Book you wish you had never picked up
martinwitnam
Posts: 1,075
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.
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sorry, I'll get my coat! :oops:
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!
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Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance is just too hard!
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!
its a laugh a minute :roll:
just picked up
The Nazis: A Warning from History
im sure it'll be just as good!
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Yes, I suppose considering that it's fairly coherent!!
Still utter tosh though :roll: - maybe I should've got wired to the gills on goofballs to understand it! :shock:
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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!.
it's like the bible in terms or such and such begat blah blah... ugh
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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.
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But they're ever so small
That's why rain is thin. " Spike Milligan
"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)
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
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.
But did you enjoy them?
Or were you just finishing them because you started?
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i was about to say "the stack of yellow pages that i dropped on my foot"
that will be all
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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:
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!
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It's a shame it takes so long to get to the point though.
LOTR though, got halfway through the second book and just couldn't carry on, the Entmoot killed my will.
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.
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Oh, the bible too.
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!
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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
I'd also like to add:
We Need to Talk About Kevin - utter sh1te.
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[1] Description of Clarkson lifted from Radio 4's The Now Show, and not of my own invention.
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.
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