I know we've done recommendation threads before--so I'm proposing a recommend NOT to read.

 

I just read The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton and it was atrocious. I have never felt more dislike for characters or more indifferent to their fate. Two thumbs down.

Anything that didn't have pictures or wasn't about baseball.

 

Books can blow me.

 

:fyou Uncle Tom's Cabin!

The Scarlet Letter.

 

I don't think anyone actually enjoys reading it. They more than likely read it, make sure they understand everything, and then brag that they like it because they understand everything. The Scarlet Letter sucks, end of story. Books should NOT be labor.

Hell I haven't read a book in 6 years.

I know we've done recommendation threads before--so I'm proposing a recommend NOT to read.

 

I just read The Book of Ruth by Jane Hamilton and it was atrocious. I have never felt more dislike for characters or more indifferent to their fate. Two thumbs down.

You did realize they were retarded?

Did the local references, that were wrong, also hurt the book?

 

The worse book I read lately was my checkbook after a little Christmas shopping.

Edited December 3, 200421 yr by Texsox

"Get stewed. Books are a load of crap." -- Philip Larkin

 

I don't finish the book if I hate it, I don't know if I can be fair. I'll offer Pynchon's Mason & Dixon -- it has some REALLY good parts, but gets tedious, I don't think it was really worth the effort.

 

Edit: I would never say that this is one of the "worst" books, but I doubt anyone here has truly read one of those. There have to be some doozies out there.

The Scarlet Letter.

 

I don't think anyone actually enjoys reading it. They more than likely read it, make sure they understand everything, and then brag that they like it because they understand everything. The Scarlet Letter sucks, end of story. Books should NOT be labor.

oh wow, i agree to that.

i didn't like reading for school to begin with, but that was pure absolute torture.

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre

I really liked that book. Now Wuthering Heights... :puke

Of Human Bondage...Worst book I ever had to read. hundreds of pages of crap...

Miracle Worker :puke

Any book I read in school.

The Scarlet Letter.

 

I don't think anyone actually enjoys reading it. They more than likely read it, make sure they understand everything, and then brag that they like it because they understand everything. The Scarlet Letter sucks, end of story. Books should NOT be labor.

You beat me to it! Horrible, disgusting crap! All that stuff I had to read in High School was the same way...Jan Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Ivanhoe... :puke

 

The only thing I liked in High School was The Red Badge of Courage.

Either of the dumbed down newspapers in Chicago (the black eye or the brown streak) they are utterly worthless. I can't think of any books right now, because usually if I dislike something that much, I quit reading it.

i'm masochistic or something i tend to force myself to finish books even when they're not good. i think it's a thing where i'm always secretly hoping that the badness is just some kind of experimental device and maybe in the end it'll unexpectedly turn out to be awesome and brilliant after all. i'm still waiting for it to actually happen that way.

 

anyway, my worst book is easy: ruffians, by former NFL defensive end tim green. utter s***.

 

i'm reading dune: the machine crusade right now, and it ain't so good either. not really worthy of the dune name.

No contest.

 

Walden Pond. Henry David Thoreau.

i'm reading dune: the machine crusade right now, and it ain't so good either. not really worthy of the dune name.

I have not brought myself to read any of the Brian Herbert Dune installments because I love Frank's originals so much. I've heard good things about House Harkonen and House Atreides but I just can't see them living up to the originals.

 

Then Again I did like Man of Two Worlds that Frank and Brian co-wrote before Frank died. Yeah, it was a poor man's Stranger in a Strange Land but I was in high school at the time, annd I liked that the lead character got stoned from eating basil.

 

...Man I would have saved a lot of money back then.

Eh, The Odyssy sucks too :banghead

Lord of the Flies. Hands down. f***. That. Book.

I have not brought myself to read any of the Brian Herbert Dune installments because I love Frank's originals so much.  I've heard good things about House Harkonen and House Atreides but I just can't see them living up to the originals.

 

Then Again I did like Man of Two Worlds that Frank and Brian co-wrote before Frank died.  Yeah, it was a poor man's Stranger in a Strange Land but I was in high school at the time, annd I liked that the lead character got stoned from eating basil.

 

...Man I would have saved a lot of money back then. 

yeah, i've been pretty much the same way about brian's stuff. this is the only one by him i've read, and it's mainly cuz my friend got me a signed copy of it as a gift. it's probably not fair for me to mention it in a thread on worst books--it's competent, as sci-fi goes, but it just pales across the board next to his dad's stuff. i'd sooner reread the original books or read the frank collaboration than check out the conclusion of this trilogy.

I've read some terrible, terrible s*** in my time. But in the end, I'd have to go with Bon Jovi's biography.

 

Lord of the Flies. Hands down. f***. That. Book.

??? Great book. That, Catcher in the Rye, and Cry the Beloved Country were the only modern fistion high school assignments worth reading.

I hated Anna Karennina.

 

Fires in the Mirror by Anna Devere Smith. My college Freshman common book. Everyone had to read it. She didn't actually write anything. She recorded a bunch of people talking about bulls*** and she transcribed it. Then she said she was an author. Without a tape recorder, she'd still just be the talentless hack actress she is today.

 

My Century by Gunter Grass, no good - and I love Gunter Grass.

 

Also I'd stay away from "The Sorrows of Young Werther" by Goethe. As disappointing in the original German as it is in English.

Beowulf

 

If this crap was the second oldest work in Old English, instead of the oldest, no College student would ever be subjected to that crap.

Beowulf

 

If this crap was the second oldest work in Old English, instead of the oldest, no College student would ever be subjected to that crap.

I honestly think this one depends on the translation. There's a newish (5 years ago?) translation out by Seamus Haney--and it is amazing. I read a bad translation, but then came to the Seamus one and it blew me away....