The Sanctuary

Art => Printed Matter => Topic started by: jerome on September 03, 2014, 12:04:58 am

Title: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: jerome on September 03, 2014, 12:04:58 am
this women's lit class i once took the proff made us read Twilight, no lie. i was so bothered by it i didn't read that book or any of the rest of the books that semester.

also did not like All the Kings Men or the Great Gatsby.

you guys?
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Soso0 on September 03, 2014, 12:08:24 am
Did you go to a liberal arts school?
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: jerome on September 03, 2014, 12:23:56 am
naw was just a lit major for a while.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Dionysus on September 03, 2014, 12:34:21 am
I couldn't make it more than a few chapter into Jayne Eyre, but that is more a personal taste thing against 150+ year old "classics" written in archaic styles. I could see it being objectively good, but it bored the fuck out of me. I found High Society by Ben Elton to be almost embarrassingly bad, but I only made it a few chapters into that as well.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: jerome on September 03, 2014, 12:42:07 am
^ man i kinda get what you're saying Dionysus, luckily i've been able to avoid having to read Eyre. i guess i've never been a fan of classics, esp any stuff where it's all romantic and girly hodge podge. never read High Society, i'll remember that title.

all of a sudden i can't remember this one author i want to name. i had to read 4-5 books by him and i almost died each time. no one liked his books in the class i was in either. i swear this proff decided this writer to fuck with us b/c the books made no sense.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Rizzo in a box on September 03, 2014, 12:47:00 am
I made it through like 400 pages of Ayn Rand before I finally gave up in fucking disgust. Some of the worst fucking excuse for writing I've ever had the misfortune of reading.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Proots on September 03, 2014, 01:06:26 am
"Naked Lunch"

I've enjoyed other works by Burroughs quite a bit, but I just couldn't stand this one. It was the most incoherent, jumbled word salad I ever read. It literally made no sense. It was just an enormous string of unconnected words, thrown together on paper and bound. A lot of people like to take the pretentious, highfalutin mindset of "Oh, you just didn't get it".

I didn't get it? Read the first 10 pages and tell me what, exactly - or even generally - is going on, then.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: the_dude on September 03, 2014, 01:07:04 am
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Had to read that bullshit in high school. What a fucking slog.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Dionysus on September 03, 2014, 01:13:43 am
"Naked Lunch"

I've enjoyed other works by Burroughs quite a bit, but I just couldn't stand this one. It was the most incoherent, jumbled word salad I ever read. It literally made no sense. It was just an enormous string of unconnected words, thrown together on paper and bound. A lot of people like to take the pretentious, highfalutin mindset of "Oh, you just didn't get it".

I didn't get it? Read the first 10 pages and tell me what, exactly - or even generally - is going on, then.

That is one of my top 3 favorite books ever. I think that some people just like it or don't. Getting it or not getting it is pretty irrelevant, it's more if you enjoy that kind of thing or not aesthetically.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Rizzo in a box on September 03, 2014, 01:16:00 am
"Naked Lunch"

I've enjoyed other works by Burroughs quite a bit, but I just couldn't stand this one. It was the most incoherent, jumbled word salad I ever read. It literally made no sense. It was just an enormous string of unconnected words, thrown together on paper and bound. A lot of people like to take the pretentious, highfalutin mindset of "Oh, you just didn't get it".

I didn't get it? Read the first 10 pages and tell me what, exactly - or even generally - is going on, then.

Book made perfect sense to me when I was w/ding from heroin.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Dionysus on September 03, 2014, 01:17:20 am
More than anything else, it is a very, very funny book once you get past all the ass fucking and imagery bombardment.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: FON on September 03, 2014, 01:21:23 am
Naked Lunch isn't supposed to make sense. At least not much. The book isn't even meant to be read from cover to cover. Pretty sure I recall Burroughs saying that it was meant to be opened and read at random.

Don't try and make sense out of Naked Lunch, just sit back and enjoy your word salad.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: ibm on September 03, 2014, 01:25:38 am
To Kill A Mockingbird is absolute shit.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: jerome on September 03, 2014, 02:23:15 pm
^ yeah i didn't like it much either. i mean, i get why it's famous because it confronted issues a lot of people avoided to publicly reveal at the time. so i respect it for that reason. but for a book where i search for awesome paragraphs with some kickass literary moments, nahhhh.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: vonunov on September 03, 2014, 03:02:33 pm
http://vonunov.nu/voracious/divergent.php

It made a decent if shallow movie (good for a high afternoon) but the book was just painful.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: ibm on September 03, 2014, 03:24:01 pm
http://vonunov.nu/voracious/divergent.php

It made a decent if shallow movie (good for a high afternoon) but the book was just painful.

I haven't read them but I have assumed The Hunger Games is similar. Same with Twilight and other bullshit trendy books.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Poast on September 03, 2014, 03:52:58 pm
Count Of Monte Cristo was pretty boring. Just goes on and on.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: millionsofdeadcats on September 03, 2014, 04:18:46 pm
A tale of two cities
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Siu3d on September 05, 2014, 09:12:48 pm
Pretty much anything written by Dean Koontz.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Prometheus on October 09, 2014, 10:51:14 pm
House of Stairs. Crappy sci-fi by an author who was entirely too impressed by his own cleverness.

The Illuminatus Trilogy. I know a lot of people love it, but I got halfway through it before deciding that the whole point of the book was the author fucking with his readers.

Stars In My Pocket Like Grains Of Sand. Another sci-fi 'classic' that a lot of people love. I think it won some awards too, but I couldn't stand it. Interesting premise, but something about the writing style drove me up a wall.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: stentor on October 09, 2014, 11:32:21 pm
Communist Manifesto. It's not like it was poorly put together or anything, reading anything that has to do with communism is just really boring and monotonous.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: equanimity on October 09, 2014, 11:38:22 pm
Island of the Blue Dolphins.  No idea why I remember this, but we read it in 5th grade and I hated it.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Arnox on October 09, 2014, 11:50:12 pm
Twilight I think. So insanely disappointing.

Hey, here's a cool world of werewolves and vampires in the modern day! Not the most original thing exactly but the groundwork is certainly there. Oh wait, nevermind. It's just a terrible teeny bopper vampire love story. :facepalm: :facepalm: :facepalm: People like to give Harry Potter crap about being somewhat childish and stick it together with twilight. And considering the first two books, I can actually understand that. However, I just want to quote Stephen King here.

Quote from: Stephen King
Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Prometheus on October 10, 2014, 02:44:51 am
Island of the Blue Dolphins.  No idea why I remember this, but we read it in 5th grade and I hated it.

Literally the only thing I recall about that book is how much I hated it. Just the other day my ladyfriend brought up how much she hated it too.
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: stentor on October 10, 2014, 01:45:15 pm
Dollar Tree romance novels
Title: Re: some of the worst books you've read
Post by: Rationahl on October 10, 2014, 03:02:25 pm
Catcher In the Rye

Any book that has an author whose last name ends in stein, Kline, Weiss, or berg