What Books Do You Dislike?

Chris OConnor · Posted: Wed Feb 27, 2008 11:47 am Post subject:

What exactly is the definition of literary fiction? Aren't all fiction books literary fiction?

It is amazing how much influence a review can have on my desire to read a book. With limited reading time available, and so many books available, I am very picky about what I am willing to pick up and read. Both Wicked and The Keep are books I was considering....

Randy Kadish · Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 9:12 am Post subject:

Yes, the term literary fiction is hard to define. I should have been more specific. By literary fiction I mean fiction that is aimed for a small, intellectual/academic audience. Generally, these works are weak on plots.

If you read fiction in the New Yorker magazine you know what I'm referring to.

Randy

Constance963 · Posted: Fri Feb 29, 2008 12:11 pm Post subject:

ralphinlaos · Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 12:43 pm Post subject:

It's really amazing, isn't it? One man's meat is another man's poison, I guess. When I love a book or have just finished one I really enjoyed, I want to shout it to the world - only to find that half the world doesn't care and the other half doesn't agree with me.

I love Dickens - except for A Tale of Two Cities - I just found it too long and I had a difficult time keeping the characters and locations straight in my mind. But read David Copperfield or Great Expectations - terrific stories well told.

Stephen King? Well, I loved him once upon a time so he'll always have a place in my heart. I agree with the person who said Gerald's Game was unreadable - I never did finish it. But he did write Carrie and Misery and 'Salem's Lot and Dolores Claiborne and . . . .

Someone doesn't like Catcher in the Rye; I'm sorry, that's just about blasphemy in my book. Do you know, there are actually people out there who don't think that To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic? Really, there are! And Miss Bronte's Wuthering Heights - even it has it's detractors.

I kid you not! There's just no pleasing some people!

And yet . . . and yet! James Patterson sells very well. So does Norah Roberts. Have there ever been worse (less talented) writers in the English language.? Who? V.C. Andrews, perhaps?

Thank God for John Irving! And thank John Irving, while we're at it, for his wonderful books. I'm sure you'll all agree with me, right?

Ralph

Indigo · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 12:28 am Post subject:

bolsen1 · Posted: Mon Apr 21, 2008 1:13 am Post subject:

I bought a copy of Tolstoy's War and Peace, figuring I should read it to become "well rounded," but it never sustained my interest. That's strange because I have read Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment and thoroughly enjoyed it, even though when I pick it up today I wonder how I ever got through it.

jaywalker · Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 8:25 am Post subject: What Books Do You Dislike?

Henry James and Grahame Green. Fillistine or Wot ?

BabyBlues · Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:34 pm Post subject: Moby Dick

I am also in the anti-Moby Dick camp. You may disagree but I find a whole chapter about just how white the whale is to be overkill... and this is from someone who likes symbolism.

Another pretty bad read was Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin. I had to read it for a grad class and I think that is the only reason one would ever pick it up. A classmate of mine renamed it "melmoth the wonder-why-anyone-would-read-this."

amielou · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2008 11:00 pm Post subject:

Books I can't stand:

Moby Dick....ugh. And most of Hemingway. Especially The Old Man and the Sea. Maybe I have issues with oceans and large fish??

I hated Heart of Darkness as well and was forced to read it in two classes in college.

I had to teach Great Expectations to 9th graders for six years. Those two things, Great Expectations and 9th graders, just don't coexist together at all. It made me hate the book.

I had to teach Lord of the Flies for two years. The kids liked it better than I did. I hated it. I also had to teach Of Mice and Men one year. I hate it with a passion as well. Also The Grapes of Wrath. The only Steinbeck I've ever liked was Cannery Row.

And I've never got through Jane Eyre.

My books · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2008 3:01 pm Post subject:

One seriously unreadable classic for me was Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In fact anything by Samuel Taylor Coleridge puts me to sleep - snore city. I also didn't like Catcher in the Rye, but will fully admit that it is a classic.

ayemea · Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 5:45 am Post subject:

I dislike 'the graduate'. We had to read it in school and I thought it was so boring. Well, it isn't my genre at all. At least it was easy to read.
All in all I dislike nearly every book we have to read for classes.

Constance963 · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 8:34 am Post subject:

And sorry to all the Walden readers but I detested that book. I had to write a critical paper on it in English my junior year of high school and couldn't even get through it. It the only other book besides Moby Dick that I read the Cliff's notes for because I couldn't finish it...but still got an A on my paper!!!!! Laughing

My English teacher was usually drunk and we used to joke that he stood at the top of his stairs, threw our papers down it and whoever landed at the top got an A and whoever was at the bottom got an F and the rest were graded accordingly as to where they fell in between.... Laughing

ayemea · Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 9:16 am Post subject:

And we always thought, the teachers were using dice...

hegel1066 · Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:19 am Post subject: Dislikes:

Almost anything by Thomas Pynchon
"A Flag for Sunrise" by Robert Stone
Dickens (or at least too much of him in a short period of time)
Anything by Don Delillo
Most things by John Barth
Most things by John Banville.

All of these are supposedly "world-class" writers who have won numerous national and international prizes for the work in fiction. Maybe there's something wrong with me...

-John (hegel1066)

charliespeaks · Posted: Tue Jul 29, 2008 1:19 am Post subject:

I think anything you have to write a critical report on looks bad for a while thereafter. I hated catcher in the rye for a while b/c i had to do a paper on it.. it has since truly grown on me though.

I'm about to become very unpopular...

I hated on the road by jack kerouac.

I found it boring and nearly impossible to get into. I read the whole thing and truly felt like I'd just wasted 3 days of my book reading for nothing.


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