Worst book you've ever read

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awyala said:
It's not that it is old English, that isn't the worst part. It's that it is effectively a play, or "screen play". It's a truncated version of what a real novel is. It has no settings, no support, just straight dialog. Every incarnation of Shakespeare has tremendous liberties taken by production companies to set the stage, setting, ambiance, mood, etc. This is NOT to the credit of Shakespeare, and more to historians and play companies.

It would be like praising a screen play as a great novel; it's incomplete!!!

The reason why Shakespeare is forced down our throats, is that is really the first comprehensive body of work that encapsulates the English language to formalize it, when at the time, every village and region in England had a different dialect. Shakespeare marks the start of the rise of the English language on the level of French or German or Latin. Latin had been formalized ages before, and French had been formalized more recently compared to English.

Shakespeare should be studied more for historical value as opposed to literary value. More so with the controversy over authoriship, credit should be spread around.
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On a similar topic I read the translations of a few of the old Latin Epics such as Aenead (even read that one twice just cause I enjoyed it that much), Metamorhosis of Ovid, etc. as well as some random Norse stuff, Homer (Greek), Gilgamesh (Babylonian), and Ramayana (Indian). and I enjoyed most of them BUT, I ried reading Dante's Inferno THREEE times now and I always loose interest and stop about a third of the way in so i came to the conclusion that it sucks! I'm sure the poetry of the original in Latin is beautiful but the poetry is lost in translation and what's left is a fairly borring and uneventful story of a guy walking around and talking to ghosts. Literally NOTHING happens. Not only that but you literally have to read pages and pages of background history of Florence and Dante's life to understand half the references and who the ghosts are and this is coming from someone that read most of the epics that came before this one so I'm already familiar with most of the fictional characters that appear in Inferno/Comedia. Arghhhh! So yes, in conclusion; Dante's Inferno sucks! I actually prefer some Shakesear to Dante by a long shot.
 
Never start reading a book in jail, that you can't finish. Because the saying is, if you don't finish it, you'll be coming back to!

Only reading I ever did was in jail. Loved the Clive Cussler books, the part where he painted potatoes black and pretended they were grenades and lobbed them at a french police boat, that was funny :D

Didn't pay attention to the books I didn't like.

-Jamie M.
 
invictus43 said:
That's cuz you're not a 12 year old chick who's a social outcast.. :-)
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I read the whole series and really really liked it, and I was maybe 16 at the time, and not an outcast. All my books are hardcover in mint condition.... I will agree that the movies suck though.
 
While I respect the Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings for what they are to the genre.

I don't consider them to be entertaining or good books...
 
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, I had to read it for class, it was painful and disturbing, the language was hard to understand too.
 
eljay said:
Margaret Atwood books suck. Big time. CanCon charity recipient.
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Yup. Read this in grade 11:

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Man-hating rhetoric.
 
Roasted said:
I ried reading Dante's Inferno THREEE times now and I always loose interest and stop about a third of the way in so i came to the conclusion that it sucks! I'm sure the poetry of the original in Latin is beautiful but the poetry is lost in translation and what's left is a fairly borring and uneventful story of a guy walking around and talking to ghosts.
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The problem with Dante is that most of what's going on is an "in-joke"..the characters are unknown to us. It'd be like someone reading your book a thousand years from now as you joke about Lindsay Lohan's puss and blow issues. They'd be like "wha..?? Lilo??" :-)
 
Shaman said:
I second the bible. The short stories are so contrived and stilted. Also, not a fan of incest or misogyny.
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I love the stories in the bible! So creative! ;) When I was little I thought it would be so cool if the boys up the street I would fight with would turn into pilars of salt!

I find a lot of the classics are horribly boring. I don't get the big deal about Pride and Prejudice. A painful read. Anything that has feminist subject matter I find tends to be really irritating.
 
I started by liking his books but quickly realised he was just churning out the same weak, shallow, sometimes rushed stories. He always seems to run out of ideas, inspiration and steam. Like he loses interest in writing about 2/3rds of his way through the book. Dean Koontz. Anything by him. Assume you've read four of his books then the fifth will be the worst book you've ever read. Or, whichever book of his you're reading when the penny finally drops.
 
Oh I need to add something to this thread that I doubt anyone has ever heard of. Was in private school up until the end of grade 4 and my insane grade 3 teacher had us read this gem. Its 300 pages long, and about settlers living in the woods. My mom read most of it to me and even she thought it was cracked out

LittleHouseBigWoods1.jpg
 
The Road by Cormac McCarthy. The grimmest, most depressing and despairing thing I have ever tried to read. Stopped about half-way through. Was keeping me up nights.
 
invictus43 said:
The problem with Dante is that most of what's going on is an "in-joke"..the characters are unknown to us. It'd be like someone reading your book a thousand years from now as you joke about Lindsay Lohan's puss and blow issues. They'd be like "wha..?? Lilo??" :-)
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Yeah, this is pretty much bang on. Like I was saying, you have to read pages and pages of history and background to "get it". Lame!
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