Dr.Phool
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:33 AM
Original message |
What was the worst book of all time? |
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I'm going with "The Celestine Prophecy".
And I'll put Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full" in second place.
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JHB
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:36 AM
Response to Original message |
1. "How to Read a Rock" by Ugg |
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It's a bit of an oldie
:evilgrin:
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SharonRB
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:37 AM
Response to Original message |
2. I thought it was me... |
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...but I couldn't get through "A Man in Full." I forced myself about halfway through and then had to stop reading. The Southern dialect was just too hard to read. I must be a glutton for punishment, but now I'm reading his latest, "I Am Charlotte Simpson." Hopefully I'll have better luck. I enjoyed "Bonfire of the Vanities," so I've at least got a shot at it.
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Dr.Phool
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:40 AM
Response to Reply #2 |
4. I forced my way through A Man in Full |
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And I finally got to the ending, and threw it against a wall.
Bonfire of the vanities was good.
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SharonRB
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:47 AM
Response to Reply #4 |
8. Have you read Charlotte Simmons? |
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I said "Simpson" in my first post, but it's actually "Simmons." :)
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Dr.Phool
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:18 PM
Response to Reply #8 |
19. Naw, but the Right Stuff was great |
HawkerHurricane
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:22 PM
Response to Reply #4 |
71. "Not a book to be set aside lightly... |
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Rather, it should be thrown with great force." - 1920's book review
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jonnyblitz
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Thu Dec-30-04 07:53 PM
Response to Reply #4 |
76. I liked that book. I just read it. n/t |
redqueen
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:37 AM
Response to Original message |
3. It's not Battlefield Earth? |
commander bunnypants
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:41 AM
Response to Reply #3 |
redqueen
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:09 PM
Response to Reply #6 |
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but I could barely get through the book... sooooooooooooooooo slooooooooooooooooooooooow... took me years! (I kept putting it down, then felt bad and wanted to finish.)
The story wasn't bad, but it was written horribly (IMO anyway).
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ET Awful
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:51 AM
Response to Reply #3 |
11. See my reply below :) :) :) n/t |
NNadir
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:15 PM
Response to Reply #3 |
67. No, but close. "Dianetics" is the worst book ever. |
Left Is Write
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:41 AM
Response to Original message |
5. Anything written by Jackie Collins or Danielle Steele. |
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Or should we only be including "real" books? ;)
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hfojvt
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #5 |
36. you would ignore Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins? |
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have you really read either of those authors? Or do you just believe that they must suck because they are popular?
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Left Is Write
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:54 PM
Response to Reply #36 |
37. I have read several Jackie Collins books. |
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They all have the same plot, the same characters, the same over-the-top writing, and the same cliches. I don't have to read any more of them to know I'd probably be getting the same recycled stuff.
I tried to read Danielle Steele. Twice. It was painful. Whoever is editing her ought to be taken out back and shot.
I have never read either Sidney Sheldon or Harold Robbins.
Now - why would you assume I would disparage authors, thinking they "must suck" because they are popular? Why would you assume I didn't have a basis for my opinion?
There are plenty of popular authors I do like. Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson are two.
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hfojvt
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #37 |
51. I believe I asked, rather than assumed |
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Although I might have made an ass out of me. I used to do the same thing myself, especially with the whole "trashy romance" genre. Twain said: "when you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to change your opinion." I was the other way around. I finished one Danielle Steele book, but was repulsed after about thirty pages of Collins. I only read those authors because I owned a bookstore.
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mitchum
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:43 PM
Response to Reply #37 |
55. Sidney Sheldon actually had very good narrative skills... |
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Sure, it's trash, but he was really good at propulsive plots. I would recommend "Bloodlines" and "The Other Side of Midnight" Harold Robbins' "A Stone For Danny Fisher" is surprisingly VERY GOOD
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TlalocW
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:42 AM
Response to Original message |
7. Billy Budd by Herman Melville |
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Actually, anything by Herman Melville including "Moby Dick." His writing is just too... cluttered. He tried to make his descriptions too... flowery - not in a feminine sense, but like he was trying to showboat, and it just gets tedious after a while.
TlalocW
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Squatch
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:50 AM
Response to Original message |
9. State of Fear - Crichton |
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The book is nothing but a soapbox for his cherry-picked views on global warming.
