Worst book you've ever read

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Just an observation but since the invention of Tv, followed by movies which gives you a complete story in 2-3 hours, wouldn't it make reading a 600 page book boring? Studies have proven time and time again that our attention span is getting shorter. Infact modern studies prove that regular usage of TV and internet rewires the brain in a certain way.

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/05/ff_nicholas_carr/

And now our cellphones which are mini computers in essence.

I was an avid reader in my teens, infact i remember reading books for 4-5 hours average on a daily basis. That has changed, apparently now i have gone from a book reader to a book collector. I recently counted the books i bought and haven't read, They amounted to 122 in all just over a year. I still read a lot but its mostly internet reading......I wish i could get back my book reading enthusiasm back.
 
I typically cannot finish a book that I'm not enjoying. One of those recently was Paul Young's "The Shack." At least I gave it an earnest effort of reading to page 102.
 
War & Peace :S.

I thought it'd be get better, so i trudged on for 3/4ths of the book...it didn't. Maybe the amazingness was in the lat 1/4, but I couldn't take it anymore. I'll try again in a couple of years - maybe I'm just not mature enough to appreciate it (although I'm not sure if that can be it since I've read more challenging books before):confused:

Freak said:
I recently counted the books i bought and haven't read, They amounted to 122 in all just over a year. I still read a lot but its mostly internet reading......I wish i could get back my book reading enthusiasm back.
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I'll take 'em off your hands! :D I collect books and I can go through a couple a week
 
Freak said:
Just an observation but since the invention of Tv, followed by movies which gives you a complete story in 2-3 hours, wouldn't it make reading a 600 page book boring? Studies have proven time and time again that our attention span is getting shorter. Infact modern studies prove that regular usage of TV and internet rewires the brain in a certain way.
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Thats probably why those of us who aren't completely mindless enjoy reading. While most people yes will be happier sitting and spacing out in front of a tv, those of us who enjoy using our brains still get a lot out of taking descriptive writing and using our imagination. Books also have a way of transporting you somewhere that tv doesn't.

I'd say boring is the wrong word, but agree that most people dont have the attention span for sitting and reading.
 
knowledge said:
I'll take 'em off your hands! :D I collect books and I can go through a couple a week
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Most of em are in Urdu(got them from Pakistan during my visit last year). Plenty of them in english as well, what genre do you prefer? I don't read fiction, novel etc. Its mostly on social sciences, politics, economics, history, international relations, religion and spirituality. You are most welcome to BORROW them :P
 
Fifty Shades of Grey

Where do I begin? I made the mistake of listening to all my girl friends telling me I NEED to read this book. Disappointment is a word that cannot describe this book in full detail.
I always do some background research on a book before I begin. Upon finding out this book started off as Twilight Fan Fiction probably biased my from the start. Even with all the mystical tripe taken out of the novel, it was easy to follow where it would have been if kept as it fan fic originality. The female "heroine" is weak beyond reason. The writing itself is horrible and painful to follow. Juvenile to say the least. The whole time I am asking myself "This is so unrealistic I can't even relate to it nor do I want to."
The 'sexy' parts of the book are poorly described and thought out making me wonder if she had thesaurus.com open while writing this garbage.

The only good thing I can say about it is that - true to form - it made me text my boy some interesting messages while we were apart. Other then that .... I want my $11 back.

Poison Wood Bible

Everyone loves this book but me. I wont trash it because I read it when I was younger and perhaps, couldn't fully appreciate the value.
I am not a huge fan of reading books where I don't like any of the characters. This book was no exception. I wish I could remember more but I cannot. I recall the over all message of the book being one of value but it never made a lasting impression on me other than being one that I didn't enjoy for reasons that may only be my own.
 
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Moby F'n Dick. I should of stopped right after "Call me Ishmael."
 
Amazon said:
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.
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I love you girl but ....... NO!...... NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! BAD!!! Bad girl!!!!

It all sucked. Everything about these books sucks. The only reason I have 'read' them is because I put them as an audiobook on my iPod when I use to commute from Petawawa every weekend a few years back. Listening to them made me to angry I never fell asleep behind the wheel.

Once again, another weak female character that celebrates the knight in shinning .... skin, in this case but also that being socially awkward, alienating and strange will get you everything you ever wanted. Best example I can use for this is that my sister is a teacher and would walk around at recess. She once found a young 13 year old girl sitting alone under a tree reading the books. My sister asked this girl what she liked best about the books. The girl replied; "the main character isn't athletic, she is quiet and shy, she has brown hair and the boys fight for her."

The twilight books celebrate a female who is out of control. She is incapable of survival without a man and she does EVERYTHING wrong but it all works out better than anyone could ever hope for her. Females shouldn't even try to relate to this storyline. If girls want a fictional novel based role model appropriate for their age, read the Hunger Games or Divergent.
 
