Book you wish you had never picked up

martinwitnam

Sorry to say this but I finished "The Maltese Falcon" about two weeks ago and I've got to say that it has got to be the most boring, hard to read book that I have had the misfortune to pick up.

markyboy2005

War and Peace - so big I slipped a disc.



sorry, I'll get my coat! :oops:

suze

Ulysses, apparently James Joyces best known novel., I managed about half way before I thought what is this all about :? ....never finished it. I sure someone on here will have finished it

ContrelaMontre

On The Road by Kerouac

Never finished that - I can't stand when people can't right in English! Same goes for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - only got a couple of chapters in.

Crash by Ballard - I finished it but as I said on the other thread it's just not right!

heavymental

23 days in July is dull.

Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is just too hard!

el_presidente

ContrelaMontre wrote:

On The Road by Kerouac

Kerouac wrote On The Road in longhand on a huge scroll of paper, basically non-stop for about a fortnight whilst wired to the gills on speed & goofballs. Personally I was surprised how well it reads!

spasypaddy

Auschwitz, The Nazis & The Final Solution

its a laugh a minute :roll:

just picked up

The Nazis: A Warning from History

im sure it'll be just as good!

ContrelaMontre

el_presidente wrote:

ContrelaMontre wrote:

On The Road by Kerouac

Kerouac wrote On The Road in longhand on a huge scroll of paper, basically non-stop for about a fortnight whilst wired to the gills on speed & goofballs. Personally I was surprised how well it reads!

Yes, I suppose considering that it's fairly coherent!! :roll:

Still utter tosh though :roll: - maybe I should've got wired to the gills on goofballs to understand it! :shock:

nasahapley

ContrelaMontre wrote:

On The Road by Kerouac

Never finished that - I can't stand when people can't right in English! Same goes for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest - only got a couple of chapters in.

I thought the same about One Flew at first, 'can I be bothered to read 200 more pages of this', but I stuck at it and reckon it's a great book.

After reading The Day of the Jackal, which is superb, everything else by Frederick Forsyth seems abysmal. Doubt he'll care though, he's got obscenely rich off the back of it!.

Clever Pun

The Silmarrionion or whatever it's called by Tolkien... my god it's just so boring, I skipped huge chunks out and could still follow it

it's like the bible in terms or such and such begat blah blah... ugh

popette

ok, preparing to run for cover before I write this -

Lord of the rings.

I forced myself to read the hobbit. Boring. I started on LOTR but just couldn't make myself continue. I loved the films but just find the books zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

right, got my trainers on, here I go byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Special K

popette wrote:

ok, preparing to run for cover before I write this -

Lord of the rings.

I forced myself to read the hobbit. Boring. I started on LOTR but just couldn't make myself continue. I loved the films but just find the books zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

right, got my trainers on, here I go byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

totally agree. boring boring boring.

but not as bad as Linda Diamante's The Red Tent. Utter tosh.

CHRISNOIR

Clever Pun wrote:

it's like the bible in terms or such and such begat blah blah... ugh

"And lo! while in a segment of time that he did find himself bereft of employment Chris Noir, son of David, from the lardy Northern-folk from the Dale of Roch, did behold the Book of Tolkein. Massive it be but read it he did, he readeth it most periods of the solar sojourn. It did spawn much boredom and yawning until, driven to the brink of madness he did close the book and begin a quest to find gainful employment... " (JRR Tolkein, Utter Overblown B*llocks, Penguin, 2005)

rich_pcp

The Da Vinci Code - what a crock of sh*t

Ulysses - who decides that a book is a classic? It's impenetrable and I seriously doubt if there are more than a handful who have read it all the way through

Porgy

Another one for Silmarrillion - crap book (crap band named after it too). I even bought the audio version to try to get through it - I always fall asleep within about 10 minutes. I haven't risked putting it on in the car yet.

I persisted because I loved Lord Of The Rings.

Most of the other books I read in my 20s and loved - On The Road, Zen ataomm, etc.

If you think On The Road doesn't make sense, try reading Burroughs.

And anyone who tried to read the Da Vinci Code deserves what they get.

batch78

Trainspotting by Irvine Walsh great film but who the hell wants to read in Scottish (no disrespect to all you Scots out there) have tried and failed on many occasion. On the road, crash and one flew over the cuckoos nest all successfully finished though along with Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs

ContrelaMontre

batch78 wrote:

On the road, crash and one flew over the cuckoos nest all successfully finished though along with Naked Lunch by William S Burroughs

But did you enjoy them?

Or were you just finishing them because you started?

batch78

Might not recommend them as greatest books of all time or anything but yeah i enjoyed them, don't finish all the books i start though just Trainspotting that jumped to mind

Random Vince

markyboy2005 wrote:

War and Peace - so big I slipped a disc.



sorry, I'll get my coat! :oops:

i was about to say "the stack of yellow pages that i dropped on my foot"

ivancarlos

batch78 wrote:

Trainspotting by Irvine Walsh great film but who the hell wants to read in Scottish (no disrespect to all you Scots out there) have tried and failed on many occasion.

