The worst book you have ever read.

[aquarianone]

Mister B Gone - Clive Barker.

I love Clive, but I couldn't even be bothered to finish this one...especially when the character made reference to "burn this book"...

[brrapp]

AstonZagato said:

Halmyre said:

AstonZagato said:

Einion Yrth said:

Halmyre said:

AstonZagato said:

grumbledoak said:

I couldn't get far into Catch 22 before giving up. Twice.

I struggled with Catch 22 but persevered. It became one of my favorite books, aged 14 or so. The disconnected timeline is very offputting - its as though Joseph Heller wrote a normal novel and then shuffled the chapters at random. However, I loved the characters and the absurdity.

My worst book was Lord of the Rings. I adored the Hobbit. I was thrilled when I got LotR. But it was turgid, self indulgent claptrap. Writing passages in Elvish FFS.

Are you sure? There's no passages in Elvish that I've read, .

A Elbereth Gilthoniel?

That's the badger.

It's only half a dozen lines! It's not like you're having to read Shakespeare in the original Klingon.

But it's still there. I seem to remember dialogue in elvish too.
To be fair, it isn't the worst book I've ever read but I think it was the biggest disappointment. I wanted to love it and it just droned on and on. It was meant to be epic but, to me at least, it was a bit dull. It would have benefitted from ferocious editing.

When I moved into my last house I found this carved into the lintel above the front door.



It took us a wee while to work out. SAY FRIEND AND ENTER from lord of the rings.

[toasty]

Norweigan Wood - Murakami - Diary of a boring Japanese kid. Gave up halfway through.

[knotweed]

AstonZagato said:

To be fair, it isn't the worst book I've ever read but I think it was the biggest disappointment. I wanted to love it and it just droned on and on. It was meant to be epic but, to me at least, it was a bit dull. It would have benefitted from ferocious editing.

I have to agree with this. I loved the Hobbit, but LOTR is a chore.

The Catcher in the Rye is the only book I've ever thrown across a room.

[Trax]

knotweed said:

AstonZagato said:

To be fair, it isn't the worst book I've ever read but I think it was the biggest disappointment. I wanted to love it and it just droned on and on. It was meant to be epic but, to me at least, it was a bit dull. It would have benefitted from ferocious editing.

I have to agree with this. I loved the Hobbit, but LOTR is a chore.

The Catcher in the Rye is the only book I've ever thrown across a room.

LOTR was probably my first proper big book read in my young teens, and have always loved it, even on subsequent re-reads. I blame that initiation for liking big books, although I never managed to read the last couple of The Wheel of Time. I also liked the Hobbit too, which I read later. However, the Silmarilion was one I never got very far with. Perhaps now I am a tad older, I may have to go back to try it again.

I did try and read 50 shades of grey once, fortunately I don't think I made it past a few pages. I feel dirty even admitting to that.

[tim0409]

I'm a voracious reader of political biographies so looked forward to Tony Blair's memoirs. What a disappointment...he is no better an author than a prime minister!

[Yertis]

tim0409 said:

I'm a voracious reader of political biographies so looked forward to Tony Blair's memoirs. What a disappointment...he is no better an author than a prime minister!

Wasn't it written by Ewan McGregor or are the lines between fact and fiction becoming too blurred?

[MarshPhantom]

The Bible.

[Zigster]

A book which should have been great but wasn’t: The Dice Man. Sounded a great premise but I couldn’t finish it. Nice idea, but not enough to keep the book going an rapidly descended into flogging a dead horse.

Books where I should have known better: Harry Turtledove’s “World War” alternative history series. I’m embarrassed to admit I read all nine books even though I knew it was crap from a few pages into the first book. I can only think that I assumed it would get better, but I was horribly wrong. Imagine intelligent lizards from 20 light years away who have come to invade the earth, landing part way through WWII having scouted the earth 900 years earlier and thought they would only be up against knights on horseback. At one point one of the lizards is musing that Germans organise their sentences in a funny way. That’s right – lizards from 20 light years away don’t have a problem with English sentence structure but find German confusing. Those books went to the charity shop quicker than any others I’ve ever read as I was too embarrassed to keep them on my bookshelf. I can’t think of another book I’ve ever read which has been quite as bad.

