#168296 - Wed Mar 07 2007 11:00 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Champion
Registered: Tue Apr 17 2001
Posts: 7306
Loc: Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania USA
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A Separate Peace by John Knowles just bored me to tears. I know people who really enjoyed it, but I'm not one of them. I read "The Lovely Bones" a few years ago because it had so much acclaim, I didn't like it at all. In fact, I still don't get what all the hype was about. I've never made it through an entire Dickens novel. As someone else once put it, "Short story long, anything by Dickens."
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#168298 - Mon Mar 12 2007 05:33 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Mainstay
Registered: Sun Mar 11 2007
Posts: 518
Loc: Lancashire UK
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Just struggled through "Labyrinth" by Kate Mosse, supposedly a No 1 bestseller, but totally confusing (a mixture of modern and medieval) and pointless too, in the end. Definitely the worst book I have read in a long time. I nearly gave up a few times, but persevered thinking it might get better. It didn't.
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#168301 - Tue Jun 12 2007 05:41 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Participant
Registered: Mon Jun 11 2007
Posts: 13
Loc: Kent England UK
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I suppose technically 'Lord of the Flies' is a Very Good Book but it's certainly one of my most disliked. Even worse than reading it was having to listen to a dramatised version on the radio.
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#168302 - Wed Jun 20 2007 03:46 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Learning the ropes...
Registered: Wed Jun 20 2007
Posts: 3
Loc: South Africa
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I think that the worst book ever is "Power and Stone". It's by Alice Cooper I think. Oh my gosh, it's about these Roman kids that move and they're being followed into baths and showers and their mother is pregnant. The eldest boy runs away and they find a village to live in.
It's way too historical for me... YUK!!!!
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#168303 - Wed Jun 20 2007 06:49 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Prolific
Registered: Fri Aug 20 2004
Posts: 1302
Loc: Omaha Nebraska USA
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Quote:
I think that the worst book ever is "Power and Stone". It's by Alice Cooper I think. Oh my gosh, it's about these Roman kids that move and they're being followed into baths and showers and their mother is pregnant. The eldest boy runs away and they find a village to live in.
It's way too historical for me... YUK!!!!
I could not find this on Amazon, so I'll ask:
THE ALICE COOPER????? I'm assuming not, but I'd read that book on general principle.
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Stu
Editor, Sports
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#168304 - Wed Jun 20 2007 04:14 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Prolific
Registered: Fri Jun 20 2003
Posts: 1179
Loc: Bay Area California USA
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It appears the author is one Alice Leader.  Hey, AC has tried acting, why not writing too? I'd give it a whirl. 
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"A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking." ~ Jerry Seinfeld
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#168305 - Fri Jun 22 2007 05:55 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Adept
Registered: Sat Jun 16 2007
Posts: 134
Loc: West Virginia USA
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The Lord of the Rings are the greatest books ever written! To deny their power is to be nothing less than ignorant. How can anyone say that the second greatest selling book of all time, second only to the bible, is terrible, stupid, or anything other than utterly amazing. The main problem with people and Tolkien is that they don't approach it correctly, it is more of a history than some dime novel, and rocks! So be quiet yous.
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#168306 - Fri Jun 22 2007 06:10 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Prolific
Registered: Fri Aug 20 2004
Posts: 1302
Loc: Omaha Nebraska USA
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Quote:
The Lord of the Rings are the greatest books ever written! To deny their power is to be nothing less than ignorant. How can anyone say that the second greatest selling book of all time, second only to the bible, is terrible, stupid, or anything other than utterly amazing.
Well, considering that the "second greatest selling book of all time" is actually a polemic by a communist dictator who had the intellectuals of his society systematically killed, I'd find it quite easy to declare that said tome was terrible, though perhaps not stupid, but certainly something less than utterly amazing.
And keep a civil tongue in your head, mate.
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Peace,
Stu
Editor, Sports
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#168307 - Fri Jun 22 2007 06:15 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Adept
Registered: Sat Jun 16 2007
Posts: 134
Loc: West Virginia USA
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I will tell you that my least favorite book ever is "The Scarlet Letter." Most books I was forced to read turned out to be very good, but this one was terrible, I actually fell asleep reading it. Symbolism is too much work, just say what you want to say.
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If women are expected to do the same work as men, we must teach them the same things.
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#168308 - Fri Jun 22 2007 06:27 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Enthusiast
Registered: Sun Apr 29 2007
Posts: 264
Loc: Antgonish Nova Scotia Canada
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I can appreciate LOTR for what it is, but it is far from amazing.
Worst book I've ever read would have to be Catcher In The Rye and that's not saying a lot because I enjoyed it. I can't say I've read a book that I haven't liked or appreciated in some way.
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#168310 - Fri Jun 22 2007 06:43 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Enthusiast
Registered: Sun Apr 29 2007
Posts: 264
Loc: Antgonish Nova Scotia Canada
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Haha I stand corrected.
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"A ray of light into a room that's remained dark for a thousand years dissolves a thousand years of darkness"
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#168314 - Sat Jun 23 2007 01:14 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Champion
Registered: Wed Nov 01 2006
Posts: 5815
Loc: Santa Ana
El Salvador
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For me, apart from LOTR and the Bible, there are two books that I quite simply cannot stand. The first is The da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. My wife bought this for me in an attempt to get me to read fiction. I did try, I truly did. I trawled through twenty or so pages of sheer disbelief and misery. A silly novel with every stereotype under the sun appearing at a wave from Mr Brown's typing finger. Stolen plots, characters and situations.
But far worse to my mind is the tome written by Salman Rushdie, namely the Satanic Verses. Never, to my mind, has a more incomprehensible heap of drivel been published and rewarded with plaudits from the literati. The chattering classes praised this work of epic mediocrity to the skies whilst admitting, years later, that they had not understood a word of the wretched thing.
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Life is just a bowl of cherries, and that makes for an awful lot of stones.
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#168315 - Sat Jun 23 2007 05:01 PM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Participant
Registered: Fri Jun 15 2007
Posts: 23
Loc: Maine USA
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Quote:
Steven King - 'The Stand'. This guy may know how to devise a decent plot and throw in some psychological suspense but his awful, clunky style makes Jeffrey Archer look like Evelyn Waugh.
Got about half way through this unreadable farrago before hauling up the white flag and have kept SK at arm's length ever since. Pity, 'cos half the alleged literature questions on this site seem to revolve around the Mainiac's finest work!
Thank you! I don't know if I even got halfway through. Needless to say, I don't dare disparage King's works too loudly around here. I managed to get through The Shining and Cujo, but didn't love them.
I guess I can also join the anti-LOTR club. The Hobbit was OK, but halfway through the first of the trilogy and I couldn't take anymore. I guess neither fantasy nor horror are my genres.
Edited by billiejj (Sun Jun 24 2007 04:30 AM)
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#168316 - Sun Jun 24 2007 08:36 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Adept
Registered: Fri Nov 28 2003
Posts: 174
Loc: The Netherlands
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Worst book for me would have to be Huxley's Brave New World. Generally dull, rambling, silly plot throughout and an even sillier ending. Fans of this genre should definitely stick to Orwell and 1984, which is far superior and much better written. Avoid BNW at all costs.
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#168318 - Mon Jun 25 2007 03:19 AM
Re: Worst Book Ever
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Forum Adept
Registered: Fri May 11 2007
Posts: 128
Loc: Hawaii USA
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It seems like alot of people don't like LOTR. Well, I don't like any of the Harry Potter books! I am so sick of people talking about them like they are the greatest books ever written. Boring drivel, if you ask me. The movies are pretty bad, too.
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Probably a very close second would be Music on the Bamboo Radio which had the same problems but was only half Empire's length 
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