the Best and Worst Books You've Read Thread |
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momo
Commercial Hater Joined: 15 May 2009 Status: Offline Points: 137 |
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Posted: 08 Sep 2009 at 8:58am |
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Best:
The World of Jeeves (P.G Wodehouse) Harry Potter series (J.K Rowling) Though I hated the 6th and 7th book. The Looking Glass Wars series (Frank Beddor) Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream Lord of the Rings series (J.R.R Tolkien) The Tale of Genji (Still need to finish it) The Tale of Earthsea Series (Ursula K. Le Guin) Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) Battle Royale (Koushun Takami) (Not the best but it was very interesting.....And graphic.) Worst: Twilight series Eragon series Battle Royale manga series (....It's exactly like the chapter book but 10 times as graphic in the death of the students. Definately not for those squeamish about extremely graphic gore...Like me ) |
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Thor
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Couldn't stand 100 Years of Solitude. Boring, flowery and who the hell knows what the f*ck it's about? This book won some stupid f*ckin' prize. Nobel, I think.
Loved Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski. No prizes as far as I know.
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PaWolf
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This is a GREAT add-on to the 'Lavatory Library'. You can be an EXPERT shopper in no time flat; I used a lot of what I learned from it a few times. If you CAN find it, there is also a paperback called "New Deals on Used Wheels", which is incredibly funny, while being very serious on how to deal with Used Car Lot Hawkers (the author uses a pen-name and is disguised in the only photograph). I've used some things from it VERY successfully.
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X <sig.nature>
"What we do for ourselves dies with us, What we do for others is and remains immortal." - Albert Pike |
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Tiz
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One of the best out of my WWII collection is "Armageddon" Max Hastings. Re-reading it again now.
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msmadz
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Thanks to a similar thread ages ago, I've FINALLY sat down and read "To Kill A Mockingbird" Excellent! Made me scratch my head, though and ask myself where the heck have I been these past 40 some odd years?"
I've read too many lousy books to comment on right now.
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The artist formerly known as Madawee
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Hootman
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What always amazed me was that was (I think) the only novel Ms. Lee wrote. Imagine putting so much into one thing in your life that you could never do it again.
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Yutolia
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Best:
Stardust (Neil Gaiman) Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) Hitchhiker's Guide series (Douglas Adams) the Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan) an Acceptable Time (Madeleine L'Engle) the Story of B (Daniel Quinn) the Harry Potter Series (JK Rowling) Family Tree (Sherri S. Tepper) The Color Purple (Alice Walker) I'll come up with a list of ones I hated later, right now I can't think of any! |
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Hezadancer
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I very much enjoyed Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIHM, Harry Potter series, The OZ books by Baum, and the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I'm sure there's more I just can't think of any. I read half the first Twilight book and couldn't finish it, needless to say I didn't like it.
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msmith
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I loved reading The Lord of the Rings and To Kill a Mockingbird.
I'm still trying to figure out how Wuthering Heights became a classic. We could save the rainforests by ending the publishing of this or any book written by a Bronte.
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PaWolf
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One of my favorite SERIES was 'Game, Set, and Match' and 'Hook, Line, and Sinker', by Len Deighton.
'Game, Set, and Match' was made into a amazingly stunning 12-episode series, by Granada Television; it was the last series Vincent Price hosted, for 'Mystery' (PBS).
Deighton has requested it not be shown again.
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X <sig.nature>
"What we do for ourselves dies with us, What we do for others is and remains immortal." - Albert Pike |
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msmadz
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I remember from about age 10 - 15 these books had a huge impact on me: In no particular order:
"Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret" by Judy Bliume. - went to Catholic School - this must have been oh, 1973 and the book was off limits to anyone under the 6th grade. So we HAD to read it of course.
"The Outsiders", "That Was Then, This is Now", "Rumble Fish" all by S.E. Hinton. I just felt she "got" kids.
"James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl - just a cool book.
A lot of books by Beverly Cleary - Ramona the Pest, Henry Huggins
~~~~~ there are more. I'll be back.
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The artist formerly known as Madawee
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Moochamoocha
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As an avid reader, there are WAY too many books that I've read and loved. These are the books I can read over and over again. Here's a small sample:
Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series by Ann Brashares (LOVED the books; HATED the movie) Empire Falls by Richard Russo Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume The Pistachio Prescription by Paula Danzinger The Pigman by Paul Zindel ... and of course, Mooch's favorite book of all time... The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (first read it in high school and I absolutely LOVED it; I liked it so much I wound up finishing the whole book before the class even got to chapter 6...I didn't mind reading it again) There really aren't very many books that I hated. There were a scant few that were mediocre but the one book that I absolutely hated reading was Flowers For Algernon by whoever wrote it (I hated it so much, I don't even care who wrote it). We were reading that toward the end of the school year when I was a sophomore and didn't get to the end of it because we ran out of time. I was never glad to abandon a book in my life. |
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Yutolia
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Worst Books:
Generative Phonology (Michael Kenstowicz & Charles Kisseberth). I realize that most textbooks are pretty dry, but this is not the problem with this book. The fact that it tries to explain the fairly high-level neurological concept of how we perceive speech sounds (vs. what they actually are) without actually explaining anything (and, of course, fails outright!) is what makes this book suck royally. Cement: An exemplary work of "Stalinist Realism". Basically, the premise of these pieces was to write about how fantastic life is (was) under "Father" Stalin, which along with the fact that the book basically reads like its title, does not make for a very good thing... I would suggest that anyone suffering from depression not read this book lest they wish to become suicidal. |
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"Xbox Live is an online homophobia club for pre-teen Tourette’s sufferers." - Brockway, Cracked.com
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ForumAdmin
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I am currently reading The Pillars of the Earth
and it is by far one of the worst books I have ever read. It's like a young adult novel. |
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Ad Endless Nauseum
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Guns of the South, by Harry Turtledove. The cover caught my eye in the book store. It shows one of the classic old tintype photos of Robert E. Lee, but this one has him holding an AK-47 assault rifle! That book got me reading lots of his other "what if" alternate timeline series.