Freak said:
Most of em are in Urdu(got them from Pakistan during my visit last year). Plenty of them in english as well, what genre do you prefer? I don't read fiction, novel etc. Its mostly on social sciences, politics, economics, history, international relations, religion and spirituality. You are most welcome to BORROW them :P
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I read everything except self-help books. Haha thanks for the offer, but I collect. It'd probably be less of a hassle for you if I just borrowed from the library. I wanna have a whole room dedicated to books one day...and in that room I'm just gonna have one comfy chair in the middle of it :D

Speaking of terrible self-help books: "the secret". Dumbest book ever.
 
It's like the ultimate female fantasy; take a chick that's a nobody who has nothing going for her and have ultra successful and/or unique, high status men fall in love with her for seemingly no reason, pursue her relentlessly, and give her unlimited love and affection. Of course it's unrealistic, a billionaire ain't gonna waste time on some average plain Jane when he can have any woman he wants. But hey, it's easier to fantasize about a knight in shinning armor saving you instead of getting off your *** and trying to better yourself.
 
Banger said:
I love you girl but ....... NO!...... NO NO NO NO NO!!!!! BAD!!! Bad girl!!!!
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I really only liked them because of the way they described Jacob. I was a young single teen and reading about a hot 6'5" tanned muscular guy made me feel happy and not so giant like. Too bad they cast a 5'10" guy to play his part.

As for 50 shades of gray, I want to know what all this hype is about, I'll give you half of your $11 back for it :D
 
movie stars are never tall (doesn't look good on camera)
 
Roasted said:
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I REALLY REALLY hated this book
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This was a great book.. what you got against the kaffirs?
 
Freak said:
I was an avid reader in my teens, infact i remember reading books for 4-5 hours average on a daily basis. That has changed, apparently now i have gone from a book reader to a book collector. I recently counted the books i bought and haven't read, They amounted to 122 in all just over a year. I still read a lot but its mostly internet reading......I wish i could get back my book reading enthusiasm back.
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I too loved reading but found it hard to fit in to my busy schedule and with so many other distractions to choose from reading was always getting pushed to the bottom of the list when I did have free time. But I stopped driving to work a few years back and started commuting on the GO and I now have approx 1.5-2 hours a day to do nothing but read on my commute. I read about a book a week on average(depending on length of course.) Actually even before I stopped driving to work I was listening to audio books in the car on my commute, this was also enjoyable and took my mind off the ****in traffic jams in good ol' Toronto. So that may be an option for some as well.

On topic though I don't know what the worst book I have read is but I generally stop reading something if it doesn't catch my interest in the first few chapters. The last book I can remember not finishing was "Accelrando" by Charles Stross. Terrible, found it impossible to follow what was going on. I liked the concept but it seemed poorly executed.
 
xfactor said:
Moby F'n Dick. I should of stopped right after "Call me Ishmael."
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I actually read that tome as well! There is a better book called The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex on which part of Moby Dick is based..the sinking of the boat part by the whale.. It's a non-fiction book..boat sinks, 100 men go into the water..2 come out alive after 4 months at sea..it's quite riveting stuff.. :-)
 
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Roasted said:
I believe Hugh Jackman is 6'2, Arnold was around that height too.......that's not freakish tall or anything but it's on the tall side.
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They're outliers. A lot of studs in the movie industry are tall, but it isn't what casters generally prefer. They like shorter people and it's a bonus if you have a big head 'cause it looks really good on camera.

I remember growing up thinking stars were massive, ridiculously good-looking, and jacked, but as I got older and saw some of them in person, I realized that some of them were just normal people like you and I. Make up, camera angles, and lighting does wonders. See them when they're not all dolled up to be filmed, and some of them wouldn't even get a second look.

But now I know why they get bashed for portraying unrealistic images...
 
i remember back in the day, i bought a book from scholastics called "Animorphs". By far the worst book i have ever read.
 
This thread should be titled 'worst book you've never read' since if the book is that terrible, why punish yourself to finish it?

I would agree with the OP about 'Something Happened' and I would also include 'Closing Time'... I am not sure if anything from Heller other than Catch-22 is worth reading, and a lot don't like that book.

I also completely agree with The Silmarillion -- man, when I read a book I don't want to have to take notes! This book was so damn confusing with the strange place names and strange people...

As for poorly written but interesting story, I would have to say The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Millennium series -- I know they were translations, but still, it seemed like poor writing to me.

There are also a lot of books considered 'classics' that I have been unable to get through, but I think a lot of them need you to be in a certain frame of mind before taking them on. For example, I could never get through Dostoyevsky until I moved to Indonesia on a 6 month contract. I was located in a village with almost no English speakers, had no friends, no Indonesian capability, no tv, no radio, nothing but me and my books -- definitely the loneliest time in my life -- and at that point I could get through and understand Dostoyevsky (as well as Orwell, Kafka, etc).

Finally, there are those books that are just filled with so much detail about nothing that it is a waste of time. Stephen King, I am looking at you. King has some good novels, but man does he also have a lot of drivel. [h=3][/h]
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