The worst is when one of the book's protagonists lectures another character on global warming while they are both bound in a tiny hut in a S Pacific isle filled with cannibals.
Whenever the characters jet off to a new location, Crichton uses those flights (invariably) to launch his lectures on global warming.
Really a horrible, horrible book.
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ET Awful
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:51 AM
Response to Original message |
10. I'm not sure, but I know it was written by L. Ron Hubbard :) n/t |
AllegroRondo
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:03 PM
Response to Reply #10 |
45. The whole "Mission Earth" series |
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10 books? my god.
its like Hubbard was just trying to see how long he could keep up the 'one thing after another' story.
I quit after the second one.
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ET Awful
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Thu Dec-30-04 07:51 PM
Response to Reply #45 |
75. I quit after the first chapter :) n/t |
scarlett1
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Wed Dec-29-04 11:52 AM
Response to Original message |
12. Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis |
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I HAD to read Metamorphosis in College. I HATED it.
I understood all of the analogy but I COULD NOT STAND IT :puke:
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klook
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:21 PM
Response to Reply #12 |
50. Aw, come on! Kafka is great. |
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Maybe because I wasn't forced to read it for any class, I thought "Metamorphosis" was cool. I always liked the oddball stuff, though, and it doesn't get much odder than waking up after a night of uneasy dreams to find you've been transformed into a giant cockroach.
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Aristus
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Wed Dec-29-04 06:57 PM
Response to Reply #50 |
64. "The Metamorphosis" is really only nominally about Gregor |
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Samsa's transformation. It's really about the change his family undergoes after he becomes a giant bug. The change is complete only after Samsa-bug dies. Great read. Great story. Kafka is one of the few writers I've read where my jaw has literally dropped because what I was reading was SO good, and so strange. Two other mind-blowing stories by Kafka: "In the Penal Colony", and "A Hunger Artist".
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jjmalonejr
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:01 PM
Response to Original message |
13. I'll probably get a lot of crap for saying this, but... |
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Uncle Tom's Cabin.
Important and socially significant. But a lousy book.
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mitchum
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:36 PM
Response to Reply #13 |
jjmalonejr
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #30 |
34. Glad I'm not the only one who thinks so |
mitchum
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #34 |
38. It's similar to much of Arthur Miller's work... |
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written with the best of intentions, but clunky and leaden. Agit-prop rarely makes for great art.
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MotorCityMan
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:05 PM
Response to Original message |
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by Brett Easton Ellis. I only read it because there was such a stink made about the book and some wanted to ban it.
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CanuckAmok
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:57 PM
Response to Reply #14 |
39. I used to think so, too... |
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I don't think Ellis is a gifted writer (having only read Psycho and Less than Zero), but I think he inadvertantly managed to capture the ethos of 1980s America in a literary time capsule.
The graphic nature of the content aside, it's an amazing tale of soul-lessness, greed, and apathy.
Plus, I'm from the camp of people who believe the later, escalating violence was a product of Bateman's imagination.
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KurtNYC
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:07 PM
Response to Original message |
15. Portnoy's Complaint or |
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Faulkner's "The Sound and the Fury" (eg. 'she told me to hush and I hushed' 250x)
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seemunkee
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:10 PM
Response to Original message |
17. Ulysses by James Joyce |
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Or The Sound and the Fury
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Tyrone Slothrop
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:50 PM
Response to Reply #17 |
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Ulysses is mind-bogglingly good!
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mitchum
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:58 PM
Response to Reply #22 |
40. As is "The Sound and the Fury" |
ernstbass
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:16 PM
Response to Reply #17 |
27. I am with you on James Joyce |
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I struggled with several of his books in college - hate them!!!!!
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seemunkee
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:54 PM
Response to Reply #17 |
35. What the hell was I thinking? |
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Worst book? Why did I think this was about the best book ever?
Worst book would be House of Sand and Fog(I was so glad when everyone was dead, meant no chance for a sequel) or The Perfect Storm (BORRRRRRRIIIIINNGGG, so much filler so little story)
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ImpeachBush
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:13 PM
Response to Original message |
NoodleBoy
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:29 PM
Response to Original message |
20. any of the faux 'Dune' books Brian Herbert tried to write |
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seriously... saying they suck is like saying the real Dune books by Frank Herbert were 'ok.'
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qnr
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:01 PM
Response to Reply #20 |
43. Hey, I'm watching the Dino de Laurentis version of Dune right now n/t |
NoodleBoy
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Wed Dec-29-04 04:02 PM
Response to Reply #43 |
60. unless you read the book, |
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a room full of weed couldn't make that movie make sense.
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qnr
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Wed Dec-29-04 04:07 PM
Response to Reply #60 |
62. Please, I read the book when I was 8 :) |
Moloch
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:31 PM
Response to Original message |
21. anything by ann coulter |
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do those even qualify as books?
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Dastard Stepchild
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:52 PM
Response to Original message |
23. Anything by Anne Rice... |
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just could not read those books. I tried.
Also, I really could not get into the Lord of the Rings books <duck and cover>
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Danmel
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Wed Dec-29-04 12:53 PM
Response to Original message |
24. I hated "A separate Peace" and din't love the "House of Mirth "either |
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There are a lot of bad books- those two just came to mind.
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mcscajun
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:13 PM
Response to Original message |
25. Communion : A True Story -- by Whitley Striber |
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Well-written, gripping, scary. And then you get to the last page and find out you should doubt EVERYTHING you've read.
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bleedingheart
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:15 PM
Response to Original message |
26. The Bible - Because it has been used to justify slaughter |
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bigotry and a host of hideous deeds...
...but to some it is the best book ever written.
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the Princess
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:40 PM
Response to Reply #26 |
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Edited on Wed Dec-29-04 01:41 PM by the Princess
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CO Liberal
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:44 PM
Response to Reply #26 |
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The worst work of fiction of all time.
(Some peole think it's not fiction, but since many of the stories in the Bible are virtually identical to legends from other cultures, I believe that it's merely a collection of tall tales. Flame me if you want, but that's what I believe.)
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maveric
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #26 |
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Utter bullshit that has caused the death and destruction of millions over the past 2000 years. If ever a book to burn, the bible is the one.
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mr blur
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Wed Dec-29-04 06:51 PM
Response to Reply #42 |
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An awful tissue of fake history, superstition and other waffle which is extremely dangerous in the wrong hands - and there are plenty of those around.
However, burning it would just make it more "precious" to those who use it to justify their actions.
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Heimdallr
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:48 PM
Response to Reply #42 |
73. Consider the lilies in the field.... |
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Because ever they're not so dim as to dismiss the philosophical aspects found in the NT as 'utter bullshit'.
The stupid shall inherit nothing.
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jmowreader
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:18 PM
Response to Original message |
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When it is read, 3000 people die needlessly.
L. Ron Hubbard's oeuvre comes in a very close second.
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CanuckAmok
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:23 PM
Response to Reply #28 |
54. Really? I heard it was hard to put down... |
mattclearing
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:52 PM
Response to Reply #54 |
58. , the Canuck said in perfect deadpan. |
mitchum
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:35 PM
Response to Original message |
29. "Atlas Shrugged" purple prose with a tin ear... |
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but one expects horrid work from the ridiculous Rand
Worst book by a great author: "The Mulching of America" by Harry Crews
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regularguy
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:49 PM
Response to Reply #29 |
56. Oh yeah! Worst book ever. |
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I didn't mind The Fountainhead though.....
Who is John Galt? Who gives a f--k?
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dave123williams
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Wed Dec-29-04 01:43 PM
Response to Original message |
32. Well, there's the obvious Paul Clifford (1833) by E.G. Bulweer-Lyon |
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"It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents--except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness."
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HughBeaumont
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Wed Dec-29-04 02:59 PM
Response to Original message |
41. Anything written by Toni Morrison |
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It was utter TORTURE to read this woman's prose in college. GOD.
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CanuckAmok
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:02 PM
Response to Original message |
44. "The Alienist" by Caleb Carr. |
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I expected a good historical thriller, but instead got the literary version of the worst serial film series you can imagine.
Seriously, it was like this:
Villain: "Ah hah! Finally I have you captured, (hero)...you're doomed now!"
Hero: "Oh, am I? Look behind you, villain!"
Hero's sidekick stands behind villain, pistol in hand
Villain: "Ah, you think you have outsmarted me, (hero), with your good friend (sidekick) behind me? Well look closely behind (sidekick)!"
We are then told that the villain's sidekick has the hero's sidekick in his sights...
Hero: "Clever, (villain), but not clever enough...look behind your sidekick..."
And then we see that the hero's sidekick's sidekick has the villain's sidekick surrounded...
and so forth, and so forth...
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klook
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:11 PM
Response to Original message |
46. "Listen to the Warm" by Rod McKuen |
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Also, I remember this horrible book of "poetry" by Hugh something-or-other from the early 1980s. As I recall the guy even wrote everything in lowercase with no punctuation, like e e cummings. A friend of mine and I used to write hilarious parodies of those.
This is driving me nuts, now. Who was that Hugh guy? Anybody remember?
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klook
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:19 PM
Response to Reply #46 |
49. Hey, I found it! "Notes to Myself" by Hugh Prather |
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That's just hilariously bad. Schmaltz-o-rama, and exceedingly narcissistic to boot.
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La Lioness Priyanka
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:12 PM
Response to Original message |
47. anything written by coulter |
jonnyblitz
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:14 PM
Response to Original message |
48. ha! i just read A Man in Full and really liked it! |
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oh well...I never read Celestine Prophecy because I figured it was pure babble/crap.
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Shakespeare
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:22 PM
Response to Original message |
52. Can't believe no one's mentioned the "Left Behind" series. |
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Gotta be some of the worst (and most dangerous) books written.
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Blue-Jay
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:17 PM
Response to Reply #52 |
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My ex got thoroughly pissed when I referred to that series as "science fiction minus the science".
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Carson
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:17 PM
Response to Reply #52 |
70. I seriously doubt many here have actually *read* the books. |
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One has to read them before giving an opinion, I would think.
;-)
(Note: I haven't read the series.)
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Beaverhausen
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:23 PM
Response to Original message |
53. Malleous Mallefecarum |
mattclearing
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:51 PM
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57. Pet Sematery was awful. |
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The movie was every bit as good as the book. :)
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Carson
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:16 PM
Response to Reply #57 |
68. Loved the book, despised the movie. |
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As I do almost every movie adaptation of a King novel.
I'll give credit for "Shawshank Redemption", "Stand By Me", and "Misery". The rest sucked, included Kubrick's travesty, "The Shining".
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Bucknut213
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Wed Dec-29-04 03:55 PM
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Endangered Specie
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Wed Dec-29-04 04:06 PM
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Blue-Jay
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Wed Dec-29-04 06:59 PM
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65. ANYTHING by Danielle Steele. |
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I'm sorry, but if you think she is a good author, you need help.
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Carson
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:12 PM
Response to Original message |
66. "A Good Baby" by Leon Rooke....and... |
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99.9% of the "bodice-rippers" known as Harlequin Romance novels. I just *love* reading phrases like, "As he took her maidenhead, her loins quivered." Ugh.
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SKKY
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:45 PM
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72. "Gerald's Game" by Stephen King... |
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...and if I wasn't in the middle of a six-month deployment with that being my very last book, I don't think I could have choked it down. King is wonderful, but that book was just awful. It sucked. It suckity suck sucked.
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GOPNotForMe
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Wed Dec-29-04 07:52 PM
Response to Original message |
74. "Pamela" by Samuel Richardson. |
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I would sooner eat my fingers off before I would reread that crapola. My GOD that was a terrible, TERRIBLE book.
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DemoTex
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Thu Dec-30-04 08:05 PM
Response to Original message |
77. "Doom Pussy" by Elaine Shepard |
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The DOOM is the Danang Officers' Open Mess and the "Pussy" is the mouth of the cat of death that we "flew into" on missions over the Ho Chi Mihn Trail, North Vietnam, and all of South Vietnam. Doom Pussy was a poorly written chronicle/fiction that actually had the writer, Elaine Shepard, punching out of a B-57 Canberra and being captured by the NVA. Too, too much. I suspect that she, as an accredited journalist, hung around the D.O.O.M. -- as a fighter pilot groupie -- and misunderstood what/whom they were talking about when they joked of the "DOOM Pussy."
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Wed Apr 24th 2024, 08:19 PM
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