What is the worst book ever written?

[terrya]

Mine:

Non-fiction:
Mein Kampf.

Fiction:
"IQ" by Arthur Herzog. I remember reading this novel when I was a teenager. It's about a virus that makes people stupid. A band of researchers have to stop the virus before they themselves become too stupid to cure everyone. Yes, seriously. I felt MY IQ starting to drop close to the end of the book. :-)

What do you think is the worst book(s)?

[lilymidnite]

1. Coma

by Robin Cook

[southerngirlwriter]

2. the entire Left Behind series and all spin-offs of it.

:puke:

[NicoleM]

31. Word.

[mr_hat]

3. "Love Story" by that one guy.

[Lavender Brown]

68. Isn't that supposed to be about Al & Tipper G?

Or is that an urban legend?

[Canuckistanian]

4. Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard

I got about a quarter of the way through it and just couldn't stomach any more. I couldn't believe people could base their entire belief system on this drivel.
Ever since, I've been an ardent foe of Scientology.

[LDS Jock]

60. I tried to read that

but couldn't. It didn't make any sense to me. I would read and reread over and over and still not get anything out of it. Eventually, took it back to the library and forgot it. :thumbsdown:

[Khephra]

5. Probably Cujo

And I'm even a King fan.

[ThreeCatNight]

6. A Confederacy of Dunces

Sorry to all those that love this book, but if the author was not dead, I would have tracked him down and insisted on my money back.
What a load of self indugent crap.
(stepping down from the soapbox)

[Commendatori]

7. Ron Guidry's autobiography

I've read a ton of sports autobiographies, especially baseball ones. They range from the excellent ("The Bronx Zoo" by Sparly Lyle) tot he truly insipid, and none is worse than the monstrosity that Guidry put together. As tough as it may be to screw up your own life story (without lying, as David Wells did), Guidry did it - and in such a boring fashion that I almost sued the guy for those few hours back.

[Loonman]

8. "Contact" by Carl Sagan

It's her dad!

[GumboYaYa]

9. "Johnathan Livingston Seagull"

I had to read that tripe in high school. That was the worst piece of pseudo-intellectual literature I have ever had the disspleasure of reading.

[Whitacre D_WI]

14. Hey, now, that book is FUNNY!

I read it when I was 12. Laughed my little ass off.

It taught me that adults were really lame.

[GumboYaYa]

15. It made me hungry for roast Seagull.

[Whitacre D_WI]

16. Mmmmmm...

[ihaveaquestion]

10. The Bridges of Madison County!

was a stupid romance novel - without any good sex to boot! It was awful!

[Delano]

12. Hear hear!

`his eyes looked directly at her, and she felt something jump inside.'' He reminds her of a gazelle, make that a leopard or, better yet, ``some star creature who had drafted in on the tail of a comet,'' for obviously he's come ``a long way, across more than miles.''


:puke:

[Misinformed01]

18. Shouldn't have even qualified as a "novel"

in my opinion.

However, it did show just how trashy Americans can be: a great "love story" consists of a tacky affair between a married woman and a traveling photographer. Give me a break!

[rogerashton]

22. The author was the dean of a business school.

'Nuff said.

[Misinformed01]

27. Oh God!

That explains that crap-

Wonder if he's a Conservative, too?

[felonious thunk]

11. Ulysses

That book is infuriating. I love Joyce, I've read many of his other novels and have loved them. Portrait of the Artist is one of my all time favorite books. But Ulysses makes me angry every time I try to pick it back up. I understand it, I know what it's about, I get the uniqueness of it, and am horribly disappointed with it.

[BurtWorm]

13. I feel almost the opposite from you.

I'm not a huge fan of Joyce or Ulysses, but I enjoyed reading it. I did not enjoy Portrait of the Artist at all.

[mobuto]

33. Try Finnegan's Wake

If you want to read a Joyce novel that afterwards you'll really want to burn, you shouldn't be reading Ulysses.

[July]

42. I second that.

And I like everything else Joyce wrote, including Ulysses, Portrait, and especially Dubliners.

[jdsmith]

43. Many of his other novels?

He wrote three. Once you leave out _Ulysses_, you're down to _Portrait_ and _Finnegans Wake_.

[eyesroll]

17. The last 25% of just about everything Stephen King has ever written

I think he has a bad habit of setting things up nicely, and they all go to hell at the end.

[On the Road]

19. "Flight to Lucifer: A Gnostic Fantasy" by Harold Bloom

How such a learned literary critic could come up with something like this is beyond me -- the most childish drivel imaginable.

[BlueJazz]

20. " The Kindness & Humanitarian Qualities of Republicans"

A very, very, very short book. :)

[Frederic Bastiat]

21. Atlas Shrugged n/t

[Khephra]

23. I didn't make it past page 3 on that one.

[Frederic Bastiat]

28. 3 long years and I doubt I will ever finish it lol n/t

[Whitacre D_WI]

24. No, "The Fountainhead" was worse.

Same general objectivist bullshit, but BORING as well!

[Kathleen04]

59. I actually found that book to

be interesting..but it was actually a tad soap opera-ish..

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

38. Anthem blew as well

Brave New World was a much better book.

[Justitia]

54. no kidding - it sucked!

I got all worked up for Ayn Rynd (sp?) for nothing!

[CO Liberal]

25. Any Book By Ann Coulter or Sean Hannity

:puke:

[Faygo Kid]

48. Or Rush Limbaugh. He is too drugged now to write, but. . .

his two were the worst, I believe.

[toddzilla]

26. the bible

eom.

