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What is the worst book you have ever read?

Anything by C.S. goto.

I started The Da Vinci Code and put it down because it was on par with the crappy essays I was forced to proof in high school.

Sadly it was " Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"..going in I really wanted to like it...but Meh.

I'm going to be dragged under a bridge for this, but I honestly have to say Lord of the Rings.

I somehow missed Lotr in school, and when I found fantasy it was via Dragonlance and then Forgotten Realms.

I like strong female heroes, and so with Lotr lack of females of note, and his writing style, I just found it a labour to read.

I've never managed to get past about the third of fourth chapter of Two Towers.

Obviously just not my cup of tea, even the films although they where okay and I enjoyed them as cinema, they aren't anything I rush to put on.

Someone will probably say there must be worse, and I can hand on heart say there has been no other books I have been unable to finish. Lotr are the only ones, thus they go down as my worst.

Also seriously, I'm not trolling! *screams as they drag him off towards a bridge*

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'm going to be dragged under a bridge for this, but I honestly have to say Lord of the Rings.

I somehow missed Lotr in school, and when I found fantasy it was via Dragonlance and then Forgotten Realms.

I like strong female heroes, and so with Lotr lack of females of note, and his writing style, I just found it a labour to read.

I've never managed to get past about the third of fourth chapter of Two Towers.

Obviously just not my cup of tea, even the films although they where okay and I enjoyed them as cinema, they aren't anything I rush to put on.

Someone will probably say there must be worse, and I can hand on heart say there has been no other books I have been unable to finish. Lotr are the only ones, thus they go down as my worst.

Also seriously, I'm not trolling! *screams as they drag him off towards a bridge*

I started reading LOTR but got bored on the page 30 something.

Then I tried again, read the whole thing and was like ''I want 5 days of my life back!'' (I'm a fast reader)

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'm going to be dragged under a bridge for this, but I honestly have to say Lord of the Rings.

I somehow missed Lotr in school, and when I found fantasy it was via Dragonlance and then Forgotten Realms.

I like strong female heroes, and so with Lotr lack of females of note, and his writing style, I just found it a labour to read.

I've never managed to get past about the third of fourth chapter of Two Towers.

Obviously just not my cup of tea, even the films although they where okay and I enjoyed them as cinema, they aren't anything I rush to put on.

Someone will probably say there must be worse, and I can hand on heart say there has been no other books I have been unable to finish. Lotr are the only ones, thus they go down as my worst.

Also seriously, I'm not trolling! *screams as they drag him off towards a bridge*

I'm going to have to get under that bridge with you then as I'm not a huge fan of JRRTs works either.
Not saying they're "bad"...just didn't interest me that much.

MDS, MDS . . . I could not shake my head any more disapprovingly. Certainly it's not for everyone, nor is it the best thing ever written, but honestly mate that was a poor answer.

The Hobbit is a more enjoyable read than LotR.

Saving some time here:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/334996.page

Ah... So.. Inspired by "worst black library novel" thread? I gotcha.

I don't have one. I tend to stay away from terrible books. There was a star wars book I thought was absolutely horrible. I can't remember what it was called.

Worst book ever read? Probably Little Women, but hey if you have a sexist english teacher and a pair of male organs you're going to hate any book she assigns. I mean The Island of Dr. Moreau was a great read as was Lord of the Flies, but apparently those books don't tickle a sexists' fancies.

I have never 'read' the worst book i've read? if they are so bad then i'll put them down and won't finish them therefore I can't have a 'worst' book i've read as i've never finished or completely 'read' the book that was so bad in the first place.....but there have been a few black library ones i've put down :-(

I give up if i dont like a book, which isnt often, more often i just run out of steam if i've read alot of the same, e.g. the Ian Rankin Novels. I think i once started a fantasy book called 'dragon riders of Pern' when i was a teen, wasn't very good. Iain M Banks' 'Look to winward' was quite poor, i gave up on it but read the last chapter which is the best last chapter ever. Have steered clear of his new culture books as they are also more alien focused. EDIT: 20,000 leagues under the sea was nigh unreadable, considering Dracula was written in the same period it is like writing from the stoneage.

That I can recall right now... Would probably be the Eragon series. It's not that it's a bad story, it's just that it's not that well written.

Other than that... I don't think I have a "worst" book. I'm very picky about what I read. If by the worst, you mean the most depressing, it would be Kafka's Process.

Either War and Peace or Codex:Space Wolves...

I have never read a book I didn't like. I have even read the Twighlight saga and even found them an okay teen romance read (long story short watched New Moon, laughed all the way through, wife said give the books a try).

FITZZ wrote: Sadly it was " Pride and Prejudice and Zombies"..going in I really wanted to like it...but Meh.

I agree with you here Bing, , I gave it a go, nothing to go back to and it seems to have opened the floodgate for other sub-par efforts.

