Books you refuse to read.

[The Pious Pawn]

the bible not my cup of tea or the koran !! root of all evil them two are in my eyes .

 

[lizzieloo]

Ithink they'd both be pretty interesting

 

[Dirty Martini]

Harry Potter and Dan Brown

Memoirs of a life of crime by lovable sadists called Freddie or Nosher

Anything that does 70s nostalgia by numbers, mentioning Choppers and Spangles by name

Magic realism featuring flying goats, secret libraries and 150-year-old grandmothers

Books about a year spent renovating a farmhouse and growing plums in Umbria

Books like 'The Kettle and How It Changed the World Forever'

Any more books by Michel Houllebecq

Anything by Terry Pratchett

 

[dynamicbaddog]

I'd avoid anything by Martin Amis &
also Tony Parsons

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I think the only authors I simply wouldn't bother with even if I was stuck on a desert island are Piers Anthony and Dean R Koontz. Neither have any redeeming features. However, I know this because I've read them so they don't really count I suppose.

I might flick through a Dan Brown out of curiosity but I'm 99% sure I'd end up hating both it and myself so I'm not planning to do so. Same with almost anything advertised on the tube really. Or anything with a poster that has "TERROR HAS A NEW NAME" or "ACTION HAS A NEW NAME" or similar on it. Potboiling has a new name.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I will read pretty much anything. I read voraciously and indiscriminately and extremely fast so no biggie if it's a pile of shite and I usually have about 4 books on the go anyway, many of them are re-reads. I am a complete word-whore. I get a kick out of going to bookshops, more so than I do in a shop selling cakes or handbags.


Having said that, I would not read the Mailor the Mail on Sunday, although I will read Scientology leaflets and the Watch Tower for a laugh.

 

[scott_forester]

Anything by Andy McNab - they are just shite - but I'm sure he is a charming ex-special forces chappy.

 

[El Jugador]

more votes here for Harry fucking Potter and the wankstains of toffington,

and The Bible - unless it were on audiotape and read by Brian Blessed as God.

 

[lizzieloo]

unless it were on audiotape and read by Brian Blessed as God.

 

[pilchardman]

1) Lord of the Rings
2) The Da Vinci Code
3) 99% of sporting autobiographies
4) 75% of political memoirs
5) All fantasy books that require you to learn a new invented language

I love you.

 

[Pickman's model]

auto/biographies of currently playing footballers. what's the fucking point of reading a biography of a twenty year-old? it's just "my mum & dad are blinding/wankers* & i went to school which was good/too hard/boring* & i started playing for a team".

* delete as appropriate.

 

[pilchardman]

my mum & dad are blinding wankers

 

[holden]

"The Alchemist."
Perhaps unfairly, but I'm put off by books such as these.
Though maybe I should read it, so I can learn how to dispense with my scepticism and get more out of life etc etc

I like Herman Hesse though.

 

[Iam]

I wouldn't bother, it's toss. I read it cos a girl I liked loaned it to me, full of excitment about how wonderful it is. It's not.

I'll read pretty much anything, me. I sort of like my fiction wild (less realistic the better) so I'm often to be found reading some trash fantasy or sci-fi novel, but generally I don't mind what the subject matter is if I can be diverted by it for a bit. I started the Da Vinci Code and put it down quickly, cos I was bored within a couple of pages. That doesn't happen very often.

 

[Iam]

Actually, what's worse is that not only did I read and finish the Alchemist, but my non-committal like noises on returning the book were taken as agreement and I wound up being given Veronika Decides to Die. Which she took a very long time about doing. I forget whether she actually died in the end or not. To be honest, I'd long since stopped caring.

From now on, I refuse to read books to impress other people!!

 

[MysteryGuest]

I won't read anything that I've seen a lot of people reading on public transport. I don't care if it's Memoirs of a Geisha, Nick Hornby, whatever, I'm unable to be interested once I've seen it's a smash hit. Oh yes, and Captain Corelli's Mandolin - I had a copy practically forced on me back in 1998 by a friend. I haven't read it yet. And I'm not going to at any time in the future either.

