*Must see* clip of Richard and Judy in action. Expresses perfectly what I was saying above. :lol::lol::lol: Got to 3 minutes and had to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZfARvUHyo
OK, I will stop taking the Mick now.
Printable View
*Must see* clip of Richard and Judy in action. Expresses perfectly what I was saying above. :lol::lol::lol: Got to 3 minutes and had to stop.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYZfARvUHyo
OK, I will stop taking the Mick now.
Exactly my sentiment... I think this is reason enough to get Oprah nominated for a Nobel peace prize or something!Quote:
Originally Posted by Lokasenna
Hey, now! Leave the cat and my knitting out of this... :mad:Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
:pYou don't have to get their advice but there is no reason to dismiss books appearing on these shows or people reading the books recommended by them.Quote:
Yes I've not got a problem with non-readers cutting their teeth on books like this, I would agree with you that it is a good thing to get people reading who wouldn't normally do so, however I won't be tuning in to get advice, I've already read too much rubbish when I was younger and I don't need to go back to that.
Have you seen the clip posted above, there's reason there?Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
My God you are so right. At 1.47 of 'My Best Friend's Girl' I'd had enough and had to stop watching. The indestructible MIlls and Boon wagon continues to roll.Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Wait are you judging books by there names? They've actually had some fairly decent books on there lists in the past, the books they recommend tend to range in genre, quality and style. They try and cater for the majority of people and try and get people out of a reading rut. I mean if everyone only read books they knew were 'worthy' books, then how would anything new ever get discovered?Quote:
Originally Posted by Neely
Now granted I am not really looking forward that much to reading this years books, but just because I don't like hem, or they are no considered especially literary doesn't make them bad.Quote:
2004
Monica Ali - Brick Lane
Martina Cole - The Know
William Dalrymple - White Mughals
Zoe Heller - Notes on a Scandal
David Nicholls - Starter for Ten
Joseph O'Connor - Star of the Sea
Alice Sebold - The Lovely Bones (winner)
Asne Seierstad - The Bookseller of Kabul
Nigel Slater - Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger
Adriana Trigiani - Lucia, Lucia
2005
William Brodrick - The Sixth Lamentation
Paula Byrne - Perdita: The Life of Mary Robinson
Justin Cartwright - The Promise of Happiness
Karen Joy Fowler - The Jane Austen Book Club
Chris Heath - Feel: Robbie Williams
David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas (winner)
Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife
Jodi Picoult - My Sister's Keeper
Andrew Taylor - The American Boy
Carlos Ruiz Zafón - The Shadow of the Wind
2006
Julian Barnes - Arthur & George
Richard Benson - The Farm
Geraldine Brooks - March
Michael Connelly - The Lincoln Lawyer
Martin Davies - The Conjurer's Bird
Nicole Krauss - The History of Love
Anchee Min - Empress Orchid
Kate Mosse - Labyrinth (winner)
Eva Rice - The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets
Andrew Smith - Moondust
2007
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - Half of a Yellow Sun
William Boyd - Restless
A.M. Homes - This Book Will Save Your Life
Lori Lansens - The Girls
James Robertson - The Testament of Gideon Mack
Griff Rhys Jones - Semi-detached
Jed Rubenfeld - The Interpretation of Murder (winner)
Catherine Ryan Hyde - Love in the Present Tense
2008
Danny Scheinmann - Random Acts of Heroic Love
Katharine McMahon - Rose of Sebastopol
Roger Jon Ellory - A Quiet Belief in Angels
Patrick Gale - Notes from an Exhibition
Joshua Ferris - Then We Came to the End
Mark Slouka - Visible World
Lloyd Jones - Mister Pip
Tim Butcher - Blood River
Peter Ho Davies - The Welsh Girl
Khaled Hosseini - A Thousand Splendid Suns (winner)
2009
Jesse Kellerman - The Brutal Art
Kate Summerscale - The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher
Andrew Davidson - The Gargoyle
Kate Atkinson - When Will There Be Good News
David Ebershoff - The 19th Wife
France Osborne - The Bolter: Idina Sackville-The Woman Who Scandalised 1920s Society and Became White Mischief's Infamous Seductress
