Worst book you ever read???

This is kind of embarrassing but I'm reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and it's really boring. I mean, this is a classic novel, usually always mentioned in any list of top lit, but I can't get into it at all. I was the same with Catch 22. I just didn't get it. Is there something wrong with me?

Originally posted by wigit
This is kind of embarrassing but I'm reading Crime and Punishment by Dostoyevsky and it's really boring. I mean, this is a classic novel, usually always mentioned in any list of top lit, but I can't get into it at all. I was the same with Catch 22. I just didn't get it. Is there something wrong with me?

Really? I kinda liked C&P, myself.

Still, nothing wrong with you, it's just not your bag. If it's any consolation I hated reading the Lord of the Rings triliogy (even though I liked The Hobbit).

"...Frodo approached the door. It was an ancient door made from the mythrandir tree of elven lands bygone past when the world was a younger age and the battle of kymridinirion raged across the twelve seas which were named.....(10 pages later)...and the door hinge bore a significant scar from the time the white wizard of witchywoody had given his life to save a troubled bugbear from a rash...(20 pages later)...and oiled with the melted fat of an ogre named Bob whom had never known his mother...(50 pages later)...and so Frodo opened the door."

reply to post by thelibra
Haha, I know what you mean. It took me twenty years to read lord of the rings but the Hobbit was fantastic and I read it straight through. I'm still reading Crime and Punishment though I've another three on the go at the same time. It must have it's hook into me as I keep trying but it is a laborious read. Maybe it's the names, I keep forgetting who's who. I'm also reading Wuthering Heights and that's definitely got me hooked. Not bad for a piece of ficton written a couple of hundred years ago. It's that bad guy Heathcliff that's got me hooked, though he doesn't deserve me, the swine, lol.



[edit on 1-12-2007 by wigit]

I loved the Dune series by Frank Herbert. So i picked up the books that his kid supposedly wrote from outlines and manuscripts left by him. Complete trash, almost unreadable, but i suffered through them and now they have a place of honor on the floor of my closet, right under my dirty socks.

The worst book that I ever read was, ironically enough, the best book that I had ever read. Let me explain...

I was in the Third Grade when I first read The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles by Robert Moore Williams. To the impressionable mind of an 8 year old in the midst of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this book had me mesmerized. To me, it spoke volumes. It was prophetic.

Years later, I came across The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles in an old box in the attic. After a quick re-read, I realized what a "schmuck" I had been. The book simply, well, stunk to high heaven!

Still, for a quick, pointless read, The Day They H-Bombed Los Angeles should top . It won't take long to recognize that this book is easily the worst book ever written! It's so bad, in fact, that it ranks right up there as a literary equivalent to those cheesy B movies that are so bad that they are great!

reply to post by benevolent tyrant



I hang on to my own copy of "The day they H-bombed Los Angeles" because it reminds me of the best party I and my friends ever gave. It was December 1, 1983 at my house in Los Angeles County ... we were sitting around talking about whether we should throw a New Year's Eve party. I said that New Year's Eve parties are always the most pathetic, intensely boring experiences; then my voice trailed off, as I suddenly realized that we were actually facing the New Year's Eve of ... 1984!!! Egad, the ultimate apocalyptic novel! Excellent. I hollered "I've got it - the perfect New Year's Eve party theme will be in getting ready for 1984." In short order, we hammered out the invitation, the cover of which read:

........Some say the world will end in fire,

some say in ice.

But everyone agrees the world will end in 1984.

So why not get ready for it with us this New Year's Eve?

Come dressed as your choice of the following: One of the Four Horsemen.....George Orwell...........Big Brother.....or a character of your selection.

Naturally, my copy of "The Day they H-Bombed Los Angeles" was an important prop to leave on the front hall table, next to copies of the "1984 party rules" we distributed to all guests as they entered. The rules included such items as: Each person will have a XXX-XXX type number to use instead of a name (on a sticky label that each guest wears)... the first part of the number is for you, the second part is for your family number; then you can check around at the party to see what "family" you have been assigned to. I forget the other rules, but we did set up the bathroom shower as a "political prison", complete with dry ice "smoke" to make it look weird.

Oh yeah, we also had a prominently placed video camera running the whole time, to inspire the appropriate amount of paranoia, ha ha.

