?

There are so many, I don't even know where to begin.

First, the sequel to Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz: Forever Odd

Where the first book was just brilliant, this one was tedius. I'm not sure why.

And unfortunately, Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" bored me to tears,

where I absolutely love his other works, especially Kafka on the Shore.

Avoid Danielle Steel at all costs! The Klone and I was a hot mess when I first read it. I found that book the other day, want to read it one more time for shits & giggles before I give it away.

I know there are books that are like junk food - they are fast, greasy and bad for your brain, but that's OK, they have their place. Like airport layovers - who can be reading heavy intellectual shit when babies are crying and the PA is paging late passengers. You NEED a page-turner, something with plenty of sex and action, that you can read while standing up. Or beaches, as above just with sand in your crack.

I'd put into the category of a BAD read, books that are uninteresting and unmemorable, that fail to connect you with its characters (or worse still, you don't CARE about them at all) or doesn't draw you in to the story by a quarter of the way through and ones where you somehow get all the way to the end and nothing really happened

Of course any book like that I can't remember at all now

I have a stack of my mum's swedish crime thrillers under my bed in shame - shame that I haven't got around to reading any of them yet

My cousin fancies herself an author. She is self-published... I think she was going for Urban Drama/Romance...

My big mistake was vowing to support her...

That crap was rife with typos, grammatical errors, and things that just didn't make sense.

She used real names & places- we're from a small town!

I actually read three books from the series before I decided that I done my familial duty...

I was embarrassed that she calls herself an "author".

She had a signing/reading for the 6th book recently. I couldn't even "like" the pix on FB...

I love my cousin, but, DAMN!

*checked the bookshelf... only 3*

[Edited 2/9/13 6:41am]

chocolate1 said:

My cousin fancies herself an author. She is self-published... I think she was going for Urban Drama/Romance...

My big mistake was vowing to support her...

That crap was rife with typos, grammatical errors, and things that just didn't make sense.

She used real names & places- we're from a small town!

I actually read four books from the series before I decided that I done my familial duty...

I was embarrassed that she calls herself an "author".

She had a signing/reading for the 6th book recently. I couldn't even "like" the pix on FB...

I love my cousin, but, DAMN!

OK, I haven't read but the excerpts, the Vanity coffee table book

you just reminded me

Vanity's book wins hands down,

Tyka Nelson was a close second...I wish someone would tell people the value of a good editor. Just because you self publish does not mean you can't invest in one.

The thing is, even a bestselling author drops the ball sometimes. John Grisham's last book, The Racketeer, was just sillly.

Don't even get me started on that Fifty Shades abomination...I could barely get through the exerpt I read.

chocolate1 said:

My cousin fancies herself an author. She is self-published... I think she was going for Urban Drama/Romance...

My big mistake was vowing to support her...

That crap was rife with typos, grammatical errors, and things that just didn't make sense.

She used real names & places- we're from a small town!

I actually read three books from the series before I decided that I done my familial duty...

I was embarrassed that she calls herself an "author".

She had a signing/reading for the 6th book recently. I couldn't even "like" the pix on FB...

I love my cousin, but, DAMN!

*checked the bookshelf... only 3*

[Edited 2/9/13 6:41am]

I'm going to be laughing for days.

Who gave "Vanity 2" a book deal?

erich von daniken - chariots of the gods

this book was a legend in my HS

a couple of bestsellers

I actually started reading the Da Vinci code but had to turn it down, bunch of crap

RicoN said:

erich von daniken - chariots of the gods

That book was great!

Not wholly plausible, but fascinating nonetheless.

There was a book that I was forced to read in High School. It was Russian I think (Not "Crime & Punishment")...it may have been "War and Peace" by Tolsty.

Well, for whatever reason I could NOT get past the first chapter!

I am a good reader, love complicated Sci-Fi, and I even read through the World Atlas books they had in the library in H.S.

But that damn book I could not process.

Any romance drama focusing on obnoxious, upwardly mobile Nouveau Riche AAs featured in the bookstore at Atlanta's International Airport. As far as I'm concerned we could have let Terri McMillan have that genre all by her lonesome and left it back in 1995.

Isn't most fiction pretty bad in any case?

I just read philosophy / psychology / other theory books (+ autobiographies), so I can't really say which ones are the "worst". There have been some philosophers and other theorists that have been just plain confused with their argumentation, but I'm not sure if that always results in bad literature. A little bit of "high headedness" usually just makes the books more entertaining. Most film theory books that i've read have been horrible though.

chocolate1 said:

My cousin fancies herself an author. She is self-published... I think she was going for Urban Drama/Romance...

My big mistake was vowing to support her...

That crap was rife with typos, grammatical errors, and things that just didn't make sense.

She used real names & places- we're from a small town!

I actually read three books from the series before I decided that I done my familial duty...

I was embarrassed that she calls herself an "author".