I'm going to have to say the Enforcer omnibus.

Only book I've started but not finished.

Foundation trilogy by Asimov. Really just Foundation because I could never get through it to try the other books.
It was boring, the premise was laughable; I tried three times to read it but could never get past the poor reasoning in the book.
I've liked other Asimov books but this one just comes up blah to me.

Well its nice to see I'm not alone in having trouble with his books.

Also apologies Manchu, although I haven't read a C.S Goto book yet, there is hope I can find a worse one.

hmmm, Probably The Bear and The Dragon. Was supposed to be a war between China and Russia but it was really just America completely stomping China. Also every Chinese person is a complete moron and I think they mention Mao commited statutory Rape 82 times in it.

In sci-fi/fantasy, pretty much any of the Dungeons and Dragons fiction... Drizzt, Dragonlance, all the forgotten realms stuff. Just, just don't.

Outside that, Atlas Shrugged. I hate Ayn Rand's warped world view. She writes as if it were even a concievable reality but her characters are too characaturish, her prose is too blunt, no subtelty, no grace, just bludgeoning a point that can't even exist.

Morathi's Darkest Sin wrote:I'm going to be dragged under a bridge for this, but I honestly have to say Lord of the Rings.

I somehow missed Lotr in school, and when I found fantasy it was via Dragonlance and then Forgotten Realms.

I like strong female heroes, and so with Lotr lack of females of note, and his writing style, I just found it a labour to read.

I've never managed to get past about the third of fourth chapter of Two Towers.

Obviously just not my cup of tea, even the films although they where okay and I enjoyed them as cinema, they aren't anything I rush to put on.

Someone will probably say there must be worse, and I can hand on heart say there has been no other books I have been unable to finish. Lotr are the only ones, thus they go down as my worst.

Also seriously, I'm not trolling! *screams as they drag him off towards a bridge*

WHHAAAA?!!!

Catcher in the Rye


That was the most dull book I have ever read. I would have put it down if it wasn't required for my class.

Also, JRRT's style is tough, I liked the Hobbit way better

Mine are still the Black Fleet Crisis books from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was just getting to the point where I was too old to read them as anything other than guilty pleasures, and they were just awful. That was when I stopped buying star wars novels. I've read a few since, but only borrowed.

A close second would be "Their Eyes Were Watching God." I dont' remember much, but even my AP english teacher didn't think much of it and assigned it as reading over the christmas break.

And LOTR isn't for everybody, but if it's actually the worst thing you've ever read you're pretty lucky.

halonachos wrote:Worst book ever read? Probably Little Women, but hey if you have a sexist english teacher and a pair of male organs you're going to hate any book she assigns. I mean The Island of Dr. Moreau was a great read as was Lord of the Flies, but apparently those books don't tickle a sexists' fancies.

I quite enjoyed Little Women, actually.

I don't know how to define "worst".

If I define it as a book I started and did not finish, there was a C J Cherryh book which I had once and got about 1/4 of the way in to and gave up because it was so slow. I did come back to it a few years later and finish it and it was quite good. That was a Hugo Award winner for what it is worth.

I never could stand Far From The Madding Crowd, The Mayor Of Casterbridge or Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, and I never got past the first chapter. This was a significant disadvantage when we did Tess as out set text for A Level General studies, but somehow I managed to scrape a D anyway.

Recently I have read the Vatta's War series by Elizabeth Moon. They are pretty fething terrible books, full of Mary Sues, Deus Ex Machinae, unlikely coincidences, and stock plots. But they whiled away a couple of week's commuting time, so maybe they weren't all that bad.

Polonius wrote:Mine are still the Black Fleet Crisis books from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. I was just getting to the point where I was too old to read them as anything other than guilty pleasures, and they were just awful. That was when I stopped buying star wars novels. I've read a few since, but only borrowed.

A profound moment. My last SW book was "The Courtship of Princess Leia." And of course Star Wars is basically dead to me now, anyway.

A close second would be "Their Eyes Were Watching God." I dont' remember much, but even my AP english teacher didn't think much of it and assigned it as reading over the christmas break.

feth, we have a lot in common. I hated that book, too.

Cider with Rosie.

twilight

Well, I tend to read a lot of everything. Some of the worst books I have read, and either mustered the strength to finish or put down are as follows:

Atlas Shrugged - finished, took forever, and is totally ridiculous
Some Werewolf book by Phillip Jose Farmer - maybe called Image or something, has a half naked woman were wolf on the cover... anyway it was so over the top bad, I could not finish
Amisov Foundation - super super super boring, barely got past book 1, couldn't muster book 2 and 3
Angels and Daemons - I fell asleep reading this book so many times because it was boring. I read it when the Divinci Code movie came out, and thought it was rubbish


All time favorite book is probably - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy