Classics Without All the Class discussion

Name the best and worst book you read this year (or month) and tell us why.

The best - Bridget Jones's Diary. A friend had recommended it a while ago, but I "judged the book my its cover" (blurb, actually) and thought that I wouldn't like it. I came across the book in the library when I was out of books to read and I picked it up for a quick read. I'm very glad I did, because I absolutely loved it.

The worst - I haven't actually encountered any horrible books yet, but Bel Canto was a little disappointing. It was also the only book that I've read this year that I hadn't chosen myself, so it seems I am becoming an excellent book connoisseur :-)

I have learned, Chelsea, it is okay to be critical.

I think I'm going to start making a Not To Be Read list ;)

Hmmmm the best, well that's a hard one.
Jane Eyre is a favorite of mine...but I won't count that one because I have read it before. I will always love that book.

I will say a tie between Looking for Alaska and
The Great Gatsby

Both were much better than expected. Close second would be The Grapes of Wrath.

The worst: Wuthering Heights
Now before I could strung up by my toes, let me explain.
I liked this book, but it was the most depressing and sad story I have ever read. Beats Shakespeare's R+J by a long shot. Now I tend to like stories that torture me in the emotional category. But it was almost too much for me. I applaud Charlotte for writing the themes she did at the period she was alive. I am impressed by her writing and will read more of her work. It was just too much of a downer for me, at the time I read it.

nothing wrong with expressing your view point and so articulately too, Jessica. well said.

I'm thinking my best AND worst of this month may be Gone Girl. It got my interest and definitely had some surprises. I don't want to spoil some things here, but the ending for one was a disappointment for me.

Best: To kill a mockingbird from Harper Lee, because it portraits the situation in the Southern States of the United Estates discriminating afro americans in an unassuming way.

Worst: The killing ground from Jack Higgins. Very dissappointed with the book, as it is a collection of killings without any storyline behind it.

The BEST was The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. So interesting and beautifully written. The WORST was Outlander by Diane Gibralden(sp?). Some talked me into reading it and I read the WHOLE book but promised myself to never read another from the series.

Jessica wrote: "Hmmmm the best, well that's a hard one.
Jane Eyre is a favorite of mine...but I won't count that one because I have read it before. I will always love that book.

I will say a tie between Looking ..."

Jessica, Wuthering Height' s author is not Charlotte, but her younger sister Emily Brönte.

Best this month: The Things They Carried. O'Brien weaves together stories loosely based on his experiences in Vietnam to portray the effects of war in a beautiful & touching way. These are much more than just war stories - these are stories about the human spirit and how individuals cope (and sometimes fail to cope) with loss/tragedy. I'm not sure what else to say. The book is beautiful.

Worst: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore. This wasn't horrible, just not my thing I guess.

Best this month: Probably The Pyramid, which I'm reading right now.

Worst: Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes. In The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle I felt that there was a lot of filler (easy-to-read, well-written filler, but still filler) with some very good bits (Lt. Mamiya's story) and I was hoping his short stories would have good bits without the filler. I was disappointed - the title story is good, but most of them seemed to me to be completely pointless.

Best this year -- a tie between MOLOKAI by Alan Brennert and THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M. L. Stedman.

The worst == NO TIME LEFT by David Baldacci.

Pam wrote: "Best this year -- a tie between MOLOKAI by Alan Brennert and THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M. L. Stedman.

The worst == NO TIME LEFT by David Baldacci."


I have The Light Between Oceans on my list! Your recommendation just helped me move it up on my TBR pile!

I loved Wuthering Heights. I know it is a sad story, but I wouldn't say its depressing. It is a really intense writing, it struck me deeply. It requires a special kind of sensibility for appreciating its high value. The story and its message are really powerful, it is one of my favorite books, as well as Pride and Prejudice.

On the other hand, the worst book I have ever read probably is Fifty Shades of Gray.

Best:Ready Player One - As a technophile who grew up in the 80s and 90s playing D&D, collecting comics, watching movies, and playing video games, I can easily say that this book was written by Ernest Cline specifically to be read by me! Up there with the rest of the classics - it's a book I will eventually force my children to read so that they can understand what defined their father.

