The last REAL STINKER of a book you bought?

[mozzy]

it's like there's a list of over-rated 60s "will change your life" books.

See also Jonathan Livingston fucking Seagull

That was exactly what I was hoping from Zen....!! The only thing it changed for me was, it just left me feeing "what's wrong with me, am I daft cause I think I may have missed something here?" and left me feeling twice as depressed to when i started reading it! Grr!

Also agree with Seagull - some one gave me this and said it teaches you to fly!! Fly a blinkin' punch cause i am soooo bored!

 

[marshall]

Stephen Baxter - Flood.

Like Michael Crichton only stuffed with even more pseudoscience, tedious exposition, shit dialogue and thinly veiled 'look how good my research is' non sequiturs. Like an instruction manual for writing a shit novel.

god, i read this too.

then I went and bought the sequel, ark...

but then i'll read anything that's end-of-the-worldy, it's my fictionary flaw.

 

[discokermit]

jorge luis borges - labyrinths.

fucking shit. learn to tell a story, you fucking lazy cunt.

 

[Brainaddict]

jorge luis borges - labyrinths.

fucking shit. learn to tell a story, you fucking lazy cunt.

Hehe. It's funny cos you don't see how wrong you are!


But moving on, Jonathan Livingstone Seagull is, to be fair, in a whole nother realm of shiteness from Zen or Diceman. It is a true steaming turd, a fart in the face of humanity with all the intellectual honesty of Goebbels but far less intelligence.

Someone's going to hate me for saying that aren't they? Someone whose favourite book it is

 

[discokermit]

Hehe. It's funny cos you don't see how wrong you are!

i think you'll find i'm completely right.

 

[paulhackett]

jorge luis borges - labyrinths.

fucking shit. learn to tell a story, you fucking lazy cunt.

Did you read it in English or Spanish. The Spanish is brilliant, so it may depend on the translation?

Another example is the translation of Quiet Flows the Don, where the main translation is very far removed from the original Russian..

I'm assuming to make that comment you must have read it in the original language?

 

[SpookyFrank]

god, i read this too.

then I went and bought the sequel, ark...

but then i'll read anything that's end-of-the-worldy, it's my fictionary flaw.

Thanks for telling me there's a sequel. Now I've got to read that as well. Fuck

 

[discokermit]

Did you read it in English or Spanish. The Spanish is brilliant, so it may depend on the translation?

Another example is the translation of Quiet Flows the Don, where the main translation is very far removed from the original Russian..

I'm assuming to make that comment you must have read it in the original language?

no. english.

doesn't make any difference though, i don't think. every story has a great idea that goes nowhere.

 

[temper_tantrum]

So glad someone has mentioned Paulo Coelho.

 

[paulhackett]

no. english.

doesn't make any difference though, i don't think. every story has a great idea that goes nowhere.

With any book not read in the original language you will miss vast chunks.. it's easier to describe if you imagine translations poetry, which clearly will never catch the original.

In the case of Sholokhov, which I remember more clearly, there's vast chunks left out, which obviously the publishers aren't going to put on the cover.. so you are left with a someone elses interpretation and therefore unable to form an unbiased opinion of the original.

That said it's subjective whether someone likes or dislikes, but I think in the case of Borges he is a genius, but if he bored the shit out of you, that's another matter, but there's a lot of writers who are as much about their skill with language as the storytelling..

I just read Dyer's Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.. which quite frankly drifts in terms of plot, but is beautifully written and observed. If ti was translated, I imagine someone else on some foreign language forum somewhere might be saying the same as you.

 

[Wookey]

I've twice tried to read According to Queenie by Beryl Bainbridge - it got fantastic reviews, but I just can't manage it. I suspect it's my fault really.

I loved The Lovely Bones.

 

[mrs quoad]

What's to dislike about Kevin? Engaging anti-hero and you can't fault the woman on style. The snooker one, now that was abandonable.

I wanted to batter the smug, sneering voice of the oh-so-hip laconic drooling twunt of a superficial arschloch mother within the first ten pages. And don't think I made it past twenty before the rippy teeth kicked in.

I couldn't stomach it, in a very profound way. It has been suggested that I try re-reading it (might've addressed some of the Anger issues ), but... well... it grated on my soul. Deeply.

e2a: ah.

The first 100 pages of this book is torturous to read and over-articulate.

Once the boy is actually born it turns into a fantastic novel

That Over-written to the point of screaming.

 

[mrs quoad]

More evidence towards the realisation that our parents and everyone of their generation have been lying about how good their youth was

This reminds me

Exodus, by Leon Uris...

A book that changed my dad's life. And which he worshipped.

So I finally tracked down a copy, after months of quietly searching.

And... well...

Imagine James Bond.

But cheaper.

And without the style...

Don't think I made it past 100 pages then, either

 

[Maurice Picarda]

I wanted to batter the smug, sneering voice of the oh-so-hip laconic drooling twunt of a superficial arschloch mother within the first ten pages.

