What is the worst book(s) you have ever read?

[srlucado]

Russian lit in general can be rather strange, especially the comedies. Some of the comedic movies are strange as well (but still funny).

I haven’t read those two, sadly. I need to buy them the next time someone gives me a gift card to Barnes and Noble…

“House of the Dead” is based on Dostoyevsky’s time in prison in Siberia–quite interesting, really, and makes you wonder what he would’ve written if he didn’t have to worry about the Tsar’s censors sending him back there. “White Nights” is a sentimentalist novella, rather unlike his other, more psychological novels.

 

[leakim87]

Catcher in the Rye and The Great Gatsby. I don’t care if they did echo the culture–they were boring.

I completley disliked those two books! Both authors were truly delusional.

 

[distracted]

I completley disliked those two books! Both authors were truly delusional.

i liked C in the R… but you know… can’t remember much about it…

what did you dislike?

(also: could you go over, briefly, the "plot?)

 

[distracted]

I despise anything that is written by a non-Catholic, allegedly informing people about the Faith… that puts down the Catholic faith…

Pullllleeeeezzzze!!

that’s like learning brain surgery from someone who has thought about having the procedure or something…

 

[Spirithound]

I remember being bored to tears reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. I asked myself how it could be a “classic”. I did some digging and it turns out that what made it a classic at its time was that during the time it was written, readers expected to learn something…

Maybe this is why Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo is so often found in its abridged form…

 

[Spirithound]

So, here’s the real question: What would you all WANT to read for an English class?

Ahhh, now there’s a question. In highschool, my teacher wouldn’t let me write an essay on Agatha Christie’s works because she just wrote “fluff”. In university, And then there were none was part of a mystery novel course. Which reminds me, The Mysterious Mr. Quinn is the only one of her mysteries I disliked. I also enjoyed the course “The Fiction of Horror”, although I learned that horror stories are all about sex…

I also tried to read Wuthering Heights in middle school on my own. It worked out better when I tried it again in high school, that’s for sure.

Oh my…that’s another one…it appears I actually blocked that one from my memory…

there…all caught up now

 

[leakim87]

i liked C in the R… but you know… can’t remember much about it…

what did you dislike?

(also: could you go over, briefly, the "plot?)

I don’t clearly remember the entire story as i read it back in the 10th grade but I clearly did not like the content of the book and what it represented.

I found it to be inappropriate reading this book in a high school class room. Maybe, I felt that way because I had just moved to california from Pakistan-where I studied in an all girls catholic school-a couple of months before.I found no benfits of having Catcher in the Rye. To me it seemed to give kids a chance to read about immorality.

 

[Sarabande]

I didn’t like Tuck Everlasting or The Silmarillion. I couldn’t even get through those!

My husband is a big Tolkien fan. He really liked “The Silmarillion”, but he even admitted that you needed to be an Oxford don to be able to really understand everything without having to go back and forth with the index. hahaha!

I didn’t care too much for “A Handmaid’s Tale”. Had to read it in high school. Neither did I care for “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. These weren’t the worst books, I ever read, but I didn’t care for them. I barely remember “F 451”, just remember not enjoying it. I might feel differently about it if I read it again. Also didn’t like “On the Beach” by Nevil Shute or any of Kurt Vonnegut novels. (My English teacher would kill me. haha!) I don’t know. When I was in high school, I just wasn’t into that genre of writing. I recognize the importance of these novels and the times they were written… I just didn’t like them.

I tend to really like the classics. Can’t help it. Always have since I was a kid. I just love the writing style, although all of my journalism and English professors would have killed me if I wrote in that style. Big fan of the Bronte sisters, Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Thomas Hardy, George Elliot, Dumas, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Edith Wharton, etc.

Oh… one book I finished, but just couldn’t stand the characters were “Women in Love” by D.H. Lawrence. I understood that it was a view of British society and a critique of it through the eyes and opinion of Lawrence, but those characters were really screwed up. haha! I took a lot for me to finish. It wasn’t poorly written. I actually liked the writing, but I just didn’t like it as much as I thought I would.

I think some of the worst novels are basic junk novels or those suggested"summer reading" novels. I didn’t enjoy the few that I did read.

 

[Sarabande]

Problem with “Catcher in the Rye” is that high schools think that it is still relevant to teens today. When I read it in high school, I didn’t see anything relevant to me, but that was how it was “sold” to us. Perhaps if I read it for what it was, I might have enjoyed it, but I doubt it. I didn’t enjoy Salinger’s “Frankie and Zooie” either.

 

[distracted]

Too Great a Temptation!!

That book is awful…

the guy goes on and on about how the pastor at this huge Baptist church in TX (Dallas) wouldn’t retire and let him take over… Ok, so the pastor had an ego problem… Who doesn’t? Why write a whole book about that??

this guy sounded so self-righteous… and yet, in the end, he leaves the church entirely (claiming he didn’t leave Jesus, though…). He divorced his wife and married someone else later…

at least the guy he was bashing stayed faithful to his wife (far as anyone knows)…

the book was only intresting in a few places… like when he finally admitted how much $ he was makinng as “pastor” there: $165,000!!!