[Europa1]

marcosgt said:

Halmyre said:

I'd forgotten about Colin Forbes, either that or I had my memory deliberately erased - I read "This United State" with a growing sense of disbelief, the tipping point came with the elite team of London cabbies defeating a team of US Navy SEALS.

I really enjoyed Forbes' early stuff (Tramp in Armour, Year of the Golden Ape), but then he started with his series stuff (I seem to recall a character called Tweed?) and it's mostly unreadable rubbish.

I guess people like it as he's trotted out dozens (It seems) at the expense of his more interesting stuff - Shame really...

M

God, the series stuff with Tweed & co was dire - British Intelligence consisting of a small band of about 6 people, who spent their time swigging champagne in fabulous hotels around Europe.

[havoc]

Catch-22 is a good book with great satire and interesting characterisation. Not necessarily easy to read, but still a good book.

Silmarillion is one I also gave up on, but still have on the shelf in the vain hope that one day I'll go back to it...



My submission would be "Not on the List" by Heath D Alberts - I saw it 'sponsored' (yeah...) on Facebook, it looked like an amalgam of books I've enjoyed before (gods/mythology transplanted to the modern world in the background - think Neil Gaiman meets Charles Stross), so I bought it.

...and 2 days / 40-pages later I put it back on the shelf. Utter dross with zero depth and far too many cliches - I could (genuinely) have written it better, and I'm an accountant FFS! I may have given it to a charity shop out of spite, or I may have done the decent thing and recycled it, can't honestly remember.



Since then, I've viewed every FB sponsorship/advert as utter ste that can't get a decent airing in the usual ways.

[schmunk]

havoc said:

Catch-22 is a good book with great satire and interesting characterisation. Not necessarily easy to read, but still a good book.

Indeed, it has no place in this thread.

[brrapp]

schmunk said:

havoc said:

Catch-22 is a good book with great satire and interesting characterisation. Not necessarily easy to read, but still a good book.

Indeed, it has no place in this thread.

Exactly, difficult to read doesn't mean it's a bad book...see War and Peace. Easy to read doesn't mean it's a good book...see Jeffrey Archer.

[spikeyhead]

havoc said:

Silmarillion is one I also gave up on, but still have on the shelf in the vain hope that one day I'll go back to it...

The Silmarillion is great, but takes a while to get going. The Lays of Belerian is proper hard work, and I only finished it just to say I'd read it.

[K50 DEL]

Probably "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Moonlight"
A few years ago now but don't think I even bothered to finish it, which for me is pretty much unheard of.

[TheJimi]

brrapp said:

schmunk said:

havoc said:

Catch-22 is a good book with great satire and interesting characterisation. Not necessarily easy to read, but still a good book.

Indeed, it has no place in this thread.

Exactly, difficult to read doesn't mean it's a bad book...see War and Peace. Easy to read doesn't mean it's a good book...see Jeffrey Archer.

Good distinction, imo.

[techguyone]

Battlefield Earth by Ron L Hubbard - Yea him of the Scientologists 'fame' - before he invented scientology , man it's so bad.

[bloomen]

The Last Ship by whoever which became the recent TV series. I can't believe someone got paid to write such turgid overwritten junk. It was so dense and pointless I was forgetting the previous sentence as the current one was such hard work.

[silverthorn2151]

Ulysses.

Although to be fair I have persevered and then given up the turgid bloody bollix of a self indulgent over clever try to hard literary stebook.

Of those completed, possibly a book called Atrocity Week I read in the late 1970s.

[Goaty Bill 2]

silverthorn2151 said:

Ulysses.

Although to be fair I have persevered and then given up the turgid bloody bollix of a self indulgent over clever try to hard literary stebook.

Of those completed, possibly a book called Atrocity Week I read in the late 1970s.

I'd never heard of either.
Having now read the plot summaries, I believe that "ignorance is bliss" is best applied.
Thanks for the warning