Five Books Nobody Should Read

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Originally Posted by Modest Proposal

I understand most of your complaint, but wonder if we are letting our frustration with the world's flaws cloud what might be the author's attempt at dealing with a spiritual concept. I think the issue is seeing the tree as an individual rather than an abstract.

Maybe this is how it is meant. The tree's joy doesn't come from standing on a hill, or holding out branches, or casting a shadow, but in enriching other lives. Now surely, the tree can be used--as we see so often in life--by those willing to take and take and take, but does this diminish the joy felt by the tree in giving of itself? I think the frustration is from an outside perspective, we see injustice and are galled by it. We imagine the indignation that the tree must feel at beind so perfectly self-less and still being asked for more. But I think the point is that above: that giving is exactly what the tree wants.

I think the issue comes when we try to apply this ideal to a flawed humanity. How can a person be like that? Should they even try? I think in some way, this is what Dostoevski was getting at in the Christic figure of "The Idiot."

So in the end, I think you are right to be wary of reading it to young ones. I don't want to encourage my own daughter to give herself up like that to one who will just use her. But I think the author is trying to get at something that is not neccessarily "wrong" as much as complicated and abstracted.

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Compelling read Modest Proposal-- and I agree with most of it, all of it actually. You could even read book as a parable of Nature as beneficient provider.

The only part of your read that I'm wondering about is one part (I'm not sure where) in the book where after that ******* boy takes yet another thing from the tree, and Silverstein offers the reader the tree's usual refrain "and the tree was happy". Then he adds "but not really". That part makes me cry every time.

But that's a little trifle - I do think Silverstein was working with the idea of selflessness. Nevertheless, I still hate that book. It's good -- if it wasn't I wouldn't care as much -- but man. . . .it's rough.

I read a book of matches that seemed, to me to have no salient point of view, and the Bible, although it started of with a bang and had some pretty good poetry somewhere near the middle, went a little L. Ron Hubbard on me at the end.

I've noticed that quite a few people on here dislike Jane Austen.
I'm a fan, but I won't try and convince you to like her.
Instead, I recommend you check out
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies or
Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.
Both are very funny and much more exciting than the originals.
They also have hilarious illustrations.

I'm going to have to "save" this thread because it is such a lively discussion packed with numerous and lively replies. Here, if I may, are some comments regarding the first page of replies I've managed to read so far:

--I would avoid any book by any politician of any persuasion if that book was written by anyone other than the politician himself or herself. In many cases such "autobiographies"[sic] "memoirs" haven'teven been read by the alleged author himself or herself.

--Additionally avoid books whose cover lists the "author's" name "with" someone else. Likewise, "as told to. . ."

--I wouldn't waste my time on books whose title is "The Five (whatever) You Meet in (wherever)," etc.

--Same with "novelizations" of films made directly from screenplays.

--and finally, in the movie masterpiece, Dinner at Eight (1933), there's a fabulous line of dialogue that's ahead of its time in that it's extremely Marshall McLuhanesque (remember him?): The sugar daddy-- played, I believe , by Wallace Berry-- tells his sweetie, Jean Harlow, that he's going to buy her a present. Jean replies, "Don't get me a book. I already got a book."

xxxxxxc

LOL

Totally misread thread theme

1. The Old Man and The Sea
2. Grapes of Wrath

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Literary snobbery is one of the silliest sentiments on earth. Personally, I hated Twilight. I tossed it after 5 chapters. But why should I protest if someone else finds it enthralling and wonderful?

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Originally Posted by Lumiere

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

Literary snobbery is one of the silliest sentiments on earth. Personally, I hated Twilight. I tossed it after 5 chapters. But why should I protest if someone else finds it enthralling and wonderful?

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I think it all comes down to personal taste. I like Lapsang Souchong tea. I'm in a bit of a minority I believe.

I have just finished reading THE BODY ARTIST (Don DeLillo) and would not recommend it to anyone. Same with John Banville's THE SEA and Anne Enright's THE GATHERING. Good thing they're only thin volumes.
Will get back to you for the remaining 2.

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Originally Posted by bouquin

I have just finished reading THE BODY ARTIST (Don DeLillo) and would not recommend it to anyone.

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How does it compare to White Noise & Libra?

1. Twilight
2. The Great Gatsby *shudders*
3. On Chesil Beach

Can't say I hate any other books enough to list here.

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Originally Posted by bouquin

John Banville's THE SEA

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Oh, thanks for mentioning this!

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Originally Posted by Red-Headed

I think it all comes down to personal taste. I like Lapsang Souchong tea. I'm in a bit of a minority I believe.

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Yeah baby... Lapsang Souchong rocks! Tastes like a camping trip to me. I have to order it - it ain't big around here.

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Originally Posted by Sancho

Yeah baby... Lapsang Souchong rocks! Tastes like a camping trip to me. I have to order it - it ain't big around here.

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It sells well in England, but it isn't as popular as Earl Grey & something diabolically horrible known as PG Tips (which may be a form of chemical warfare). I'm just grateful that Waitrose stock Twinnings Lapsang.

Chemical warfare, good one.

Don’t you just love getting these threads off topic, veering off course, taking the road less traveled, departing the paved surface, bouncing into the rough, wandering aimlessly through cyberspace, and then waiting for the jackbooted authorities to step in and slap us back into line? I do.

Hmmm, yes, well, so anyway.

Most of the supermarkets around here (Publix, Kroger, and the ubiquitous Wal-Mart Super-Center) carry a few Twinings Teas and few herbal teas. I’ve seen Lapsang Souchong for sale in San Francisco, probably on account of the healthy Chinese population there - descendants of the guys who put the railroads in. Anyway, I think, the United States is mostly a Coffee-Country. They grow great coffee beans in Latin America and in Hawaii and ever since Sam Adams and his pals pitched a bunch of East-India-Company tea into Boston Harbor, it’s been considered somewhat un-American to drink the stuff.