I loved trainspotting. Read it before the film and genuinely laughed out loud when I read the bit with Spud and the bedclothes

Back to the OP - Maribou stork nightmares by the same author - simply disturbing :shock:

chrisjsmith

Currently reading Sartre - Nausea. A hideously boring diatribe on existentialism. Makes me sleep well at night though.

pneumatic

chrisjsmith wrote:

Currently reading Sartre - Nausea. A hideously boring diatribe on existentialism. Makes me sleep well at night though.

I read that when I was 17 and working in the oil industry (well, ok, I was serving petrol in a rural garage with about 30 customers a day). Sitting there by the gas fire (oh yes!) in my petrol-soaked flared jeans (oh yes!) looking out on a deserted concrete forecourt, I sort of got the point he was trying to make!

chrisjsmith

pneumatic wrote:

chrisjsmith wrote:

Currently reading Sartre - Nausea. A hideously boring diatribe on existentialism. Makes me sleep well at night though.

I read that when I was 17 and working in the oil industry (well, ok, I was serving petrol in a rural garage with about 30 customers a day). Sitting there by the gas fire (oh yes!) in my petrol-soaked flared jeans (oh yes!) looking out on a deserted concrete forecourt, I sort of got the point he was trying to make!

It's a shame it takes so long to get to the point though.

Ieuanllan

I really enjoyed Da Vinci Code, but then I am a simple creature.
LOTR though, got halfway through the second book and just couldn't carry on, the Entmoot killed my will.

pneumatic

Ieuanllan wrote:

I really enjoyed Da Vinci Code, but then I am a simple creature.
.

aargh no!!! that was utter sh1te!! cardboard characters, holywood France, an ending you could see coming from 700 pages away, drivel, drivel, drivel.. And worst of all, so badly written.

If you want to get excited about templars and all that, read Umberto Eco's books:

Name of the Rose and the other one whose name escapes me.

mercurykev

I tried to read a bit of 'The world according to Clarkson'. It's so offensive that I was willing a return to the days when the establishment took publishers to court for distributing such filth. However, I quite like top gear, so what's that all about.

Oh, the bible too.

pneumatic

Delia Smith's Christmas.

Mrs Pneumatic put her back out one year (fnarr, fnarr, but really, she was getting presents from under the tree) and that left me in charge of the annual feast. Well, I followed Delia's patronising advice from start to finish and it was a triumph.

Trouble is, I've had to lock myself in the kitchen with Delia every year since!

DavidBelcher

suze wrote:

Ulysses, apparently James Joyces best known novel., I managed about half way before I thought what is this all about :? ....never finished it. I sure someone on here will have finished it

I'm one of those who did finish it, but couldn't see why the literary types get so worked up over it. Hugely over-rated stuff, and my copy was packed off to a charity shop a good while back. In contrast, "Dubliners" and "Portrait of the Artist...." are accessible and well-written books - I enjoyed both a great deal.
Never been able to get into Dickens, either - had a stab at "A Tale of Two Cities" not so long back but rapidly gave up on it.

David

il_principe

Another one for the Da Vinci.
I'd also like to add:
We Need to Talk About Kevin - utter sh1te.

DavidBelcher

mercurykev wrote:

I tried to read a bit of 'The world according to Clarkson'. It's so offensive that I was willing a return to the days when the establishment took publishers to court for distributing such filth. However, I quite like top gear, so what's that all about.

The difference with Top Gear - and, indeed, only reason that I can sit through an edition without throwing larg objects at the telly - is that Hammond & May to some extent dilute the impact of the opinionated drivel that the poodle-haired gimp [1] comes out with.

David

[1] Description of Clarkson lifted from Radio 4's The Now Show, and not of my own invention.

Jeff Jones

I'm trying to think of books I wished I'd never picked up. It's not easy, as I am normally discerning about what I read. And if I don't like it, I will just stop reading it and forget the title.

Here's one: Persuader, by Lee Child. I generally don't like thrillers but someone left this book in the house so I felt compelled to read it. The writing really annoyed me, especially the over use of the phrase "He said nothing". I finished it out of sheer bloody mindedness.

For the record I loved the Silmarillion/LOTR/Hobbit and didn't mind the World According to Clarkson (but he works so much better with May and Hammond there). I think I might have started Ulysses as well, but didn't finish it.

Dickens: I couldn't get into Pickwick Papers but I loved Bleak House, which took me about three months to read.

I've also heard the Da Vinci code is rubbish (saw the film) and doubt if I'll read it. Name of the Rose wasn't too bad, though.

Recent cycling books I've read: I liked Flying Scotsman but only read about half of Geoff Thomas's Riding Through the Storm. The other half contained what were to me meaningless football references. And there were too many typos and factual errors. That's not to say I don't admire Geoff for what he did and is still doing for cancer, it's just not a great book.