What's the worst book you've ever read?

omniscient obsession

I find this assessment shockingly accurate.

one of my friends from high school (not a particularly rigorous reader) claims that The Celestine Prophecy is his favorite book... out of curiosity I asked what books he hated. He said The Raw Shark Texts was one of the worst ever....

yeah, I never go to that guy for book recs now.

for me, it was almost painful trying to make it all the way through stephen king's insomnia...

The worst book I've ever read is Ground Up, by Michael Idov. There have been far worse books that I've started to read, but if we're sticking strictly to books that we've actually finished, that would be the one.

How did he even stumble upon The Raw Shark Texts?

It was featured up front at book stores like Barnes and Noble.

It was after we started talking about it here that it started to get some recognition. And then Playboy did a review of it. I think it had been out for a year before I actually saw it get any kind of showing.

I did not know that. Wow.

I'm reading The Raw Shark Texts next, after I finish The Sound and the Fury. It's been on my night stand for about two months now.

I just sort of assumed that.

Atlas Shrugged

Plus The Fountainhead. Rand's obsession with women loving rape is sickening. And her economic views are abhorrent.

I didn't bother with any more Rand after Atlas Shrugged.

Though I didn't hate Anthem. I read it first, and even though I disagree with it's theme, the form and brevity make it not that bad.

Everyone hates this one but Pete.

I'll admit that I went on a Rand kick for about four months (how long it took me to read five of her books). After that I realized how unethical and radical her views are. I did like the brevity of her writing style (even though her two most famous books are about 1,000 pages each), but I'll never read her stuff again.

In that case I should go again.

Uh.... The Shack comes to mind. Completely stupid book and some of the worst writing, to boot.

I gave in to peer pressure in picking this one up, and learned to trust my instincts more next time.

My brother's girlfriend said she likes Rand specifically because her characters are "adorably cardboard." Like they're so obviously flat it's kind of endearing. I think that's the only viewpoint one could take that would make any of Rand's novels any good.

I've never read it.

Oh, you know what I'm thinking of? Infinite Jest.

Everyone hates that one but Pete.

Them's fightin' words!

I think I ranted on this somewhere on here before, but she was a craaaazy bitch. Seriously, she made Mann Coulter look like Mother Theresa.

The Fountainhead is a terrible, terrible novel. And yet I love it. I don't care about Rand's economic views, and I don't care about her pseudophilosophy. I find that The Fountainhead is awesome despite its cardboard characters, boring prose and occasionally, um, questionable sex scenes.

But then I need to ask myself WHY I like it so much. It's almost a manual for the crypto-fascist. Howard Roark is an asshole. Why do I like the Fountainhead so damned much?

Probably because I feel an odd kind of sympathy for Ayn Rand. She showed half-successfully in We the Living that she could write with her heart as well as her brain. And then she took the heart out of the equation completely. The Fountainhead is the result — and it's kind of tragic that way. It's beautifully hysterical.

Duuuuuuuuude. The worst book I ever, like, read was, uh, the Bible. Man, I just couldn't keep up with all of the, like, characters. And there wasn't really a plot. Just, like, a lot of bad stuff happening to these guys with weird names. And then, well, I mean, it was just weird, because in the second book the main character, Jesus, comes along, and you're thinking, FINALLY!!!!! And then they just kill him. Just like that. I guess there's, like, foreshadowing and stuff, but he gets nailed to a cross. I mean, seriously — who DOES that to their main character? And then Jesus COMES BACK, just like that, as if nothing had happened, and the author doesn't explain ANYTHING. Then there were another like 20 chapters about his followers, and I didn't really get why those were there. But the ending was okay. Lots of destruction and stuff. Still, again, there wasn't any POINT to it. It was sooooo frustrating. The only guy who survives it all is God, who isn't described in ANY detail. I still can't picture him at all.

Meh, it was a bad book. Totally overrated.

I think she has four novels, then a bunch of books. I've read Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, We the Living, Anthem and The Virtue of Selfishness.

! And then they just kill him. Just like that. I guess there's, like, foreshadowing and stuff, but he gets nailed to a cross. I mean, seriously — who DOES that to their main character? And then Jesus COMES BACK, just like that, as if nothing had happened, and the author doesn't explain ANYTHING.

Just like Sherlock Holmes!

This thread is an extremely entertaining read.

My diary is actually very boring. You'd know that if you'd actually read it like you said you were going to. It's alllll just a string of broken promises with you.

Never read it either.

Whenever I ask you about your collection of dildos, or your perverted fantasies, or how you once had sex with that janitor guy, you NEVER want to tell me. So of COURSE I read your diary. I just don't tell you.

Good question. If I ever find out I'll let you know.

And me...

"Let's face it, women need raping." - Ayn Rand

self-censored pro-rape comment

Whenever I rape someone, I get a craving for McDonalds.

That's completely normal. Don't let anyone tell you that you are "different" or "strange" or "part of an Amber Alert."

I agree with Prozac Nation.

Also, Silas Marner.

I had to read Lord of the Flies in my english class.. Never liked it.

If I had to run an English class I'd never make my kids read an entire classic like that. It's ridiculous to give someone that doesn't have much of a reading background something that meaty.
I'd give each kid a chapter of it to read and then have them give a report on what they thought of just that one chapter. Then you might get some kids interested in it from the short bit they read themselves and the different perspectives the other kids got from theirs.

That's actually a pretty good idea, Nate. Because, how often to kids read the whole book. I, although I'm a keen reader now, didn't read much at all in highs school. It wasn't until we did a comparative study on Blade Runner and A Brave New World in year 11 or 12 that I started becoming interested in literature. Prior to that, ashamedly, I basically read the blurb and wrote my papers based on that.