The Worst Book You've Ever Read?

[yellowfeverlime]

Name the worst books, in your opinion, in the world. One nomination per member, and please just say the book, and the author it's by. Also, please, if you have enoguh time, include a brief summary of the book. and why it's so bad.

[PeterL]

Das Kapital by Marx and Engels. Not only is it a load of inaccurate drivel, but there are people who actually believe the drivel.

[ArcherSnake]

The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold. Basically all it is is a murder, young teenage sex, and dead people posessing other people's bodies with no explaination of how or why whatsoever. Alot of people are in love with this book; I don't know why. It leans more toward bizzare and sickening.

[yellowfeverlime]

The Lovely Bones by Alice Seabold. Basically all it is is a murder, young teenage sex, and dead people posessing other people's bodies with no explaination of how or why whatsoever. Alot of people are in love with this book; I don't know why. It leans more toward bizzare and sickening.

I heard that that was the best book of the year.

[mickeymack]

Buenas Noches Buenos Aires by Gilbert Adair is a real stinker and to be avoided at all costs! Basically it's the story of Gideon ,a gay virgin teaching English in Paris in the 1980s,all the men he works with are gay too and have amazing sex. Some get AIDS. Gideon pretends he is sexually experienced eventually has unsafe sex and at the end of the book says he'd be utterly proud to die of AIDS! I kid you not! It's excruciatingly badly written, purple prose abounds. It took me ages to read as I kept wanting to throw it away but I had to finish it for my bookgroup.Easily the worst book I have read in years.Adair is a good cultural commentator but a very poor novelist I am sorry to say.

[yellowfeverlime]

Also, From A Buick 8, By Stephen King. Everyone said it was such a good book, critics were wronG. It was not at all suspensful.

[LeslieS]

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. Ugh. About a gay American man who moves to France with his lover and tries to learn French. No redeeming qualities, nothing thought provoking in any way, nauseatingly and utterly without merit. I only admit that I read it in hopes that others will be spared.

[yellowfeverlime]

Those sound like books that i would not reaad even if i had too. Whast were you thinking?

[RococoLocket]

Anything by either Wordsworth or Dickens. Wordsworth because he's so arrogant [read The Prelude?] and generally boring [how many ways can you say the exact same thing about nature before realising that you're going to drive your good friend Coleridge to his death with boredom?]. Dickens because he's boring, slow and depressing. At least Simon Armitage sticks to poems, so his depressing literature can be over in under 5 minutes.

[/scathing]

[yellowfeverlime]

Althouhg, i do have to admit that i liked Dicken's "Oliver Twist."

[RococoLocket]

Althouhg, i do have to admit that i liked Dicken's "Oliver Twist."

I can live with the film adaptations.

I am considering reanimating their corpses so I can put both Charlie & wild Willy [English teachers nickname for him] in a room together and watch their zombie-fresh selves eat each others brains violently.

One thing that can be said for them however, is that they evoke great passion in me. Even if it is the passion of violence.

[mickeymack]

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris. Ugh. About a gay American man who moves to France with his lover and tries to learn French. No redeeming qualities, nothing thought provoking in any way, nauseatingly and utterly without merit. I only admit that I read it in hopes that others will be spared.

I can't agree with you about Sedaris. He is hilarious. The story" Jesus Shaves" in particular is excellent.The arrogant teacher who ridicules everyone is a monster of French arrogance. How could you not laugh at the description of the class struggling to explain to the Moroccan muslim student what easter is?
" It is a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two...morsels of ...lumber. The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father. He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples. He nice the Jesus."
Wonderful stuff.

[ArcherSnake]

I heard that that was the best book of the year.

Yes, that's why I'm so confused.

[LeslieS]

" It is a party for the little boy of God who call his self Jesus and then he be die one day on two...morsels of ...lumber. The rest of the class jumped in, offering bits of information that would have given the pope an aneurysm.
He die one day and then he go above of my head to live with your father. He weared of himself the long hair and after he die, the first day he come back here for to say hello to the peoples. He nice the Jesus."
Wonderful stuff.

OK, I confess that I laughed at this part. Really hard. But a few pages later the man devotes an entire chapter to something he finds in the toilet.

I think the funny part was a fluke and the rest of the book reflects his true writing 'style'.

Not worth the slaughter of innocent trees!!

[mickeymack]

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on Sedaris! We must have some literary dislikes in common! To be honest I will read just about anything but find "chick lit" ie books of a certain type marketed exclusively at women largely quite vapid and formulaic. I like a book that tells a story, if I'm lucky I will learn something and it will have a resonance beyond its covers.