She had a signing/reading for the 6th book recently. I couldn't even "like" the pix on FB...

I love my cousin, but, DAMN!

*checked the bookshelf... only 3*

[Edited 2/9/13 6:41am]

Chocolate, no!

Ottensen said:

chocolate1 said:

My cousin fancies herself an author. She is self-published... I think she was going for Urban Drama/Romance...

My big mistake was vowing to support her...

That crap was rife with typos, grammatical errors, and things that just didn't make sense.

She used real names & places- we're from a small town!

I actually read three books from the series before I decided that I done my familial duty...

I was embarrassed that she calls herself an "author".

She had a signing/reading for the 6th book recently. I couldn't even "like" the pix on FB...

I love my cousin, but, DAMN!

*checked the bookshelf... only 3*

[Edited 2/9/13 6:41am]

Chocolate, no!

It was a Hot Mess!

Then she had the nerve to thank the people who acted as editors...
I don't know any of the illiterate people she listed.

I generally hardly ever read fiction, but I have on occasion. The worst book I have read was some mess by Joan Collins, I forget its name, early 1990s and features such literary gems as "Fuck, Fuck where are the motherfucking matches", and an Italian dude called Umberto Scrofo who changes his name to Hubert S. Croft and starts directing movies in Hollywood in the 50s.

Disagree about Chesapeake, thats a great book, I love all of Micheners writing and grew up reading those books in my teens (I have a very high level of literacy, I think I read "The Source" when I was 11 and understood it well.

But I always avoid, any trashy stuff like Koontz, King, Mills and Boon etc. Read a couple of Nelson De Mille books, they are okay, but his characters always do it by page 20.

I read a lot of biographies, reference, Books of the year, Coffee table (Histories that are usually illustrated with pictures) and historical books.

Worst Prince related book is "Prince" by Steven Ivory published in 1985, its very basic, cheaply written on newsprint and full of inaccuracies. It was definitely aimed at people with a reading age of about 8.

[Edited 2/9/13 13:34pm]

RicoN said:

now if i read books, i wouldn't be the eloquent and sophistimicated orger/crazy person that i am. the last complete book i can attest to finishing was THE 25TH HOUR by david benioff. it was a movie as well. had no business reading the motherfucker is all's i'm saying. not saying it was bad cuz i honestly don't remember. think i got through RUM PUNCH (JACKIE BROWN) and that being decent. have gotten through the first few chapters of CLOCKERS and AMERICAN PSYCHO several times, but them motherfuckers might as well be imago's post in my awesomely forgotten jesus thread.

728huey said:

really? ..i was thinking of this one next

I don't read per se but Admiral says this one is not good.

AndrePatrone said:

728huey said:

really? ..i was thinking of this one next

The book is a real trip, but it could probably be about 500 pages shorter!

And don't look to it for subtlety

imago said:

First, the sequel to Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz: Forever Odd

I have only read one Koontz book, Midnight, and it stands out to me as fairly inept. Totally run of the mill and uninteresting.

Atonement - Ian McEwan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

I found all of them very slow moving and boring. Also not a big fan of Faulkner or Steinbeck. I used to feel similarly about Hemingway (hated The Old Man & the Sea and A Farewell to Arms), but I recently read The Sun Also Rises and really enjoyed it so I am going to read A Moveable Feast next and see how that goes.

jone70 said:

Atonement - Ian McEwan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

I found all of them very slow moving and boring. Also not a big fan of Faulkner or Steinbeck. I used to feel similarly about Hemingway (hated The Old Man & the Sea and A Farewell to Arms), but I recently read The Sun Also Rises and really enjoyed it so I am going to read A Moveable Feast next and see how that goes.

What the fuck. Jesus, Paul, and Mary, what in Sam Hanes underwear.

imago said:

jone70 said:

Atonement - Ian McEwan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

I found all of them very slow moving and boring. Also not a big fan of Faulkner or Steinbeck. I used to feel similarly about Hemingway (hated The Old Man & the Sea and A Farewell to Arms), but I recently read The Sun Also Rises and really enjoyed it so I am going to read A Moveable Feast next and see how that goes.

What the fuck. Jesus, Paul, and Mary, what in Sam Hanes underwear.

Dude, it is one of the few books I couldn't even finish; I was so bored with it.

Dan Brown- Lost symbol.

jone70 said:

Atonement - Ian McEwan

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel García Márquez

I found all of them very slow moving and boring. Also not a big fan of Faulkner or Steinbeck. I used to feel similarly about Hemingway (hated The Old Man & the Sea and A Farewell to Arms), but I recently read The Sun Also Rises and really enjoyed it so I am going to read A Moveable Feast next and see how that goes.

I love everything by Steinbeck but I could never get into Faulkner.

Right now I'm about halfway through Ken Follett's latest, Winter of the World...pretty good so far.

Next will be a non fiction book about Haiti.