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Albatross wrote:

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Francine doesn't like your review.

Yeah? Well, Francine tells me that when you whack-off to my facebook page she cries.

That bitch. She's the one who showed me those naughty spirit pictures of you in the first place.

Did you buy the Secret society book because of the da vinci code? If so you deserved your book based anguish.

BTW: I agree that mediums are frauds who pick on the vulnerable, desperate and the unhappy for profit but isn't that galaxy chocolate's marketing strategy also?

Stewart Lee discusses bad books. Enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yUDh_IErT4

The Bean Trees. It reeked of so much femenism that I wanted to vomit, whilst removing Barbara Kingsolver's(the author) ovaries via her anus.

I was forced to read it in English class. I seriously wanted to stomp babies after that.

Whoever linked House Harkonnen I hate you forever for reminding me of that.

Is that the one where the robots with human brains have sexs?

Is that the one where the robots with human brains have sexs?

Hmmm, robot intercourse... TO GOOGLE IMAGES! AWAY!

Yoda wrote:Is that the one where robots with human brains have sex?

My goodness that puts a different twist on having a frontal lobotomy!

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:

Yoda wrote:Is that the one where robots with human brains have sex?

My goodness that puts a different twist on having a frontal lobotomy!

I'll give you a frontal lobotomy if you know what I mean

Time for some nerd rage against me.
Book(s) I disliked the most. Harry Potter.
I know there are literally millions of people who love this series. In a way I suppose it's like the people who dislike LOTR. My wife loves Harry Potter, and for her sake I tried to read the series. Dear lord did I try, I tortured myself through 2 and a half books. I JUST.... CAN..... NOT.... finish them.

I like LOTR, Sword of truth, Scott Card, most of Niven, almost all Asimov. So you might get an idea why Potter doesn't do it for me.

*Edit:

The Bean Trees. It reeked of so much femenism that I wanted to vomit, whilst removing Barbara Kingsolver's(the author) ovaries via her anus.

I was forced to read it in English class. I seriously wanted to stomp babies after that.

I got very lucky with reading assignments and never had to read feminist filth. I am a very calm, respectful man, but one thing gets me mind shatteringly angry are groups like the feminists.

I liked The Great Gatsby while I was reading it, but hated it after I had finished and realized that nothing really happened in it. The worst I've ever read, though, was a NASCAR romance novel a friend bought me as a joke. I told him I was going to read it, and I'm a man of my word. The dreamy mechanic the girl was after had this horrible problem with getting oil or grease on his shirt, requiring him to take it off so the sweat on his chest could glisten under the shop lights. This literally happened around 12 times in the book's 175 pages.

I'm another one who struggles with LOTR. The story is good but I don't like his writting style. It feels more like i'm reading a history book than a fiction story.

One of the my least favourite is Lord of the Flies. Had to read the book for english at school and hated it. Oddly I actually enjoyed ( and agreed with) the point he was trying to make. It would have made a great book if it was written as the author talking about his idea but it's one of the most boring stories I've ever read. Theres just too much description about item that have no relevance to the story. I really don't care what that random rock looks like if i'm never going to see it again.

I'll agree with the odea that english literature lessons put people off english. From an english literature enthusiasts idea classical books are great. To a teenage student they are some of the worst possible books. it doesn't matter how good the writting is if the content means nothing to the reader.

Perkustin wrote: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.

How was 20,000 Leagues unreadable? Sure, it went on and on sometimes about random things they were seeing out the window and things like that, but otherwise it was quite awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And WTF how come so many people did not like LOTR?

GalacticDefender wrote:And WTF how come so many people did not like LOTR?

Probably because it is widely considered to be full of clunky, dull prose. don't just take my word for it, read Epic Pooh

It's also widely considered to be the best Fantasy series/ trilogy ever written.

Not that I agree with this, but I did enjoy the books a great deal.

Books with old fashioned sentence structure are not necessarily bad, even if the style is incomprehensible and you don't like it.
Must admit the convoluted syntax of some older books can make them appear turgid to a modern reader and/or wholly incomprehensible.

The descriptive element of 20,000 Leaugues under the Sea would have been important at the time. Remember that much of the oceans has still yet to be explored. When Jules Verne wrote the book not many would have been in a submersible, let alone one like the Nautilus with her windows.

Verne was describing a world that no one had seen and would possibly have held the audience enraptured.

I think most people's biggest problem with it is that it's too slow, and too clunky. I for one freely admit I read the books about Aragorn's adventure first before going back to read about Frodo and Sam. I will not deny that it is a great story...it's just that Tolkien's prose and style can be a bit problematic for some readers.