The party ended up with a vast number of guests. Not only did everyone we invited come, they all brought their friends. We struck a nerve I guess.
So even a bad book like "The day they H-bombed Los Angeles" can have its day.

[edit on 12/5/2007 by Uphill]

Well, I dug out my copy of The Day They H-Bombed Las Angeles and, in spite of a lot of truly bad writing, I realized that this book actually was quite entertaining. It had just the sort of "crap" that I look for in an adventure novel: A group of "average people" facing truly unique situations -- atomic attacks, zombies and lots of gratuitous violence. Who could ask for more?

Originally posted by whaaa
Tolkin reads like butter compared to Stephen R. Donaldson. Talk about tedious explanation and detail...

Yeah....Donaldson's style & diction can get a bit tiresome. But I was still completely blown away by the first trilogy when I first read it about 25 years ago. Oddly, I went to reread it about a year ago but put it back on the shelf after getting about halfway through the first book.

It didn't age well.

My nomination for the worst book that I've ever read (at least in recent memory) would have to be The End of Alice by A.M. Homes.

Besides Fear and loathing in Las Vegas, it was Facault's pendulum.(sp), it's been a long time ago.

reply to post by Musky



I totally agree. Very poor writing ability plus overblown story line equals slack-jawed wonder that this man makes huge sums of money to pen this dreck. I read about two chapters and threw the book in the trash.

Like many who have posted on this thread I don't often remember the really bad books because I stop reading them immediately and try very hard to forget them; having said that, though, one book that really just bored me to tears was "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling. Rather strange, too, since I rather enjoyed Gibson's other books, especially, "Neuromancer" and "Mona Lisa Overdrive". But I couldn't seem to read more than a few pages before I just started to nod off; I tried going back several times and picking up the story again but finally had to give it up as a collossal waste of time.

For all of those who can't stand to read King, Koontz or Tolkein, a thought: maybe it's just not the type of fiction you normally enjoy reading. I happen to love all three writers but I know that there are other authors whom a lot of you may think are absolutely great that just make me yawn.
Just a matter of taste, I guess.

More dissing of the Lord of the Rings? I'm just so very dismayed, nay, heartbroken

(see?)

Only the greatest work of fantasy ever written. As I said earlier in the thread, I've lost count of the number of times I've read the books, the Hobbit was great too.

In fact just to show you, I'm gonna go read it again....

I hate Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth... so much. I especially hate anything by Jane Austen (yeah, that's right, I said it). Give me Harper Lee or Mary Shelley over those two any day of the week.

You won't even catch me wasting my time on hacks like Grisham, Clancy, or Ludlum either. If I want to have the same trick pulled on me over and over again, I'll just pick up a Philip K. Dick book (and I'll actually enjoy it).

/tn.

I know it's considered one of those classics, and I know it is for the younger set, but I hated it... "A Wrinkle in Time." That book was just awful, and took me forever to get through it. I hope my kids never have to read that. Ugh! And I love to read, too!

OMG. I was just thinking about this while not studying! Before I get in trouble, I should say I LOVED all ten volumes of Battlefield Earth. Terl is my kind of alien. Big and bad.

DIANETICS - worst piece of bum-wipe ever to disgrace paper. That's f'n sick-wack. Stepford-humans. Ill'n. Assist? LOL. Clear? Oh yeah, take it to the bank, but not yours! Dianetics is a cult-primer nothing more... just gets you "in the door".

As fiction? I give it a Nebula.

Mira

reply to post by TheHypnoToad


I remember breaking my ass as a kid and saving up my money for the BookMobile and buying, among others, 'A Wrinkle in Time'. After making it through I wanted my paper route money back, I felt so cheated by this thing. I have been leery of mobiles bearing books ever since. Thanks for digging up that painful childhood memory.

reply to post by AugustusMasonicus



Any time!

I am just glad to know that I am not the only one that felt that way!

I remember years ago when I was in high school being forced to read the Great Gatsby in an AP English class.

What a crap fest the only thing that book is good for is curing insomnia, and when you run out of toilet paper.

the only book I haven't ever finished was Moby Dick.
I think it kicks until they go out to sea(which is the bulk of the book), then it's as boring as being on a ship for months...