I thought the mum had been carefully written by a skilled author of enormous insight with the ability to imagine and convey what smug and sneering feels like from the inside. Then I read another Shriver and realised there was more of her in Eva than I'd thought.

 

[mrs quoad]

I thought the mum had been carefully written by a skilled author of enormous insight with the ability to imagine and convey what smug and sneering feels like from the inside. Then I read another Shriver and realised there was more of her in Eva than I'd thought.

 

[temper_tantrum]

Thanks for the tip, all - been meaning to get round to reading 'We Need To Talk About Kevin' for months, and feeling guilty for not having done so yet. Judging by the comments on here, I probably won't bother now.

 

[El Jefe]

what sort of name is Lionel for a bloody woman, anyway?

 

[Chairman Meow]

I thought the mum had been carefully written by a skilled author of enormous insight with the ability to imagine and convey what smug and sneering feels like from the inside. Then I read another Shriver and realised there was more of her in Eva than I'd thought.

I loved 'We need to talk about Kevin' but this is spot on. I dragged myself through her next book (the tennis one), but gave up half way through the snooker one, what a load of toss.

I'm always getting out library books that are utter shit, I am no longer allowed to read anything that is written by Polly Filler types as they make me rant too much. The last one was by Emma Freud, once I got to the unfulfilled mummy living in Nappy valley who had to go off to India to find herself I should have slung the book out the window.

 

[mrs quoad]

I spent £8 of book tokens on We Are Now Beginning Our Descent yesterday.

It's being pressed under a DVD player downstairs in the hope that it becomes a returnable shape.

^^^^
Recouped today / exchanged for a Le Carre

I am glad this thread has discouraged someone from trying a Shriver

 

[ericjarvis]

Last utterly crap book I bought was Misspent Youth by Peter Hamilton. It's the sort of middle aged blokes wank fantasy that Heinlein finished his career by perpetrating, but without the humour or the basic writing skills, making it the most worthless and unpleasant book I have read in decades.

I am told by several people that the worst book ever professionally published is Mammoth by Steven Baxter. I'm not a complete idiot, so I haven't read it.

 

[PacificOcean]

The Bible.

I was rooting for the Romans by the end.

 

[QueenOfGoths]

The Shakespeare Secret - I wanted a trashy easy to read thriller so wasn't expecting much but even so this was beyond rubbish. So badly written it made me wince as I read it. I think I managed half of the book before I just gave up.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare...40358/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/277-8818532-4988651

 

[SpookyFrank]

The Bible.

I was rooting for the Romans by the end.

Why did you buy that? You can get free copies from hotel rooms.

Or if you feel like leaving the bible behind when you leave it can be fun to slip cuttings from gay porn between the pages at random points. And that's the only reason I always have gay porn in my suitcase when travelling

 

[Pieface]

The Diceman is also not as good as people claim.
:

It's fucking shit is what it is. About a third of the way through I got bored of his one trick pony posing and binned it - it just felt so dated and try-hard. Teenagers would think it was good and then grow up suddenly.

Kafka on the Shore was a mess and I'm not sure if it was the translation but the prose was more stilted than usual. Even Murakami's trademark surrealism got on my nerves and the plot some loon on the back was raving about Did Not Exist.

 

[sojourner]

It's fucking shit is what it is. About a third of the way through I got bored of his one trick pony posing and binned it - it just felt so dated and try-hard. Teenagers would think it was good and then grow up suddenly.

Same

It just made me angry

 

[mrs quoad]

The Shakespeare Secret - I wanted a trashy easy to read thriller so wasn't expecting much but even so this was beyond rubbish. So badly written it made me winch as I read it. I think I managed half of the book before I just gave up.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Shakespeare...40358/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b/277-8818532-4988651

This is the first time I've been sufficiently moved to write a book reveiw and I was so glad to see that my views are shared by others. However I am astounded that anyone could give this book any more than one star. If there was zero star category I'd have given it that.
Like several other reviewers I tried very hard to fight my way to the end of the book in the hope that it would eventually come together, but with about a dozen pages to go I gave up in disgust. The plot is contrived, nonsensical and full of holes so please don't waste your money.
Everyone involved with this rubbish - the author, editor, proof reader and publisher - should hang their heads in shame.

 

[Pickman's model]

i'm pleased to see no one's stepped forwards to defend jane austen

 

[temper_tantrum]

My friend raved about how much she loved 'Northanger Abbey' - all about it being a parody of gothic novels, and thus hilariously well observed, and so on - so I gave it a go, and thought all the way through, 'Is this IT? Is this a joke? Has someone published a different book with the same title? This is CRAP.'
I stuck it out to the end just to see if anything good/interesting happened, but nope.

 

[Chairman Meow]

I love Jane Austen. I 'll concede Northanger Abbey isn't her best (though I enjoyed it )

 

[discokermit]

That said it's subjective whether someone likes or dislikes, but I think in the case of Borges he is a genius, but if he bored the shit out of you, that's another matter,

i'm not sure you're getting my point. i found him in no way boring. in fact, i found the ideas very interesting. it was the fact the ideas never seemed to be put into a proper story was very frustrating.