The worst book you've ever read or had to have read

Writers that aren't concerned with entertaining the public don't sell. If they don't sell they don't get read. If they don't get read, they haven't communicated anything. (p.s. I'm limiting my topic to fiction. Non-fiction is another matter)

So why did the mediocre sell well when the "good" didn't? The choices of the public may seem like mindless fads, but it's just a conglomeration of the choices of many individuals. Out of all the people you have a personal relationship, how many of them do you consider mindless? Probably not very many of them, if any at all.

A writer who sells has figured out something important. He has figured out how to connect with many different people from many different backgrounds. Luck may have given him the chance to have his stuff seen, but luck is not responsible for that connection.

 

Consider people like Emily Dickinson. She went pretty much unnoticed during her lifetime. She is now considered one of the better poets. Things like that happen all the time. Writers can't determine what's going to sell and what's not. What they write may entertain one generation but not the next, and vice versa. IMO, time is the best thing we have to determine how good something is.

There's also a snowball effect. If one person likes it, then he will tell his friends. They will then tell their friends, and so on and so forth. Also, when people like Oprah promote a book, it gets read by many more people. It seems that most people read what others are reading which helps influence book sales.

Just because he has connected with different people doesn't mean his prose is good. It's sort of like a singer with a good voice who sings off-key. To someone who isn't very knowledgeable in music, the singing is going to sound good even if it's off-key. But a person educated in music knows otherwise. This is what's happening with writing as well. The general public doesn't know enough about writing to make clear judgments on how good the prose is. Being an avid reader and/or writer is what helps telling good prose from mediocre/bad.

 

The snowball can't account for the effect happening in the first place. People read what their friends read, but only if they like it too. If they don't feel their own connection they put it down and the snowball stops cold.

That connection is the main point. That's what writing is, an attempt to bridge the gap between two people and communicate...whatever it is that you want to communicate. You could have the most beautiful prose in the world, but if you don't bridge that gap then you have failed. The metaphors, the pacing, the plot, the characters, singing on key, strong beats, beautiful lighting, delicate lines...all of those are tools. They are tools intended to help you connect. They are skills, but those skills are only tools used to reach another end.

It's the same in anything. People assume that if you have a big camera you take good pictures and if you have a small camera you take bad ones. Then National Geographic does a story entirely with a cell phone camera, and the amateur gets a $5,000 dollar camera and wonders why his pictures look exactly the same as they always did.

 

Interesting discussion.

So, what was the worst book you've ever read, or had to read?

Charlie

 

Lord of the Rings.

 

What the public likes is never a good way to separate bad from good. The general public is not an expert in anything which is why I don't pay much attention to what they think about this book or that. I tend to take recommendations from people who know what they are talking about. This includes some critics, other writers, and a small number of friends and family.

Just look at Oprah's book club. Some of the writers were unknown to the public before Oprah chose their books. Then their popularity skyrocketed, and their books joined bestseller lists. In that case, the author had little to do with the fame his book received.

Also, I think we have a differing opinions on what the point of writing is. I don't believe the main goal of writing is to connect with the general public. Ultimately, a writer can't please everyone, so if he intends to connect with others, it's going to be a small group of people. Thus, he has only a small audience or no audience at all in mind when he begins writing. What happens after that is outside the writer's control. By the way, a singer can easily sing off-key and still please the general public. Like I said, the general public doesn't have the knowledge and background to be an authority on these topics.

And just to keep this tread on track, I read a pretty bad book the other day. It's titled We Come as Friends by Peter Michaels. It was sitting on my shelf, so I figured I'd read it. The book is about supposedly true alien encounters. The writing is alright, IMO, but the stories are outrageous. For some reason, a lot of the aliens are religious. Perhaps if the author wasn't so adamant about the stories being true, I would have enjoyed it more.

 

That story sounds rubbish, in all honesty. Okay, maybe the aliens are religious, but not the same religions as ours, it would be quite hard to believe. Also, what critics do you think have the right idea of how good the quality of the books are?

 

I got the impression that the author was biased towards one religion. All of the aliens seemed to practice some form of Christianity. I'd say that if you are looking for an amusing book, then go ahead and read it. But don't expect to be convinced that aliens are among us. There are much better books for that.

This is kind of hard to answer. First and foremost, I look for opinions from authors and scholars. If I like a particular author, I try to see what books and/or authors influenced him or her. Usually, authors have a few books that they love. As for scholars, I would place a lot of professors under that category. I also take a look at books my professors recommend. Since they focus on one area of literature (i.e. modernism or Irish literature), they are well read in their area of expertise and do a great job of recommending good literature. These two methods are really great for discovering new literature.

When it comes down to critics, it's not so clear. If I hear the name of a critic, I look him or her up and see what kinds of books he or she reads. Also, I look at critics from different genres since I don't expect someone who is an expert in mainstream fiction to know a lot about fantasy. There is also a general consensus among the literary community as to who the good critics are. But I do try to stay away from people like Harold Bloom. He is extremely elitist and hates anything that doesn't fall under the category of literary fiction.

 

Ah seems quite reasonable, but can I say another boring book. The Hitchhiker's guide to the universe, I know it's meant to be a comedy, but it's so boring and also I found it quite bland. I only like Marvin, even though he was depressing. I did not like the computer, and it's answer of 42 or 49. Can't remember, I found it the most boring book ever.