[GumboYaYa]

30. Actually, the sermon on the Mount may be the best progressive

speech ever given. Jesus was a liberal. The bible is not the problem. The problem is the way people have interpreted the bible.

[southerngirlwriter]

34. You got it.

The book of Acts is practically a socialist tract.

[Faygo Kid]

49. Agreed. Here are the Beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount)

You won't hear Bush or the neo-cons quoting this:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.

Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

[Zomby Woof]

55. but those last 3...

Are used by the wingnut christers to claim we liberals are persecuting them. The persecution complex they have was born right there.

[mobuto]

35. The Bible, as literature, is one of the great works

of all time. Forget the religious component if you want, but read Job, Deutoronomy, etc. for their literary merit.

[GOPisEvil]

36. I disagree.

I think it's an excellent collection of Jewish oral history.

I took a class on The Bible as literature. Very interesting way to look at the book.

[leftofthedial]

56. agreed

worst work of fiction: the bible

worst work of non-fiction: Rebuilding America's Defenses

[BigMcLargehuge]

29. Anything by L. Ron

fiction or non fiction... Special mention goes to the Mission Earth decology, 10 increasingly rancid books of half written prose and atrocious dialogue... something only a literary masochist could enjoy.

that aside, the few books I've abandoned (and I HATE abandoning a book) include:

Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and Better than Life (Doug Grant and Rob Naylor)

[Blue-Jay]

52. I actually liked "Battlefield Earth"

The "Mission Earth" series sucked donkey balls, as did everything else that nutball wrote. "Battlefield Earth" was quite good, and a sci-fi classic.

An aside: If L. Ron were alive today, I believe he'd be laughing his ass off at the Scientologists (sp?). I truly believe that he was having a joke at the expense of the easily-led.

[mobuto]

32. Mein Kampf isn't non fiction

Bad books? Oh there are so many.

[terrya]

39. I hadn't thought of philosphy as not being non-fiction. Then "Das Kapital"

would not be non-fiction, either.

I really hadn't thought of that. Thank you.

Terry

[bif]

37. "Gravity's Rainbow"

by Pynchon

[carols]

50. Good call! Very, very bad!

The only thing worse is listening to freshmen English majors trying to pretend they know what it means!
Carol

[jdsmith]

62. At what school are freshmen given _Gravity's Rainbow_?

_The Crying of Lot 49_ is usually the gateway work.

I don't know--I'd be kind of happy to hear a bunch of 19-year-olds wrestling with Big Books.

[bif]

64. I didn't mind "Crying of Lot 49"

But I tried to read GR about 4 times. What a waste of time. Written by a college prof to impress other college profs. Period.

[jdsmith]

66. Pynchon was never a prof (as far as anyone can tell)

Sailor, technical writer, hippie, underground man, and lately a character on _The Simpsons_.

[bif]

67. For some reason I thought he was.

Okay, how about just "A book written for college profs." I just put it into that class because there seem to be a lot of profs who write to impress other profs. And 2/3 oF the time it's a book about life on campus. How many more of those do we need?

[Kellanved]

40. Illuminatus

However I've been told that a new novel about Nazi porn is actually worse.

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/040415/323/er4yq.html

[Khephra]

41. Gasp!

The Illuminatus Trilogy is the book that changed my life. To each their own.

[Kellanved]

44. well - I didn't like them

Maybe it was a bad translation, but I barely managed to complete the first book.
Definitely not my kind of book - I had picked them up because a movie ("23") I really liked (I still do) had the Illuminatus thing as a side theme.

[Book Lover]

45. Oh, so many....

"Battlefield Earth" was overwhelmingly tedious. I made it through ten pages, then gave up.

I once was exposed to (I won't even call it reading) a Soviet 'novel' titled "The Factory" where all the narrative did was drag you through an unremittingly horrible day in the life of a factory worker.

[SarahB]

46. The Bible seems to be the source of much conflict and tension.

There's some good things too, so I'm not dissing anyone's beliefs. I was just surprised it was the first thing to pop into my head and if it was mentioned above, I missed it.

[jonnyblitz]

65. its the first book that popped into my head also

for all the trouble it has caused in the world.

[solinvictus]

47. Fiction

The entire "Left Behind" series.

[MisterP]

51. fiction? 3001

and the rest of Clarke's "writing." Only book I really felt like pickaxing in irritating

[AlFrankenFan]

53. "See, I Told You So!"

I forced myself to read it when a friend gave it to me for laughs for my thirteenth birthday and I almost vomitted because there is not a page that goes by that Rush is constantly wrong, or lying, or bashing liberals.

[Zomby Woof]

57. Even worse than Stephen King is...

Dean Koontz. He exists to make King look like one of the giants.

[Kathleen04]

58. Heart of Darkness...

Joseph Conrad. Had to read it for school, I tried to read it quickly but I couldn't keep any of the details straight.

I didn't like his writing style or find the plot (was there a plot?) particularly interesting..

[jdsmith]

63. Heart of Darkness can't be read quickly

Modernist novels require slow going. The authors are trying to re-wire your brain so you really notice things.

Yes, there's a plot.

[Kathleen04]

69. Yeah you're right..

I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had taken the time to read it slowly.

[LDS Jock]

61. Anything by V.C. Andrews

All those books are the same. For some reason my parents thought I liked them so I got a steady stream of them. They are all the same. The main girl is beautiful with an distant mother, evil grandmother, and is in love with her brother. Over and over the same story.

[galadrium]

70. Anything by Hannity or Ann Coulter