Joseph O'Neil - Netherland
Beatrice Colin - The Luminous Life of Lilly Aphrodite
Elizabeth H Winthrop - December
Steven Galloway - The Cellist of Sarajevo
Summer Book Club 2004
Jennifer Donnelly - A Gathering Light
P. J. Tracy - Want to Play?
Cecelia Ahern - PS, I Love You
Maile Meloy - Liars and Saints
Ben Richards - The Mermaid and the Drunks
Bella Pollen - Hunting Unicorns
2005
Karen Quinn - The Ivy Chronicles
George Hagen - The Laments
Anthony Capella - The Food Of Love
Susan Fletcher- Eve Green
Ben Sherwood - The Life and Death of Charlie St Cloud
David Wolstencroft - Good News, Bad News
2006
Jim Lynch - The Highest Tide
Sam Bourne - The Righteous Men
Victoria Hislop - The Island
Dorothy Koomson - My Best Friend's Girl
Elisabeth Hyde - The Abortionist's Daughter
Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian
2007
Kim Edwards - The Memory Keeper's Daughter
Simon Kernick - Relentless
Kate Morton - The House at Riverton
Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In The Yemen
Jane Fallon - Getting Rid of Matthew
Mark Mills - The Savage Garden
Jonathan Tropper - How to talk to a Widower
Mary Lawson - The Other Side of The Bridge
2008
Sadie Jones - The Outcast
Linwood Barclay - No Time for Goodbye
Julia Gregson - East of the Sun
John Hart - Down River
Margret Cezair - The Pirate's Daughter
Rebecca Miller - The Private Lives of Pippa Lee
Toni Jordan - Addition
James Bradley - The Resurrectionist
2009
Julian Fellowes - Past Imperfect
Dave Boling - Guernica
Stephen L. Carter - Palace Council
Charles Elton - Mr Toppit
Jill Dawson - The Great Lover
Bateman - Mystery Man
Sue Miller - The Senator's Wife
Janice Y. K. Lee - The Piano Teacher
As to My best friend's girl, it wasn't half as bad as they make it out to be. Imuch preferred Marshmallows for breakfast, but my best friends girl wasn't that bad. Certainly neither were mind blowingly awe inspiringly amazing. But they are good at what they are and don't pretend to be anything else chicklit.
Also it wasn't published by Mills and Boons, from whose 'wagon' incidentally Jack London was launched amongst other greats, it was published by TimeWarner. And aside from the fact Mils and Boons isn't even called Mills and Boons anymore, officially as a company the imprint still exists, you do realise they are one of the most successful publishers of all time?
Good post Night. Most of the books on the R & J list are not my cup of tea, but I'm not going to dismiss them all. As someone whose job is to get people into reading, as is yours, I find this constant sneering quite disheartening. I admit I personally can't read utter drivel, (*cough* Dan Brown), but there is something quite condescending about attempts to get people to read. Literacy levels are shockingly low, and what do we do when attempts are made, successfully, to get people reading, but sneer at them. It's like the same syndrome with exams. Every year when the results come out, what are the headlines? Exams are getting easier.......the students do well, after working hard, and then they're knocked :crash: What are they supposed to do? Sorry if that seems off-topic, but it's a similar thing. Whingers and moaners slagging off any attempts to do anything positive. For people who aren't avid readers, are we supposed to scare them off with critically acclaimed, worthy fiction, when it's an achievement to get them to read something?
The clip was excruciating, but because that was bad, and the book sounded awful, it doesn't mean that every book that's been reviewed was. The knock-on effect of these programmes is on the whole positive. They get people interested and we can see the results in bookshops and libraries which are inundated with shoppers for the books. Who knows, get people in and they may progress onto more "quality" literature, but if they don't, so what? If they enjoy the books they've tried, who are we to sneer?
Well, since there was talk of nominating Oprah to SCOTUS--not joking--I am sure she'll form her own world government soon and we'll all be happily surprised at the strength of Winfrey utopia!:D But before Sche raps my knuckles for faux political statements:p, she does do her followers a good turn with her book club. I have not liked some of the selections (not that I've read many of them), like Poisonwood Bible, or White Oleander, both of which suffer from plodding, stretching the plot development like salt water taffy, but they aren't the worst white-girl novels in the world. Kingsolver, especially, if she had a better editor, would have a stronger voice. And The Corrections, which I believe is one of her picks, isn't so bad for a non-academic reader to try. It is not the great American novel either, but Frazen does a fairly decent character study of a typical messed up family.
Cant we all just decide on Dan Brown and leave it at that? :lol:
That or Stephinine Myre (spelling? Oh well, I dont care.)
Friggin Twilight anyway.
