Worst book you've ever read?

[sorgoth]

Mine would have to be Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. I think it might have been more interesting if it was in a language I don't understand.

 

[Hexxenhammer]

I've read a lot of bad books that I never finished, but one I did finish was Jhereg by Stephen Brust. Ugh. Like reading a book about some 14 year old's favorite D&D character.

 

[Brian]

A book with 3 short stories by Guertude Stein. She has no talent.

 

[arcticpenguin]

The Tao of Pooh.

 

[Lord Emsworth]

I'd go with J.P. Sartre's Nausea.

 

[CFLarsen]

Hitler's "Mein Kampf", hands down. I get a headache every time I open it. It is incredibly muddled, poorly written, completely incoherent.

A monkey could write better. A retarded monkey, that is.

 

[asthmatic camel]

Moonchild by Aleister Crowley. The very thought of reading this book again tempts me to pluck out my eyes. I'd also consider piercing my eardrums and cutting off my fingers as a precautionary measure lest audio and braille versions should be produced.

Regards,

AC.

 

[Brian]

I'd go with J.P. Sartre's Nausea.

I admit I never finished it, but I did love the part at the very begining where he's skipping rocks at the beach with children and all of a sudden he feels sick. He's not sure if it was the rock or the ocean that made him sick.

My edition of Mein Kampf translated all of Hitler's run on sentences and grammatical errors. (on purpose)

 

[Marc]

Hmmm.....

nomonies for me are KJV Bible, Book of Mormon, and one of Sylvia Browne's books.

I would have to say the Book of Mormon then. Sylvia is at least writing in modern language. The Bible is a difficult read, but at least it has some interesting stories and has had a lot of cultural influence. It was interesting to see where some expressions and well known stories came from. The BoM is written not all that long ago, but purposely made to sound 'biblical' and dificult to read. It has had very little if any cultural influence, it is completely made up as opposed to the bible which might contain glimpses of actual people places and events (converted into myth).

 

[BPSCG]

I tried reading Nietzsche's "Thus Spake Zarathustra" when I was in college and we were all on the "2001" kick. It struck me as raving gibberish even though it was apparently in English. A few weeks ago I mentioned it to a friend and was relieved when he said he'd also found it incomprehensible. And all these years I thought I was intellectually stunted.

Had to read something by Richard Wagner once upon a time. Vast tedious stretches interrupted by pages and pages of stuff you could go crazy trying to understand, even though it was apparently in English. His music can be pretty tedious to the neophyte, also, but it has long stretches of unimaginably beautiful passages (listen to the last twenty minutes or so of "Die Walkure"), interspersed with sex and violence, so you can listen to it repeatedly and finally end up enjoying the whole thing. Too bad his philosophy doesn't have more sex and violence, 'cuz maybe then I'd try rereading it and I could figure out what the hell he was talking about

Then there's Kurt Vonnegut's "Timequake". Here's part of what I said on amazon.com about the first Vonnegut book I never finished:

"But this is what happens when you take a short story (or more accurately, the bits and pieces of a short story) and mix it in a salad bowl with other ideas for a short story, along with some family reminiscences and your general cranky views of life. It starts nowhere, goes nowhere, and although I gave up on it about 3/4 of the way through, I'll bet my next paycheck that it arrives nowhere.

"If you decide to read this mess anyway, ask yourself what would have happened to the manuscript if it had originally arrived on a publisher's desk with your name on it instead of Vonnegut's."

 

[Brian]

Y'know. I though Timequake sucked, but it didn't suck that bad. A few amusing parts. If you read it to the end you get to find out how Kilgore Trout ends up.

 

[Segnosaur]

Worst book? Probably Dragonrouge. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/t...=/ref=cm_lm_asin/104-8230171-3486366?v=glance)

I read it many years ago in high school. The thing which sticks out in my mind is how the author solved any problem by magic. Evil dragon attacking? The sword the main character carried has the ability to tame him. Rampaging unicorn? It can somehow be stopped in the group. Of course, all these elements are brought up only when needed; no foreshadowing, no tension.

Almost like being trapped in a midieval version of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

 

[Hexxenhammer]

In non-fiction, I read large chunks of "The Bell Curve" while simultaneously reading Stephen J Gould's "Mismeasure of Man". Very interesting thing to do.

 

[BPSCG]

Y'know. I though Timequake sucked, but it didn't suck that bad. A few amusing parts. If you read it to the end you get to find out how Kilgore Trout ends up.

I just didn't care, by that point. I realized Vonnegut had written himself out years ago when he wrote himself into one of his novels as Trout's creator, had conversations with him, put him on the sun and brought him back again.

Most writers have only a finite number of good books in them. Some keep writing anyway.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

The worst book I ever read was one called "Neanderthal". It was by some Micheal Chricton wannabe whose name I can't remember.

The basic premise was researchers find a tribe of Neanderthals living in modern day in some remote mountains in Pakistan. It was a promising premise but I won't describe it any further than that in case some poor soul feels masochistic enough to try to read this particular pice of trash. Needless to say, the premise is blown by a predictable storyline and some of the worst writing this side of an eighth grade english class.

 

[Hexxenhammer]

The worst book I ever read was one called "Neanderthal". It was by some Micheal Chricton wannabe whose name I can't remember.

This is one I didn't finish. Terrible! Read "Eaters of the Dead" if you want to read about Neandertals.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

This is one I didn't finish. Terrible! Read "Eaters of the Dead" if you want to read about Neandertals.

I never read 'Eaters of the Dead' but I saw 'The 13th Warrior" which was, as I recall, based on the book. I know that books are usually better than movies based on them, how did '13th Warrior" Compare?

 

[Zep]

Anthony Trollope's "The Warden". Compulsory school text, being a story originally published in parts in a gentile Victorian English weekly newspaper.

Soul-crushingly B...O...R...I...N...G...!!!

 

[EvilYeti]

Fiction:

"The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

I didn't finish it, but as far I can tell no one else has, including the authors. I gave up halfway through when I realized I had no idea who any of the characters were and what if anything was going on. I thought at one point the plot had been surgicaly removed and nothing but exposition remained. I remember flipping back through earlier parts of the book and not remembering reading them. It was like reading a Philip K. Dick book where I was the main character.

Non(supposedly)-fiction

"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond.

I bought this book at an airport mistakenly thinking it was a history/science book. The entire thing is a long winded diatribe that western culture triumphed over native culture not because it was superior, rather the silly Europeans just got very lucky and were, in fact, inferior to the cultures they conquered.

Total crap. I got about halfway through it and tossed it in the garbage. The fact that it won a Pulizter prize is shocking.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

Fiction:

"The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling.

I didn't finish it, but as far I can tell no one else has, including the authors. I gave up halfway through when I realized I had no idea who any of the characters were and what if anything was going on. I thought at one point the plot had been surgicaly removed and nothing but exposition remained. I remember flipping back through earlier parts of the book and not remembering reading them. It was like reading a Philip K. Dick book where I was the main character.

Ugh, I read that one too and I remember thinking much the same thing. It was too bad too, because I generally like both authors seperately. Together though, they wrote absolute carp.