 

[chegrimandi]

Da Vinci Code
Phillip Pullman things
any sci fi
Harry Potter
Birdsong

(any of those ones that everyone reads, any book loads of people that I don't normally talk to gush about, anything described as a phenomenon....)

I normally just wander round a second hand bookshop picking up books that look good and I like the sound of - seldom go to a bookshop to buy a specific book......

 

[Dirty Martini]

Oh yes, and Captain Corelli's Mandolin - I had a copy practically forced on me back in 1998 by a friend. I haven't read it yet. And I'm not going to at any time in the future either.

Avoiding books set in Southern Europe and written by British authors is a good rule of thumb. Glorified travel brochures.

 

[chooch]

Avoiding books set in Southern Europe and written by British authors is a good rule of thumb

Homage to Catalonia? .
Didn't much rate that Timoleon Vieta thing, but it did take a swing at all that we bought a house in the hills of Whereveronia and everything was so quaint bollocks.


Tend to avoid:
Gold lettering.
Anything by anyone called Rachel.
Anything described as 'magical'.

 

[Batley]

anything by:

* dan brown;
* jane austen;
* iris murdoch.

i'll think of some more and add later.

Odd trio. The first yes but I always feel a bit diappointed when a clever chap dislikes Jane Austen novels.

 

[Major Tom]

jeffrey archer

that tory cunt who writes spy books

the bible

any Tory memoir

any business guru manual

so called funny books about dead cats and such-like.

 

[Kameron]

Odd trio. The first yes but I always feel a bit diappointed when a clever chap dislikes Jane Austen novels.

That was what my comment was going to be. If you were to say "and everything in between" then you would have eliminated the vast bulk of English literature so I assume that PM has discrete reasons for his dislike of each of these Authors. After all Iris Murdoch wrote the sacred and profane love machine which is wonderful and on my must absolutely go out and buy list.

 

[May Kasahara]

Most if not all of whatever product is churned out by the literary high society who backslap each other in the Guardian Review section every Saturday: Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, Julian Barnes, blah blah blah blah blah bore me some more.

I'm perfectly happy to admit that this is my own personal prejudice, because they all sound like such appalling wankers (well, not Monica Ali, she sounds alright, but you still could not locate my interest in reading 'Brick Lane' with an electron microscope), but if you're not comfortable wallowing in your own fatheaded complacency then life just isn't worth living.

Oh, and George Eliot, anything by. I'd rather use 'Middlemarch' to club a nest of adorable baby birds to death, than actually read the fucking thing. And I'm sad enough to still sleep with the light on, even though I'm nearly 30, so you can imagine how hard bird-murdering would be for me.

 

[MysteryGuest]

Most if not all of whatever product is churned out by the literary high society who backslap each other in the Guardian Review section every Saturday: Zadie Smith, Monica Ali, Julian Barnes, blah blah blah blah blah bore me some more.

Yeah same here - middle class fiction for Guardianistas. Transcendentally uninteresting. *yawn*

 

[milesy]

that reminds me, i've *still* not finished "white teeth" yet, i've been half way through it for about a year now....

 

[Orang Utan]

George Eliot and Jane Austen are FANTASTIC authors - you really should read Middlemarch, May - it's a brilliant atheist tract.
I won't read Coelho but I'll read anything, even if I think it'll be shit - after all, you can't slag anything off unless you've read it, can you? Which is why I'm glad I've read the Da Vinci Code and Colour Of Magic

 

[William of Walworth]

Any conspiranoid bollocks.

Any drivel about Bible Codes, space aliens having built the Pyramids, etc.

Anything to do with astrology/Zodiac.

DaVinci Code.

Anything that treats creationism or climate change denial as if its reputable science.

(Almost) any book DELIBERATELY written to be 'contrarian' (99% of cases -- far-right wing crap).

 

[Orang Utan]

that reminds me, i've *still* not finished "white teeth" yet, i've been half way through it for about a year now....

It's rubbish - it won't get any better, I promise

 

[Major Tom]

Any conspiranoid bollocks.

But some of it is fantastic entertainment. You're missing out.

 

[milesy]

It's rubbish - it won't get any better, I promise

well what i had read so far i've enjoyed. it's just that i'm far too busy to be bookish these days, you know.

i shall make a point of reading some more this evening.