So much for “give up everything and follow [Jesus]” …

When he left, he became a salesman…

so my thought was: ego trip sinful… divorce and re-marriage OK…

 

[Dandelion_Wine]

How old were you when you read Wuthering Heights? I was capable of reading the material in 7th grade; I just wasn’t a big romance person (although I read Gone With the Wind in 6th grade and loved it, so go figure ).

I was a senior in high school.

I read Shakespeare in high school, but some of his plays I really like weren’t covered until college. Now I just need to read all of them, when I have free time…

That same teacher that introduce me to Wuthering Heights also let us watch the Moonlighting ‘version’ of Taming of the Shrew during class. Awesome.

 

[distracted]

I don’t clearly remember the entire story as i read it back in the 10th grade but I clearly did not like the content of the book and what it represented.

I found it to be inappropriate reading this book in a high school class room. Maybe, I felt that way because I had just moved to california from Pakistan-where I studied in an all girls catholic school-a couple of months before.I found no benfits of having Catcher in the Rye. To me it seemed to give kids a chance to read about immorality.

now i really don’t remember… 'cause don’t recall anything “adult” about the book… maybe i should read it again…

my memory kinda makes me wonder sometimes… too many things on my mind, i guess… (definitely NOT age… )

 

[Filius99993]

Lolita- don’t remember who it’s by. Eck. Terrible book.

It’s by Vladmir Nabakov. I got past the first couple of sentences and had to put it down. I think it’s ridiculous that a book about pedophilia is now considered “literature” by so many universities. Groooooooooss.

 

[srlucado]

It’s by Vladmir Nabakov. I got past the first couple of sentences and had to put it down. I think it’s ridiculous that a book about pedophilia is now considered “literature” by so many universities. Groooooooooss.

Vanity Fair called it “The only convincing love story of the 20th century.” What a horrible thought.

I’ve read the book, and aside from it being badly overwritten, the content is simply appalling. Whatever it’s about, it isn’t love.

 

[distracted]

i just keeping running into bad books these days…

this one called The Last Tsar… about Nicholas II of Russia…

the info in the book is good (very interesting) but the author uses a LOT of incomplete sentences… then he also switches back & forth from one year (era) to another… quotes this person, then that (again, from different time periods) so that if you are not paying extremely close attention, you can get pretty confused…

The guy needs a lesson in proper English/grammar…

in this one place he says that people in the Church went to “worship” this one guy who was supposed to be a saintly person… instead of saying “honor”… (that same old argument: Catholics worship saints…)

he referred to Madame Blavatsky (spelling?) as “famous” when it should be “infamous”… (she was basically a satanist)

it isn’t the worst book i’ve ever read but its one of them…

 

[Cracker_Mom]

Vanity Fair called it “The only convincing love story of the 20th century.” What a horrible thought.

I’ve read the book, and aside from it being badly overwritten, the content is simply appalling. Whatever it’s about, it isn’t love.

Not surprising about Vanity Fair’s take.Consider the source.It’s pretty close to soft porn itself.

 

[distracted]

Also The Streetcar named Desire was pretty bad.
x

wasn’t Tennessee Williams gay?

this one teacher i had once said that T. willimans “really understands women”…

doesn’t it get tiresome … the implication that the only men who can “understand women” are gay…??

the movie ofthat name was OK but i didn’t think it was as great as some let on…

 

[distracted]

started a book on the murder of Pope Paul I…

didn’t even know he WAS murdered… (and maybe he wasn’t… haven’t finished book and don’t trust the author ) - the author is obviously liberal and does not understand the Church (St Mt 16:18, etc…)… same old same old…

i didn’t know that Pope Paul I was in favor of artificial birth control!!!
I don’t know all the facts yet and never will… but i feel that this is another incidence, of the many throughout history, of ***God protecting his Church from teaching error… ***

 

[Eucharisted]

started a book on the murder of Pope Paul I…

didn’t even know he WAS murdered… (and maybe he wasn’t… haven’t finished book and don’t trust the author ) - the author is obviously liberal and does not understand the Church (St Mt 16:18, etc…)… same old same old…

i didn’t know that Pope Paul I was in favor of artificial birth control!!!
I don’t know all the facts yet and never will… but i feel that this is another incidence, of the many throughout history, of ***God protecting his Church from teaching error… ***

No one knows how he died. He was found dead in his bed. The Vatican believe he died of a heart attack.

No, the Pope was not in favor of birth control. But he was in favor of discussing the issue of overpopulation.

 

[tilly1]

wasn’t Tennessee Williams gay?

this one teacher i had once said that T. willimans “really understands women”…

doesn’t it get tiresome … the implication that the only men who can “understand women” are gay…??

the movie ofthat name was OK but i didn’t think it was as great as some let on…

yes he was gay and i liked streetcar