SciFi and Fantasy Book Club discussion

... which book would it be?

note: This thread is not for discussing the merits of book burning. Any such comments will be immediately deleted.

I'd start with Plum Island, I Am Legend, and The Library at Mount Char. I loathed all three.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Nothing I hate more.

50 Shades

While I love that it got more women interested in erotica, it was such an incredibly harmful portrait of a really dysfunctional BDSM relationship.

Probably about 90% of YA I have read.. I know, I know, get your pitchforks out, that's definitely not a good way to make friends as a new member but I can't lie.

Jen wrote: "50 Shades

While I love that it got more women interested in erotica, it was such an incredibly harmful portrait of a really dysfunctional BDSM relationship."

God, yes. I complained about that book and a cousin of mine did a sanctimonious "BDSM is a lifestyle" and I'm like "yeah, and this isn't it. .."

any and all political puff/tear down pieces like

The Destruction of Hillary Clinton
What Happened
Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance
Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama
Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House
Trump: The Art of the Deal

hate, hate, hate them

ETA: I'd like to impose a 20 year from the end of a politician's term(s) in office or until they die before releasing any and all books by and about them

ETA2: order is alphabetical Clinton, Obama, Trump with an attempt to pick both one positive (or written by) and one negative book about each

Tobacco Road. Appalling in every way.

Manisha wrote: "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Nothing I hate more."

^This

Burning books is bad.

Recycle them.

Anything about tax laws. They change like every two years here anyway.

Fahrenheit 451 ... because I may as well get some irony out of it.

Michelle wrote: "Fahrenheit 451 ... because I may as well get some irony out of it."

Good one Michelle. The joke I mean, not the book which I like.

Seconding 50 Shades.

And all of its sequels.
And the rewrites of the book from Grey’s perspective.

Once the fire’s burning nice and bright I’ll throw the entirety of Twilight on there. Just so no one else gets any ideas about writing Twilight fan fiction.

Those were bad years to be a reader. I remember being out in public with books and inevitably being asked what I was reading and cringing knowing the follow up was going to be: Have you read Twilight?

I remember a woman in a restaurant going on and on about how romantic it was.

Coincidentally (or maybe not) I was reading a lot of Anita Blake at the time.

I just wanted to scream: “I LIKE MY VAMPIRES MURDEROUS AND DEFINITELY NOT GLITTERING.”

Some of y'all got me roaring, like the flames of the fire I'd throw Wizard's First Rule on.

I'd probably also add Atlas Shrugged and every book about homeopathy since people cannot be trusted with them, apparently. Hard work, essential oils, and vitamins are great. You know what else is great? Real economics and doctors.

Allison wrote: "Real economics and doctors. "

In that case, add Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything to your conflagration. That book gets both wrong on the first page.

Seeing Atlas Shrugged with that rating makes the baby Jesus cry...

Trike wrote: "Allison wrote: "Real economics and doctors. "

In that case, add Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything to your conflagration. That book gets both wrong ..."

Argh!!!

Gary wrote: "Seeing Atlas Shrugged with that rating makes the baby Jesus cry..."

lolol

It's a shame how some things get so twisted.

a book of matches

or.... all Harlequin romances

Purity. I had to read it for a book club I took over leading for a couple months. The quickest way to send me into a rage is to mention this book. I just, ugh!

Also going to jump on the Twilight and Fifty Shades burning bandwagon. Because there is nothing romantic about them and as a female reader everyone seems to think I must have read them and loved them. No. Just no.

Most of David Weber's books, particularly the last dozen or so books of the Honorverse series, for being endless babbling and info dump going on for hundreds of pages.

I would burn Lolita and Hearne's Hounded.

Allison wrote: "...I'd probably also add Atlas Shrugged..."

Yep. A book which has done irreparable harm. Might as well add The Fountainhead too.

... and A Song of Ice and Fire (aka Game of Thrones). Sorry. But IMHO the books, like all their would-be main characters, deserve to die.

I kinda liked "The Fountainhead"

I'll throw The Historian on the pile.

Any of L. Ron Hubbard's terrible SF, from Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 to Dianetics

I couldn't...

Not even a book I hated. I might cut it up and use it to decoupage something though. If I was doing decoupage, it would be the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicle The Wise Man's Fear; halfway through Kvothe is sitting on the wall of a bridge over a huge chasm and I would have given anything to have someone push him off so that the book would end.

I didn't finish it.
Controversial perhaps?

Paul wrote: "I couldn't...

Not even a book I hated. I might cut it up and use it to decoupage something though. If I was doing decoupage, it would be the second book in the Kingkiller Chronicle [book:The Wise ..."

lolol You're definitely not alone in that. Seems Kvothe is quite polarizing.

I do actually have a book that I legit want to burn (besides some old school texts) except I can't remember it so I can't name it.

It's got a talking cat, and a stereotypical French ghost who somehow becomes corporeal enough to have "relations" with the MC who's like some sort of guardian against demon uh...portals?

And also a goth chick who is one of those demons, and just so many fucking puns and bad florid language that even I, master punster, wanted to find the computer that allowed this to happen and cleanse it.

This sounds fun! Here is my bonfire pile...

Foreigner
Ancillary Justice
The Windup Girl
The Black Company
Anything by N.K. Jemisin
A Discovery of Witches
The Hum and the Shiver
The Casual Vacancy
Any book in the fantasy section with a semi-naked man on the cover

That should sustain a flame...

Paul wrote: "Any of L. Ron Hubbard's terrible SF, from Battlefield Earth: A Saga of the Year 3000 to Dianetics"

I'll second that!

Don wrote: "I kinda liked "The Fountainhead""

Some of my favourite books are in there Don!
From reading everyone's choices I would say one man's bonfire is another man's bookshelf.

Spider Legs

The worst book I ever read. I would burn it and gleefully stomp on the ashes.

I'll add a fourth tally to the 50 shades hate. burn those fuckers to oblivion. I hate that series with a passion.

I hate to destroy books and my gut reaction is 'shock and horror' when I see books mutilated for art but in trying to clear out my shelves I realise there are just some books no one wants to read. More importantly there are some extremely popular books that were so over printed we could burn half the copies in existence and still have enough to go round.
So as much as I love them if I really had to burn books to keep warm in the apocalyse I would start by burning one out of every two Harry Potter books.
That would cook plenty of hot meals before I got started on Twilight (which is in no way the worse book I have ever read) and 50 shades (which is probably the worse book I have never read).

Khayelitsha: uMlungu in a Township

As a journalist, there's nothing that irks me more than a book written by a young aspiring journo out to cast a fresh perspective on a well-trodden subject, in this case, South Africa's townships (where blacks were relegated to live during Apartheid; many still live there because habit, money, etc).
The guy's idea was to move to Khayelitsha (Cape Town's largest township) and see what it would be like for an uMlungu (white guy) to live in the poorest, blackest place in SA.
He took the idea of the first-person chronicle waaay too seriously. Most of the book, he just talked about how popular he became among the locals and spent ridiculous amounts of time describing how much fun he had hanging out in local bars getting drunk with the guys.
To top it all off, he waxed poetic about how he fell head-over-heels in love with a local girl, culminating in a ludicrous chapter in which they made out while watching the Teletubbies.
Burn. Burn!

Sarah Anne wrote: "I'd start with Plum Island, I Am Legend, and The Library at Mount Char. I loathed all three."

The Library at Mount Char? I'd be burning my fingers to retrieve it from the fire.

Everything by Dan Brown. That's actually not hypothetical, I did burn Digital Fortress, and threw the others in the recycling. Probably contaminated that forever, sorry.

Containment. I've read a lot of bad writing over the years; some just needs a better editor, some is entertaining in its clumsiness, and then there's this.

Paul wrote: "Khayelitsha: uMlungu in a Township

As a journalist, there's nothing that irks me more than a book written by a young aspiring journo out to cast a fresh perspective on a well-trodde..."

Now that should definitely burn! What an idiot!

One Hundred Years of Solitude. They tried to make me read it twice in school but I just couldn't finish it. I hated the thing with a fiery passion, it would be a fitting ending to our relationship to see it burn to ashes.

's disclaimer: I enjoyed reading "The Fountainhead" but do not identify with the political views of the author. to me it's just a story about an uncompromising creative type breaking stodgy norms.

sniffles... "The Windup Girl"

Don't take it personal, Don. :) Some of my favorite books are on someone else's grill right now. It's just kinda interesting to see what books incite destructive rage in people ^^

I'm the one burning Atlas Shrugged, and aside from the interminable monologue, I thought it was an interesting book (in the sense I had thoughts about it) before I realized how it'd been co-opted.

anybody who says they couldn't burn a book has never been cold enough.

I don't Allison it's just Shtick

different point of view is one of the thing that make Goodreads and The Club Great.

Agreed!!

Don wrote: "'s disclaimer: I enjoyed reading "The Fountainhead" but do not identify with the political views of the author. to me it's just a story about an uncompromising creative type breaking stodgy norms."

Full disclosure: I've never read it. But it's basically the book that launched the worship of her and I don't think that's led anywhere good.

Don wrote: "anybody who says they couldn't burn a book has never been cold enough."

Thumb's up.

Reference the Red Dwarf episode "Marooned" (season 3, ep 2).