Worst:Cryptonomicon - Not a horrible book by any means. Actually, it has moments of pure genius. However, there's a lot of nothing - empty space and lots of reading. Did I mention a LOT of reading? Not that reading is bad, mind you, but when there's a lot of reading and a lot of nothing happens, you scratch your head a bit to understand why you bothered. Plus, it was the reason I missed out on reading Anna Karenina with the group.

Beth wrote: "The BEST was The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton. So interesting and beautifully written. The WORST was Outlander by Diane Gibralden(sp?). Some talked me into reading it and I read the WHOLE boo..."

SLIGHT SPOILER INCLUDED IN COMMENT
I couldn't agree more with your Worst choice. I had a hard time getting past the violence toward women "for your own good" bit. I have no love of the jerk for that reason. Not to mention the whole man rape thing.

The Great Gatsby is probably my all time favorite book. I've read it twice this year alone, but I've read it before as well so I don't think it really counts.
My FAVORITE book that I first read this year is either Great Expectations or The Old Man And The Sea. They both had very compelling stories and the were so beautifully written.
My WORST book is also from Hemingway, his fictional memoir True At First Light. It started okay, but got progressively more and more boring. By the end I wanted to throw the book out the window.

The BEST book I have read this year had to have definitely been Virginia Woolf's The Waves. Such an incredible piece of prose (or should I say poetry? Because I can't tell with this work of genius).
The Waves is one of my top three favorite books ever.

WORST is Darkness at Noon. I fell asleep reading this. I can't handle 200 pages of pince-nez tapping. Agonizingly boring.

The worst read I read this year was Tender Is the Night by F Scott Fitzgerald and from what I hear there is a different version of the book from the version I read which was re-written from one of Fitzgerald's friends, which is probably better but not the version I read; incoherent and sloppy.

HOWEVER I have read a basketload of great books:

Yasunari Kawabata's The Sound of The Mountain was like how Alan described Virginia Woolf's The Waves: Prose so genius it's probably poetry. And thanks Alan, now I'm going to have to look into that. Also a definite top three.

I also read Waiting For Godot which I loved reading, and is a certain masterpiece, but I only recommend (reading wise) to people who are interested minimalism in language and absurdism. On top of that I read my first Kurt Vonnegut: Galápagos

I've read some pretty awesome books this year, but I have to say that topping my best list this year is the one that surprised me the most which is World War Z. I didn't expect to like it so much because I'm not really into the whole zombie fad sweeping the entertainment industry, but it blew my mind. I found it to be very well thought-out. Some of the things that Max Brooks left unsaid were the most chilling moments.

I hate to say it, but on my worst list was A Novel Bookstore. I expected this to be a book-lovers' book, which it was at points, but the characters and the lack of depth in the plot just disappointed me.

The best: W. Somerset Maugham's Theatre. I'm a theater addict, and I also loved the character descriptions and portrayal in it. Certainly a masterpiece.

Worst: a cheapie Hungarian romance novel called "The House of Dreams". It was all kinds of awful. It was incoherent, cliché, unrealistic and sloppy.

The best: The Shadow of the Wind. This book was very mysterious and I was really sad when I finished it. I'll definitely read the other parts when I got time! :)

Worst: Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company. I have to read this for school and I know how important this book has been at the time and I think it's good to learn about it. But really, it is the most boring thing I've ever read. I couldn't get through it and practically gave up on it...

I will go with Under the Net by Iris Murdoch as the best closely followed by The Age of Innocence. The worst has been Home Again, Home Again by Cory Doctorow.

The best this year -- THE LIGHT BETWEEN OCEANS by M. L. Stedman; the worst -- NO TIME LEFT by David Baldacci.

Best: The General of the Dead Army

Worst: El Fiscal

Best this month. I'm njoying one right now but best finished was "To Kill a Mockingbird" had never read it and really enjoyed it.
Worst this month "The Age of Miracles" by Karen Thompson Walker. Itjust didn't grab me. I felt it was just a another (not very enjoyable) coming of age story, set against an amazing concept for a backdrop. The sci fi aspect was brilliant and I would rather have read a different kind of narrative within that frame.

I guess I'd better pick up my copy of "The light Between Oceans" after my current read. So many of you have mentioned it as best!

The best--"Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese. The worst "Gone Girl" by a mile!

So far this year:
Best: Sparrowhawk One: Jack Frake

Worst: The Catcher in the Rye

First book of Sparrowhawk series is a thrilling adventure story of the New World era in England about a boy living on his own, working at a pub, and joining an rebel trading group to oppose the mercantilism of the era. It presents a great sense of life, the boy struggling against adversity, and has a well constructed plot (rise & fall) leading to book 2.

Salinger, in contrast, is about the opposite. The author commits to a pretentious lazy English, presents mostly 'streams of consciousness' as opposed to action as his character construction method, and has no discernible plot (only disconnected events, no growing 'movement' to a climax). Terrible book - one wonders why high school students are still tortured with it, certainly not as a model of spelling and grammar.

Its the difference between a painting (a work of art), and a photograph. You could meet a Holden any day of the week (a presentation of the ordinary), but how long would you search to find an Odysseus, a Kim, a Roark, even a Piggy (Lord of the Flies)!

So far this year

Best : This book is a jaunt of creativity methinks. With people living forever in the ether, talking to humans, but not taking form, this book pleasently stretches the imagination.


Worst : The book claims to be a precurser to the Jurassic Park idea. Maybe so. But this book never meets any dinosaurs, or anything, for that matter. The storyline goes nowhere. It is not what I was expecting.

Worst Part Deux: The imagination is stretched in a more negative way with evil beings. This book is definitely not my cuppa tea.

Well so far...

Best: Lolita My first encounter with Nabokov and the read that has cemented him indefinitely into my lists of favorite authors. We obviously know of Nabokov's brilliant, operatic prose, but what also struck me was Nabokov's fantastic command of dark, sardonic humor in the face of a terribly disturbing premise, which as we all know concerns pedophilia. Definitely a book that I will always call a favorite. 5/5

Best runner up: To the Lighthouse Also my first encounter with an author, I was quite surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. There's something about Woolf's prose that's almost hypnotic and ethereal, and indeed her psychological novel definitely got me thinking about the inner workings of human consciousness and perception. Can I just say again how wondeful Woolf's prose is? I truly believe she was one of greatest prose stylists in the English language. 5/5

Worst: Will Grayson, Will Grayson It's not that I didn't enjoy this book--I really did like it--it's just that I expected more considering John Green's hype from not only teens, but adults as well. The book isn't bad by anythings, certainly better than most other novelists can even hope to write, and it's definitely not an uninteresting premise, but there's just something missing that I can't put my finger on. Maybe it was too stereotypical-teen-fiction-y for me. And I know that as an 18 y/o I'm not above that, but from what I heard of John Green, I think I expected him to be above that. Not that that is a bad thing, to be teen fiction-y, but still... 3.5/5

To date, I would have to award Best to The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls followed closely by The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Atonement by Ian McEwan.

The worst (more like the most disappointing) would probably be The Snow Child byEowyn Ivey. I enjoyed the first half of the book but the second half was just a disaster.

Best: Ready Player One with The Light Between Oceans a close second.

Worst: The Dinner

Best: Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville (and I know I'm pretty alone in loving it so much).

Worst: Insurgent by Veronica Roth. I'm trying to read these dystopian YA's with my granddaughter, but when I hit this one, I gave up. Nothing but fighting and battles, much like films today.

Best: Crime and Punishment

Worst: The Name of the Wind

Best: Anna Karenina,The Great Gatsby,Never Let Me Go,Lord of the Flies,Labyrinths,in no particular order - oh well,first place to Tolstoy's novel!

Worst: Hmm,worst maybe Murakami's Birthday stories and Kafka's other stories - minus Metamorphosis which I adored.
They are not horrible,but it so happened that I've read better books this year.

An update to Best books I've read this year. Bad Feminist: Essays and An Untamed State by Roxane Gay and Americanah and Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Achidie. are four books that have made a significant impact on me.

Best: Parade's End by Ford Madox Ford. If I could read a book a year so utterly beguiling I would be content.

Worst: The Alchemist's Apprentice by Jeremy Dronfield and as I just finished it (with deep disappointment) Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse.