In all honesty, I'm glad we've got a population here on dakka who are willing to think critically about a book rather than just say 'eveyrone else says it's good, so it must be good!'.

Another thing about the LOTR is its a musical. Like an actual frikkin musical in book form. Imagine if the movie was word for word song for song? We'd laugh at it. But that's what's in the book.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Another thing about the LOTR is its a musical. Like an actual frikkin musical in book form. Imagine if the movie was word for word song for song? We'd laugh at it. But that's what's in the book.

I seriously have to give props to Peter Jackson for what he did with the movies. He captured the epic feel and story of the setting, while at the same time trimming out a lot of the extraneous stuff that drags the books progress to a slow stumble.

I think LOTR is less a musical in book form, and more a history book in fictional form. Remember, Tolkien was a linguist first and foremost, not an author. The entire world of Middle-Earth was created so that his languages could have a place to live. So, it's not surprising language and poetry get suich a prominent place in the story.

ChrisWWII wrote:

KamikazeCanuck wrote:Another thing about the LOTR is its a musical. Like an actual frikkin musical in book form. Imagine if the movie was word for word song for song? We'd laugh at it. But that's what's in the book.

I seriously have to give props to Peter Jackson for what he did with the movies. He captured the epic feel and story of the setting, while at the same time trimming out a lot of the extraneous stuff that drags the books progress to a slow stumble.

I think LOTR is less a musical in book form, and more a history book in fictional form. Remember, Tolkien was a linguist first and foremost, not an author. The entire world of Middle-Earth was created so that his languages could have a place to live. So, it's not surprising language and poetry get suich a prominent place in the story.

I agree about the movies.

And you make a good point about how he was a linguist. But still, there's a lot of singing....

Amazingly people do sing socially for entertainment, and I don't just mean karaoke and the X Factor.

TBH the songs are not a big percentage of the books but they were never my favourite moments.

Chibi Bodge-Battle wrote:Amazingly people do sing socially for entertainment,

maybe in England

Waaagh_Gonads wrote:The Great Gatsby.

We were made to read it for English in High School.

At thetime I was a voracious reader and could and would read anything, byt The Great Gatsby... lucky if I could handle 1 and a half pages at a time without putting it down for awhile.

The Great Gatsby was the ONLY book I enjoyed in my English class las semester.

I gave up on fellowship of the ring, read the other two instead, good decision, they are much less dull and actually pretty exciting, though return of the king is quite poor in places.

With Jules Verne, it was indeed the old fashioned style i couldnt deal with. Shorter stories for example Jekyll and Hide and the Invisible man are perfectly palatable but i couldnt keep up the concentration to read the whole of 20,000. Thinking about it i like quite a few older books like John Buchan and H. Rider. Haggard even Ben Hur (Underrated, it's cool to bash it 'cos it's got jesus in it). I have never read any of the girly classics tho...

Man, and to think I've read The Silmarillion and started TLotR when I was 10...

The worse books I've read where Pandora and Blood and Gold, both by Anne Rice. When I started playing Vampire: the Masquerade, I wanted some inspiration... her first 3 books where 'ok', but since then it looks like a teenager's fanfiction.

Bridge Of Terabithia for me.

Reading that wasnt really what you want out of a kids book.

Moby dick. Probably the most boring book I've ever read.

Warboss Imbad Ironskull wrote:Moby dick. Probably the most boring book I've ever read.

And I quote

"A mild historical action tale punctuated by long periods of natural history".

Hoo boy, how long does it take for you to finally get to the ship?

The Giver, and Catcher in the Rye.

I had to read The Chocolate War in high school english.

Hated it from start to devastatingly and completely defeated finish. Not sure what sort of lesson or theme that teacher was trying to impress on us, as the guy who is doing the right thing gets punished throughout the whole novel by his student peers and the higher ups, who are priests or something (but only one in particular if memory serves) and they get away with it. I realized then (and still now obviously) that bad people do get away with the things they do, but it seemed the lesson of this book was to just go with the flow, no matter how wrong it is. If not, you get bullied and beat the hell up. Just seemed to me like they were trying to program us.

Not the best lesson to impart on the youth of a private catholic school, as the novel is set in the same exact setting.

DickBandit wrote:The Bean Trees. It reeked of so much femenism that I wanted to vomit, whilst removing Barbara Kingsolver's(the author) ovaries via her anus.

I was forced to read it in English class. I seriously wanted to stomp babies after that.

If you liked that so muich you should try her book 'poisonwood bible'.

God that was a bunch of pretentious angsty tripe