Yep said that:Quote:
Originally Posted by wessexgirl
However my thoughts on Richard and Judy remain the same.Quote:
Yes I've not got a problem with non-readers cutting their teeth on books like this, I would agree with you that it is a good thing to get people reading who wouldn't normally do so, however I won't be tuning in to get advice, I've already read too much rubbish when I was younger and I don't need to go back to that.
I'm sure that they are not all rubbish anyway, I'm sure that there are some that are only slightly rubbish.
__________________
:sick:I hated that book!So much so I got to the last 70 pages and gave up. Which isn't as bad as Jane Eyre which I suffered all the way to Reader I married himand then gave up. Mostly because I already knew how it ended and couldn't stand a moment more with annoying characters ( although that was 6 years ago so am going to try again this summer seeing as recent rereading of Tale of Two cities and Wuthering Heights have cured e of my unreasonable hatred for both of them. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Jozanny
Every Book its reader and Every reader his book eh? One of the Collection development principles for people not in the know. the as is yours bit is directed at me right? Cause yeah I also find the sneering annoying. My flatmate who has been a librarian for 15 years only reads Historical romances. Well she will read modern romances but I can't understand her criteria for choosing modern romances. I inevitably bring back the wrong ones for her.Quote:
Originally Posted by wessexgirl
Anyway the point is the woman is highly intelligent and all that but she just loves romances, so why shouldnt she read them? Course it is frustrating and I am constantly trying to slip something else like chicklit past her, to no avail, as it would make getting her books that much easier for me. I do find sneering annoying, I got sneered at my a member of staff at a library in Manchester for asking for a romance author. I was horrified, that is almost fireable offence at work, or it should well be.
See you get someone started on romances, then you move them on to the Original modern romance E.M. Hull ( or was it Dell? :confused: ) The sheik ( I thought it an awful book by the way but interesting point of view on arabs, similar to the view in E.R Burroughs, Son of Tarazan. Then you go you know what how about Austen??
And voila building reader confidence 101.
But like my flatmate you will always get confident strong readers, who have read the classics and the worthy books for years and decided you know what ? They like the romance novels so they are going to read romance novels. And that is perfectly OK.
Mills and Boon didn't become exclusively purveyors of "Romantic" fiction until later in their existence. Originally they were publishers of straight fiction; hence Jack London and others. It doesn't matter who actually publishes chicklit, Mills and Boon has become a generic indicator of the genre.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nightshade
I do realise they are one of the most successful publishers of all time but, by the same token, Barbara Cartland is one of the most successful writers of all time, and here's why:
Racing around Tesco the other day, my trolley dash was brought to an unexpected halt by the sight of a striking couple whose compelling appearance snagged my attention.
The man was tall, lantern-jawed, the expression on his ruggedly handsome face unreadable but utterly mesmerising.
Edging closer, I could see the fragile blonde by his side thought so too; for though the upward tilt of her delicate chin hinted at defiance, the way she leaned into his muscular body was suggestive of a woman almost liquid with desire.
The chemistry between the two was so electrifying that suddenly all thoughts of my weekly shop were abandoned and replaced instead by a desperation to know how such a captivating partnership had come to pass.
And so with one fluid movement, I grabbed the Mills and boon paperback on which they were cover stars and quickly concealed it in my trolley as though it were a topshelf magazine.
As I have said before on this thread, one has to laugh because the only alternative is :brickwall
Heh. Ok I hate to assume but I am going to on this occasion assume that you have never read either a M&B or a chicklit book, that is other than maybe a quick look at one to confirm your opinion.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
Now Ive got to say they are NOT intercchangable as genres. The M&Bs and especially mills and boons imprint, are formulaic. You can tell exactly what will happen by the colour of the cover. Bluey-green medical romance. Dark blue modern/contemrary Romances. Pink, are those corporate romancces. Drak purple is Inruge and also HIstorical romances and so on anyway.
Mills and boons operate a formula style the book has to fit into one of the established frame works. And for the most part to quote my course mate " the women are all tiny, beautiful and the men are all Good noble brave and gorgeous." actually she was talking about Feehan and the like, but the principle stands.
Chicklit on cthe other hand is much more varied and take themselves less seriously than proper romances. Off the top of my head I cant think of a perfecct example other than the Book lover which was kind of wierd but had a brilliant ver literatry book list on the front.
Oh I know some of the Margret AtTwoods are chicklit. :nod:
:D
( can you tell I have been in charge of the romance section in the libray for the last 3 and a half years?) :rolleyes:
Speaking of which if I dont get on I will be late, Ill think of better examples while I am working. :D
Well I was using chicklit in its broadest sense but I won't argue that there may be different degrees of competence within the genre. However, I think you will enjoy the Mills and Boon cover designs on the link below.
They are absolutely hilarious but No.3 must take the cake for both title and picture,have you ever seen a guy wearing a leopardskin with a haircut like that?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gall...nd-boon-covers
:lol: Wonderful, no.3 spot on! Didn't they make no.6 into a carry on film too? Agatha Christie missed out on no.7 big time, that sure had potential.Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
What's with Number 1?! And Number 2 she's rubbing up against him...
These are excellent!Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
:D
Romance Goes Tenting
WAAF to Wife
Grace Before Meat
:D:D:D
wait a second some of those are real titles! :lol:
Pleae tell me they arent all , though I wouldnt put it past them. I Love mills and boons titles, they are almost always garnteed to cheer me up on a horrible day :nod:
I recently had the misfortune of picking up a book to read from a dusty collection I found in my closet. This was two weeks ago. It was so awful I searched for it on the internet to see if anyone had heard of it.
It's called Silk and Steel by Ron Miller.
Luckily, or maybe unluckily, someone on Livejournal not only heard of the book but made a blog entry about it. http://vandonovan.livejournal.com/1088311.html
I also read the Twilight series not too long ago as part of a reading challenge with a couple of friends, so......I'm going to also vote for Stephenie Meyer. I think what made me most irritated about those books is that she started out with an interesting enough concept, but it's as if when writing it she simply didn't care about character development, plot structure, continuity, canon rules, word repitition, purple prose, dues ex machinas etc etc. She either doesn't care, or has no idea what those are.
All that wasted potential made me cry. T_T
As to Amanda McKittrick Ros, yes, she perplexed most conventional readers, but you must admit that there is a certain perverse brilliance to a book that begins
Have you ever visited that portion of Erin's plot that offers its sympathetic soil for the minute survey and scrutinous examination of those in political power, whose decision has wisely been the means before now of converting the stern and prejudiced, and reaching the hand of slight aid to share its strength in augmenting its agricultural richness?
Another author worthy of mention here, since he is frequently described as "the worst ever", is the American mystery writer Harry Stephen Keeler. Again, I cannot help but recognise his peculiar genius:
For it must be remembered that at the time I knew quite nothing, naturally, concerning Milo Payne, the mysterious Cockney-talking Englishman with the checkered long-beaked Sherlockholmsian cap; nor of the latter's 'Barr-Bag' which was as like my own bag as one Milwaukee wienerwurst is like another; nor of Legga, the Human Spider, with her four legs and her six arms; nor of Ichabod Chang, ex-convict, and son of Dong Chang; nor of the elusive poetess, Abigail Sprigge; nor of the Great Simon, with his 2163 pearl buttons; nor of--in short, I then knew quite nothing about anything or anybody involved in the affair of which I had now become a part, unless perchance it were my Nemesis, Sophie Kratzenschneiderwümpel--or Suing Sophie!
I haven't read everything in existence, but the first 30 or so pages of Twilight are pretty bad.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wessexgirl
Wessex, I know that you set great store by George Orwell so I thought you might like to read an extract from his essay 'Bookshop Memories'. His indignation is nothing short of hilarious and it might be instructive to read the whole essay. I think it would provide a great laugh for anyone who contributes to this site.
Our shop stood exactly on the frontier between Hampstead and Camden Town, and we were frequented by all types from baronets to bus-conductors. Probably our library subscribers were a fair cross-section of London's reading public. It is therefore worth noting that of all the authors in our library the one who 'went out' the best was – Priestley? Hemingway? Walpole? Wodehouse? No, Ethel M. Dell, with Warwick Deeping a good second and Jeffrey Farnol, I should say, third. Dell's novels, of course, are read solely by women, but by women of all kinds and ages and not, as one might expect, merely by wistful spinsters and the fat wives of tobacconists. It is not true that men don't read novels, but it is true that there are whole branches of fiction that they avoid. Roughly speaking, what one might call the average novel – the ordinary, good-bad, Galsworthy-and-water stuff which is the norm of the English novel – seems to exist only for women. Men read either the novels it is possible to respect, or detective stories. But their consumption of detective stories is terrific. One of our subscribers to my knowledge read four or five detective stories every week for over a year, besides others which he got from another library. What chiefly surprised me was that he never read the same book twice. Apparently the whole of that frightful torrent of trash (the pages read every year would, I calculated, cover nearly three quarters of an acre) was stored for ever in his memory. He took no notice of titles or author's names, but he could tell by merely glancing into a book whether he had 'had it already'.
Sometimes, you really should judge a book by its cover...:lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Brian Bean
Anne McAffrey. The woman's horrific. Melodrama on every page, half her stuff, even down to character names, pilfered from better writers (case in point, half the names in Dragons Dawn are more or less copy-pasted from Dune), and it just came across...cheap. Best way I can describe it.
1 Jeffrey Archer
2 Stephen King
3 Racine (Yes, yes, I know, I'll get shot down in flames - but the guy was responsible for a lot of pain. He wasn't nicknamed 'Rancid' for nothing).
Racine sounds nice in translation. Phedre is a great play.
Don't forget Jeffrey Archer.
kamila shamsie.
so pretentious.
This must be the only time in history that Racine has been linked with Jeffrey Archer and Stephen king.Quote:
Originally Posted by emily00
Poor Racine :( I think Phedre is a wonderful piece of theatre.
I think that the worst writer is someone whom everybody has forgotten since the author is just so worthless.
Another possibility is that there is no worst writer since you can always find a worse one.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Scheherazade
I wouldn't refuse to read a book just because Oprah endorsed it. Traditionally though, what she endorses is dime a dozen crap. She's had some okay and good ones, but that's not often the case.
If I hear someone fawn over how wonderful a book is or how wonderful it looked just because they saw something about it on Oprah, that would never inspire me to gravitate towards the book. Perhaps it's the majority of the overzealous Oprah followers who tend to kill it for me. Many of them (at least at the bookstore where I worked) bought and read these books ONLY because Oprah endorsed it and wouldn't endorse anything else. If she promoted a favorite author of mine and I heard about it, I'll still read it. But, for example, Marly and Me and The Secret, I avoided after hearing about them from about 102308709 different people on almost a daily basis.
That's a big difference from just eating something that has a wrapper or commerical with a certain celebrity and sitting and reading a book. But no, I probably wouldn't eat a Godiva with Britney Spears on the wrapper. Cheerios with 80's Madonna though, I probably would :p
It's the funniest thing! I just bought a magazine, and it had a free Mills & Boons book in the plastic bag. So I opened the book and the dedication says, "For the unknown man I soaked while driving through a puddle."
Ahahahahaha!!!! :lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: Who writes stuff like that??
The title is Blind-Date Marriage... oi, you can just tell it'll be a winner :p
A really bad writer? Hm... Could be very difficult. I read somewhere that you can learn more from a bad book, than from a good one, but still you can't learn how to do good from a bad book. I haven't read that many poorlywritten books. I remember one cheesy novel, its action set in texas, written by a grand anonymous lady, can't really remember the name of the author, but i remember the main character's name was Zane - that annoyed me so much!!! I ended up ripping the book apart. I also think John Saul is a bad writer, not the worst though. Who else? Hm... I found Gabriele d'Annunzio bloody awful, yet still not the worst. I keep thinking of cheesy lovenovels and just can't say the classic authors are worse than those rubbishbooks.
I absolutely agree. I read "Fire" and found it confused and pompous gibberish. I'll never understand why people made such a fuzz about d'Annunzio.Quote:
Originally Posted by Vitruvius
But he was who Mussolini got his style off.
Was Mussolini's fiction style also poor? I haven't read Mussolini's novel yet, but I plan to.Quote:
Originally Posted by kelby_lake
Mussolini wrote a novel? :confused:
Yes, he did. It was initially serialized in a newspaper that he worked for. In 1929 it was published in book form. From what I have read about it, it had all of the flaws of a serialized novel, but it wasn't very good either.Quote:
Originally Posted by Desolation
Paulo Coelho
Friends, I take you back to the start of this thread. Lots of you are merely complaining about genres you don't like or average/mediocre writing, or styles that don't suit your taste. And I think bad poetry has to be in a separate class (though there I'd vote for Samuel Wesley - John Wesley's father).
But Amanda McKittrick Ros really does take the flag for just amazingly, outrageously bad awful writing -- a different class altogether than some mentioned here. If you haven't read any of her writing before responding, you should -- it will reset your standard for dreadful.