I've had an awesome 2014 so far in terms of reading. I've read some really phenmonal books: Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald, Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell were all 5 star reads for me that caused severe book hangovers.

Worst: The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer. I just could not like this book no matter how hard I tried.

Best Fiction: Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis, The Orenda by Joseph Boyden, The World According to Garp by John Irving, The 100 Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeard by Jonas Jonasson, and We the Living by Ayn Rand.

Best Non Fiction: Hitler by Ian Kershaw, 1982 by Jian Ghomeshi, Conduct Unbecoming by Randy Shilts, Einstein by Walter Isaacson and The Patriarch by David Nasaw.

Worst: Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. This book was awful. In fact, awful doesn't cut it, Go Ask Alice by Anonymous (but really some Mormon youth counsellor who largely lied the entire book).

Off the top of my head: To Kill a Mockingbird and The Lost German Slave Girl. Very well-written.

Can't really think of the worst one I've read. A lot are just mediocre. Bad writing or underdeveloped plots or characters.

The seven medals of success presents the adventures of two children who win, one by one, the medals of courage, cooperation, curiosity, patience, creativity, perseverance and empathy. In their journey they are accompanied by Memo, the dwarf of their memory; he reminds them certain events in their life and they learn the rules of each psychological characteristic.
The book contains stories for children about developing personal success skills and it is based on psychological and pedagogical studies. Every chapter of the book has a Parent's Corner, with a short description of the psychological concepts and exercises for developing each personal trait. Also, every chapter includes a poem because psycho-pedagogical studies demonstrate children learn easier by combining the linguistic and the „musical” intelligence.
We, the authors are university researchers and professors: G. Panisoara has a Ph.D. in Psychology and I.O. Panisoara has a Ph.D. in Educational Sciences.
The patience poem (fragment from the ebook)
Do you know Trici – the caterpillar?
She cried: her beauty was no thriller
But time marched on, as it went by
She turned to a fine butterfly
Here is why:
You want time to pass by quicker,
“I want to play now,” you dicker,
You want to grow up much faster.
But patience is what you must master.
If you have patience you will learn
To calm yourself and wait your turn
Step by step you will succeed
Patience is the thing you need.
http://www.amazon.com/seven-medals-su...

Best: The Phantom of The Opera by Gaston Leroux and Beowulf are just about the most exciting books I've read, and the only ones I can go back to again and again.

Worst: definitely Fallen Angels by Dean Myers. Not for subject matter, just plain bad writing.

Best: The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. The story was so interesting and surprising to me!

Worst: The Stationary Ark by Gerald Durrell. I have read a lot of his books and loved them, but this one was far more dull than I had expected, and it was a chore to slog through it. :( I was very disappointed.

So far this year:

Best: Kadare's The Accident and The Brain That Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science

Worst: The Wasp Factory

My top three so far: Tears of the Giraffe and The Importance of Being Seven both by Alexander McCall Smith. One of my consistently favorite authors. A new one: The Shoemaker's Wife - I loved the immigration story, the love story, the details with Caruso, etc. A really well-done historical fiction.

My bottom three: Was quite disappointed in The Story of Edgar Sawtelle - very tedious plotwise. Also, Before I Go To Sleep was exceedingly repetitious and lost any sense of suspense by the end. And The Anatomist's Wife - the Scottish setting was irrelevant and too many anachronisms for good historical fiction.

Laurel wrote: "My top three so far: Tears of the Giraffe and The Importance of Being Seven both by Alexander McCall Smith. One of my consistently favorite authors. A new one: [book:The ..."
I started The Shoemaker's Wife a while back and got interrupted by some library books that had been on hold and never got back to it. You just reminded me to move it up to next when I finish The Thirteenth Tale.

These comments are all so interesting to me. Some of the worst were my best, some of the best were my worst. :-) So far, in 2016 my best is The Truth About Us and my worst is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. I love it when you find someone that always recommends a great book. Open to friend requests always as I love to see what everyone is reading!

Jessica wrote: "Hmmmm the best, well that's a hard one.
Jane Eyre is a favorite of mine...but I won't count that one because I have read it before. I will always love that book.

I will say a tie bet..."

Wuthering Heights was not written by Charlotte, but by her younger sister Emily, much more prone to drama.