What is the worst book you have ever read?

[Kyriakos]

Or tried to read.
For me it likely would be some crap by Boris Vien (?), when i was 17. Only read a few pages i suppose, but it was dreadful

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Oh god no! Anything but Bulgaria!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The worst one I tried to read but never finished, or the worst I actually did finish?

The former would probably be some of the stuff I was assigned in my college English classes. I absolutely could not get through Pride and Prejudice (or was it Jane Eyre? Mercifully, I forget. Or maybe it was Gulliver's Travels... ).

The latter? It's a tossup between any Star Trek book by Diane Carey and any nuDune novel by Kevin J. Anderson and Brian Herbert. Without exception, they are ALL a tragic waste of trees.

Even that horribly depressing crap I had to read in my college French classes was better, and it made no sense at all!

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Dianetics.

 

[dusters]

"Lolita", I closed it after the first page.

 

[Manfred Belheim]

"Frankenstein" leaps to mind.

 

[Samson]

"The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha". I just could not see the humor in it, but I did read an english translation. From wiki "it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published" so this may say more about me than the book.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

"Lolita", I closed it after the first page.

"Frankenstein" leaps to mind.

"The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha". I just could not see the humor in it, but I did read an english translation. From wiki "it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published" so this may say more about me than the book.

I've never been this triggered in my life

I mean I suppose Frankenstein is excusable, but Lolita and Don Quixote? And why close it after the first page? That's like walking out of the theater because you didn't like the opening credits



I don't think I've ever read a bad book in my life, though some of the Bukowski is pretty cringe inducing on the second read

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

I don't think I've ever read a bad book in my life, though some of the Bukowski is pretty cringe inducing on the second read

Bukowski was amazing. How could you say a man who ate his spent typewriter ribbon to absorb the essence of his words is...

ok, he was a bit gnarly, but he was the Vincent van Gogh of the 20th century literary world.

I agree with you on the other 3, though.

 

[AdrienIer]

Boris Vian is fine, I suspect your dislike comes from the translation of his work (his books are admittedly hard to translate).

I always find books from the mid to end of the 19th century hardest to read. My worst memory is probably my first reading of Pride and Prejudice but as with most books from that period it was bearable on reread.

 

[BvBPL]

The Hunt for Red October. Good God, is it dry.

 

[warpus]

Empire by Orson Scott Card

It's about an American civil war. Liberals vs Conservatives. All those caricatures of "liberals" and "conservatives" you see in the media were brought to life by Mr. Card, who did an amazing job of taking the most extreme and ridiculous portrayals of members of both camps and for some reason made them into actual characters in his story. So as a result you have these .. strawmen walking around, talking to each other. And you're expected to take this all at face value.

It's not supposed to be a funny book, it's supposed to be serious. So right off the bat, as you're reading this thing, you think to yourself "Something isn't right here"

It gets worse and worse the more you read. I won't include any spoilers in case anyone actually wants to read this drivel, but honestly, don't bother. Card is usually a very good author. The only explanation I have is that somebody paid him big bucks and said "here's my book outline, here are the characters I've invented, here is the plot, make all this into a novel and I will give you a load of cash"

One thing I usually liked about his books are the characters and how well I can relate to them and how interesting the interactions between them are. But in this book there pretty much aren't any characters, just walking caricatures. You read on and on hoping it's some sort of a joke and that the real characters will be revealed sooner rather than later.. but nope, it's not a joke, this is actually the book.

Throw in some silly technology like walking robots terrorizing New York and you have yourself the worst book I've ever read.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Bukowski was amazing. How could you say a man who ate his spent typewriter ribbon to absorb the essence of his words is...

ok, he was a bit gnarly, but he was the Vincent van Gogh of the 20th century literary world.

I agree with you on the other 3, though.

I still like Big B; it was just a few things, like the super graphic rape scenes

 

[rah]

Any book that has a map included but the first location mentioned in the book, is not on that map.
Nothing pisses me off more. And double shame when there are multiple maps.

 

[warpus]

Any book that has a map included but the first location mentioned in the book, is not on that map.
Nothing pisses me off more. And double shame when there are multiple maps.

Examples of books that do this?

 

[Kyriakos]

Boris Vian is fine, I suspect your dislike comes from the translation of his work (his books are admittedly hard to translate).

I always find books from the mid to end of the 19th century hardest to read. My worst memory is probably my first reading of Pride and Prejudice but as with most books from that period it was bearable on reread.

I really like a number of known authors from the late 19th century, eg De Maupassant, Baudelaire, (sort of) Nerval, Gogol (he is early-mid 19th century iirc), ETA Hofmann (same), Poe. The only greek novelist i like is also from that period (Papadiamantis; he also provided the first greek translation of Crime and Punishment).
The next period (early 20th century; up to ww2) is also a favourite.

 

[rah]

Examples of books that do this?

I'm old and have read so many they do get a bit blurred but the most recent is Weber's safeguard series.
He includes many maps. Large global than smaller insert types. Sometimes as many as 6 in a single novel.
Not the most recent but the last one opened on a battle that wasn't on the any of the maps. It took me about 15 minutes to figure that out, and then the very next scene mentioned another location that WAS NOT ON ANY OF THE FRICKEN maps. Now these books are around 500 pages and are many books into the series and they're already getting to the point where you just want the series to be over with, and any additional reason to not read them doesn't help.

 

[dusters]

Well, I have been accused of being a pedo for a long time. I couldn't read Lolita.

 

[AppleDumplingHead]

Lolita is.. not a suggested read.. but an important book focusing on an illness which to this day is impossible to understand. Too few people ( men and women ) are capable of expressing the illness for fear of stigma. If there was more data, maybe we could find a means of therapy, but unfortunately, mostly, all we have to work with are victimizers who may or may not be pedophilic, but more likely, strangely, are not, just as rape is to be considered a violent crime rather than sexual.

Not to branch off topic. Don't read it if you can't handle a protagonist with interest in particularly young females.

 

[luiz]

I only read bad books to the end when forced to by school. So the worst were of course Brazilian 19th Century Romanticist novels. Lucíola and Senhora, both by the abominable José de Alencar, come to mind as particularly painful experiences.

Luckily, after torturing us with Brazilian Romanticism school usually makes us read Brazilian Realist novels, and those were pretty good. Machado de Assis is probably one of the greatest writers largely unknown to the non-Lusophone world.