Really awful books, you wouldn't recommend to anyone

Usually we're talking here about books we like. What about books we dislike. They need not be classics or even literary.

I hated Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

I hated anything I've ever read by Octavia Butler.

Each time I pick up books by Paul Auster (so far: New York Trilogy, Timbuktu, Oracle NIght) I am so bored I want to drive a nail into my left foot just to wake up.

I too found Brave New World underwhelming, although i like some other Huxley writing.

Really? Which? I stopped after "BNW", understandably. Recommendations?

I love Octavia Butler .

Awful books: Greg Bear's Eon - unreadable; William Gibson is so cold.

I can't read Hemingway but I don't think he's awful.

I've enjoyed what I've read of Auster so far. The Brooklyn Follies was a little thin but otherwise I've enjoyed him. I guess I've been lucky in that most of the books I've picked up I haven't found any that I would call awful. Angels & Demons was ridiculous but that's not exactly a surprise.

white noise was a horrible book.

quran is prolly one of the dumbest ever compilation of religous edicts masked as infallible-word-of-God. although, it could be taken as an avant-garde piece of nonfiction attempted by the writer who wrote himself in the book by masking himself as possibly three(and maybe more) authorial voices in the book. it is like textualized schizophrenia.

Someone has to say it... "The DaVinci Code." I admit I didn't read it but I tried "Angels & Demons" and couldn't get past chapter two. My only excuse for attempting Dan Brown is that I did so well before the hype. Awful.

I disagree with Kline 19 that "White Noise" was also awful. Granted, I read it ages ago but I still remember it fondly, and know that it had quite an impact. I have revisited pieces of it over the years and I still think it holds up well. Then again, I'm a bit of a Delillo fan.

After all, I loved "The Body Artist" while many didn't. But those words!

white noise...ouch get with it, thats a classy classic. I HATED: William Gibson "Pattern Recognition" Chuck Palanuik "Diary" Tom Robbins "Villa Incognito" JG Ballard "Super-Cannes" those are some recent ones, I'll probe the memory for more.
oh wait.
Ullyses is a piece of feces. Nice words, but all in all a big waste of my nights.

I can't read Stephen King either. I've tried countless times. Guess he's just not for me.

As for something more literary, I've had trouble with Cormac McCarthy.

Another book I really want to read but have put down a half dozen times is "The Quincunx," by Charles Palliser. I've still not given up but I don't know what stops me.

without Ulysses... there would have been no gravity's rainbow.

touche'

I like this thread. It makes me feel better about the books I hate.

So, I submit another crummy book: John Kennedy Toole's "Confederacy of Dunces." It was irritating at best. I never could get into this Pulitzer Prize winner. Pulitzer?

I hated the main character within the first couple of chapters. Maybe that was the point but I couldn't connect.

O YESSS
definitely a horrible book

Tess of the D'urbervilles UJGH
and tghe movie double UGH
what a STUPID STUPID WOMAN
to stay with that even stupider man she married

Old man and the Sea
was the only Hemingway I liked

mudfrost:
i had to try three times to finish confederacy.. but in the end i liked it. Maybe, cos i am partial to anything in film/lit. about New Orleans. The book has an excellent first 2/3rd portion and then for some strange reason it becomes unreadable..

care to explain...doesn't make sense to me at all? Just because it's considered influential? I think there are other books which influenced T Pynch much more. Hell smoking pot influenced him more than J.J. in my estimation

Why? Planning to buy that one. NOt worth it?

I love that book. Read it twice. Took me a while to get into the flow of it and to enjoy its particular sense of humor, but when I did...whoa!
What a fantastic book.


Anything I've read by Patricia Cornwell sucked.

Well, I gave it a shot because it's my best friend's favorite book. The highly unlikable protagonist was definitely an obstacle when I first started reading, but I took it as a challenge and eventually ended up enjoying the book quite a bit. And there's a lot more to that book than meets the eye. Like kline19, though, I'm a sucker for depictions of New Orleans.

so kline19 and MARTSTAR

I giuess you've read Anne Rice

and even better
James Lee Burke's
Dave Robicheaux noir detective novels
?

I giuess you've read Anne Rice

and even better
James Lee Burke's
Dave Robicheaux noir detective novels
?

Nope. I'm not much into fantasy and vampires and such.