #1 Most Awful: Conrad's "Lord of the Flies". Then "Alice In Wonderland". Yikes.....Was that written while under the influence of Laudaum <sp?> or cocaine.... or some other mind altering~twisting drug.
Phoenix, I think there is a Stephen King book that you would enjoy. It is not written in the horror genre for which he is renowned. More about that later....
"Man of La Mancha"? Hmmm. I read that when I was in high school and in the original Spanish. At the time, I thought it was great. Yet our tastes change, mature.
I went to re-read "The Pearl" by Steinbeck, last year.
At 13 -14, I thought it was outstanding. Last year, I could not get past the fifth page. With "Man of La Mancha", I believe, it would be the same case. Now, I do not believe that I would be able to grasp in in the Spanish....who knows about the English version.
Many of the other books, I had not heard of them, previously. I will take the word, and put them on my "Do Not Attempt This At Home" List!
Enough of 'my' comments for now.
"Wolves at the Door" by tabitha King (Steven's wife I believe?) Read the whole thing. The story wasn't that bad, but it could've been done in 20 pages. The rest was just filler. She'd write a page and a half to describe a fence.
Read lot's of Wilbur Smith, not bad, but they tended to get a bit repetitive after a while. All set in South Africa, the same thing and same characters almost being reincarnated in some sense.
plainoldme wrote:Like Wilso, I hated War and Peace. I wonder if the version I tried to read was translated by the infamous Constance .......... what ever her name was.
I read the Wizard of Oz outloud to my kids at their request and found it deadly. They wanted more of L. Frank Baum but I refused.
It's not that I hated it. I haven't read enough to form an opinion. But it was very cumbersome to read what I did. I can normally read very quickly, but not this. It was like wading through treacle.
The Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I absolutely cannot believe that this series was chosen as the greatest sci-fi series. The first book read like a comic book. Reading something like this really makes you appreciate the character of Kilgore Trout.
Wilso, War and Peace is one of those books that ... well ... I can't really explain except for this: the "war" parts are decent, and the "peace" parts can be the most boring reading you have ever done ... Right now I'mnear the middle of the book -- I have been there for several months now, and it's an incredibly boring part. I can hardly get through a chapter without trying to stay awake no matter how important the moment is to the rest of the story.
As far as books I wish I have never read, there's a list ... it's a long list mostly from school ... and when I was young my mother made me read a couple that I couldn't stand ...
Wilso wrote:
Quote:She'd write a page and a half to describe a fence.
A comment on writing worthy of a New York Times review
I hesitate to add this one because I imagine it's on a number of Christmas lists but
the DaVinci Codes..
And don't buy his other book Angels and Demons either. And yes, I finished both, and others which I will name later, as a sort of test to myself. I wanted to see if the book was as bad as I first thought. I hoped that somewhere around page 200 there would be a flash of -- something--- intelligence, wisdom, wit, but alas, I found in almost every case that my first impressions were the correct ones and that the slogging through was all for nothing.
Most beach books are like that, but at least on the beach you have the pelicans to entertain you between the chapters.
Joe
It is surprising that anyone here could find "The Old Man and The Sea" a boring experience. How did you get time to be bored? It´s over in just a few minutes for heavens sake.
That is puzzling isn't it?
But back to bad books---- I was recently defeated by a book called Infinity-- I like numbers and math but this was so dense I found myself reading the same page two and three times, deciding that whatever the point was was beyond me and turning the page.
I put it down about two weeks ago. I don't know where it is now.
Good riddance.
Joe
The DaVinci Code.
At a certain point it just kept getting sillier and sillier, but I finished it anyway.
bad books
My mother-in-law, whose taste I trust, gave me JM Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello for Christmas. I read the whole thing, 'cause I kept thinking, "she wouldn't have given me this book if there wasn't something there," but I just never saw it. She really liked it, and I hated it.
I got a free book from bookcrossing.com called Wild Animus--some marketing deal they worked out with the publisher--that was the worst piece of tripe I have ever read. I slogged through to the end, just so I could post about it on their website. It seems to have been uniformly hated by the other folks who received it, too. I think it was some kind of attempt at viral marketing, but hoo boy, did it fail.