The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades. Great read. Excellent research and footnotes. The entire life works of Robert A. Heinlein. |
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"Si vis pacem, para bellum"
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PaWolf
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This was an occasional read - yet quite fun.
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X <sig.nature>
"What we do for ourselves dies with us, What we do for others is and remains immortal." - Albert Pike |
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msmadz
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I have to put Steinbeck on the list:
The Grapes of Wrath
Of Mice and Men
The Red Pony
(sigh) what classics!
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The artist formerly known as Madawee
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kat
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The book "Firefly Lane" was the worst book I have ever read. It was like it was written by a woman who was constantly menstruating. Just look it up. I can't even describe it or I'll get mad.
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madness fills my heart and soul as if the great divide could swallow me whole
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Grant
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The short story collections of Woody Allen. I've said it elsewhere, but for someone as famous (and infamous) as he is, those stories get a tiny, tiny fraction of notice (as far as I know). Most are in a whole other category from his movies, a really fantasy-like S. J. Perelman / Far Side / Jerry Van Amerongen kind of category, stranger than probably his strangest movies. Anyone who thinks of him as being all about neurotic Jewish New Yorkers in day-to-day situations would be very surprised.
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jeroboam
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[QUOTE=kat]The book "Firefly Lane" was the worst book I have ever read. It was like it was written by a woman who was constantly menstruating. Just look it up. I can't even describe it or I'll get mad.[/QUOTE
Haa that just made me laugh. I know the feeling, just anger. I did that with this one, it was like being on a bad date, or working while sick. You just knew you had to get through and could talk about it later. I am doing that in a series right now, the sookie stackhouse novels. They are what True Blood is based up on and I feel I need to read them because i know they exist and therefore want the insight. Thing is I am not the demographic. Plus I HATE first person narratives. So take a 30 year woman as a old target audience character and have her tell you every damned thing she does and put it in the hands of a 38 year old man. I LOVED the history of Salt by mark kurlansky City of Gold and Lead and the other Tripod books by Samuel Youd (pseudonym John Christopher) Travels with Charly by Steinbeck Narnia books LOTR and Hobbit and Silmarillion Geek Love is amazing. |
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Jimbo
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You are the only person I've ever heard who didn't rave about how great that book is.
But as they say, there's no accounting for taste, I suppose.
Ken Follet is a great writer.
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Jimbo
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Maddy..... TKAM was an awesome read. So were the Steinbeck novels you mentioned.
Please allow mw to reccommend a couple more.....
In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. Great story made all the more tragic by the fact that it's 100% true, & the account is based on hundreds of hours of interviews with the killers themselves, so what you're reading is an actual behind the scenes moment by moment acount. Hair raisning. Reads like a fiction novel.
The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer. Another book in the same vein, but about the Gary Gilmore saga that played itself out in the national headlines back in 1976.
The Cain Mutiny by Herman Wouk. Just a good book about a WWII naval officer's paranoia & incompetence.
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...the ads take aim and lay their claim to the heart and the soul of the spender
Jackson Browne - The Pretender C'mon, man! Joe Biden - 46th President of the United States |
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Jimbo
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Anything by Ken Follet. Most of his books are spy novels, or other international espionage type stories, some set during wartime. He occasionally steps out of that genre & does these really great "period piece" type stories. The Pillars of thre Earth, contrary to what Nathan says, is a fantastic book set in southern England during the middle ages, and another one he did called A Place Called Freedom, that starts out in Scotland during the 1700's, then moves to London, then ends up in the new American colonies is also hugely satisfying reading.
I recommend them both as well as all the rest of his work..
Anything by Wilbur Smith. He has written about 3 dozen or more novels, many in a couple of different series' about a couple of different family dynasties, & several outside of those series'. They are all set in Africa, where he was born & raised, & mostly center around the white settlers of the mid 18th century who went there to bascially rape the continent for it's wealth & riches. He has an in depth understanding of the natives, the history of the various tribes, their customs & social mores, etc. He is a fantastically talented writer. The books are all sagas that involve hardship, war, love, hate, revenge, etc. etc. Great reading.
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...the ads take aim and lay their claim to the heart and the soul of the spender
Jackson Browne - The Pretender C'mon, man! Joe Biden - 46th President of the United States |
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Moochamoocha
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I read that book. While it wasn't the best book , it was kind of sad. I did think Kate's daughter was a raging bitch, though. Man, I wanted to reach into the book and slap the crap out of her. |
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msmadz
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Jimbo, funny you should mention both: To Kill a Mockingbird AND In COld Blood - I just read, re-read, read again, these 2 books just this past year. I must have been living under a rock these past decades. I couldn't agree with you more. I loved both books. In fact, TKAM is probably one of the best books I've ever read.
I also enjoed Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove.
One series of books that annoyed me were those "Clan of the Cave Bear" Jean Auel books. Everyone thought they were great but to me, they tended to get on my last nerve. The heroine (whose name escapes me now) was just too damn perfect.
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The artist formerly known as Madawee
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