 

Like others here I haven't read that many books that I can say were completely and utterly terrible, with the exception of one: TWILIGHT.

I love to read, anything and everything. I sometimes read teen/young adult fiction which often times is literary, intelligent, and inspiring (ie. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn). However, Twlight is absolutely terrible. Perhaps my aversion for the book is so high because of its popularity. I just cannot in any way understand what would make so many young girls drool over this book so much. (Btw, I'm refering to the book's popularity before the movie was released.)


Note: To the person who deemed Crime and Punishment as boring and the worst book. That is simply not true.

 

Well I might know why Twilight is so popular, it's that vampire who falls in love with Bella, he might be seen as totally hot and people like him, because he's uber cool. When in fact he isn't, I hate the book myself, with a passion.

 

Twilight was just good markeing, it was never supposed to be a good or average even. It just landed into a very VERY marketable group.

I mean five seconds of listening to that women explains everything. I dont even see why their has to be debates on it.


Harry Potter, waset it meant for kids? I read it, and for a children series i think its great. Now step over the children genre and well.... I respect J.K though, i like her style, to a degree.

I cant say i have a most hated book, but im really hating Fantasy. The whole grenre is turning into a large and lare ple of junk every passing year.

Apart from G.R.R Martin everything i hve picked up has been a painful page turner. How can the Fantasy genre have so few deas, it just does not make sense!

There is a book (fan fic) based on that EVA (EVO i forget) online RPG (whch i did not know at the time). Name something that can be bad about a book, and it has it. EVERYTHING!

 

To be honest, I agree. The genre seems to have stagnated lately, with just more of the same being produced. Elves and orcs are all well and good, but they're destroying creativity in a genre which, by it's definition should be the most imaginative of genres.

*braces for angry replies from fantasy fans*

 

Well use other creatures like Kitsune, Kirin, or go on wikipedia type down mythological creatures. That should work, and make a difference to the fantasy genre, make it special and different. People will love it.

But, I agree Fantasy genres is starting to go downhill, J.R Tolkien had a reason to bring elves and dwarves, but that's because he was the first person. Now, it's just the same old,the same old. Which kind of sucks.

 

Hey, I'm working on it, but you gotta give me more time!

 

I was refering to the book's popularity BEFORE all the hype, the movie, the media attention and marketing initiatvies. I'm refering to how the book almost literally flew off the shelves, so much so that the store where I worked had to constantly re-order copies.

This is what I don't understand.

 

Twilight.

This is old news, obviously. Twilight is poorly written, has no plot, full with purple prose and thesaurus rape, and is just... wrong in so many ways. Not only is it full of angsting Mary Sue's and Gary Stu's, it actually promotes abusive and obsessive relationships, paedophilia, child grooming, love at first sight being true love and produced a bunch of wnb-vampires. Seriously, what was up with the sparkles? Bram Stoker is turning in his grave.

Replica and Sweet Valley High are series that also make me want to puke. I don't really rant about them though, because they are (thank god) not that popular. Again, full with Mary Sues and poor writing.

Then, I set my hatred to a whole genre: teen fantasy novels. I have no problem with fantasy novels, just the mass production ones. You know, where there's a female serial killer, chosen one, totallyawesomefighter!!! Mary Sue as the main character, with the totallyawesomeüberspecial pet and the sword from her grandmother. She's of course some kind of an elf, and does stuff for no reason. Then, somebody else (a guy, everybody else are always guys) jumps along, and they do things for no reason together. It's like a really, really, really bad LotR ripoff with no plot and crappy characters.

/rant over

 

What you said is so true, this genre needs to be fixed quickly before it ruins the younger generation of differenating a good fantasy book from a mediocare/bad book.

There needs to be change.

 

Not only that, but when she got leaked, she publicly announced that she would stop writing Midnight Sun. It might just be me, but if someone cared enough to leak my writing, I would be unbelievably thankful, thanking everyone I possibly could, and continue writing.

 

She should be grateful, but I kind of understand her though, as that person did invade her privacy by leaking it. She did say though, she will continue on with it, once everyone has forgotten it.

 

As much as I dislike her and her writing, theft is theft, and I really don't see how she should be grateful for it. It's how she makes her living.

 

OT. Actually, I would be the one to leak my books. Piracy is said to increase selling, and I can easily see why.

Her reaction was childish. I guess we can't ask her to be thankful, but gees, do you have to pull a tantrum? She could've just asked her fans not to read it, and move on with her damn life. Not go all "I would kill everybody, if I'd write now!!! Bastards!!!"

 

She should forgive and forget, but I highly doubt she would doubt that. Also, we should go back on topic, because it would be kind of depressing if we let this topic close down.

 

I read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and I kind of liked it. It was too short of a timespan IMO, and it could have been elaborated, rather than packing all the events into one day in the book.

Edit: Lolita is good, in parts. However, I really don't like the way Humbert keeps holding everything she wants over her head to get what HE wants. He does love her, in a way. But it's twisted, weird and overprotective love. If I was Lo, I would have tried escape a long time ago.

 

Apart from the usual Twilight, Dan Brown's books, there are a few I can't stand and which are considered "classics".

Not sure if most of you read Siddhartha by Herman Hesse, but that was just ughhhh... I felt like I was reading "An introduction to Self Spirituality". The main character is well defined but in my opinion the author went a tad too much with his Buddhist obsessions.