The Next Best Book Club discussion

Catamorandi, you are a brave brave soul!!!! I expect huge debates from these lists!

ok, No one wants to post here?
I think I can manage a top 5 Books To Avoid.
Hold your sharp objects and rotten vegitables until after you finish reading, this way I have time to dodge out of the way :)

1. Catch-22: Most of you know I hated this book. Well, hate isnt fair, I didnt read enough to hate it. But I just couldnt get father than about 40 pages (the same 40 which were reread 4 times before deciding to give up). Too confusing and hectic for me. Just not worth the hype.

2. Saturday by McEwan: good god. The most boring 24 hours in a mans life I have ever had the displeasure of reading. And I finished it! There are only about 50 pages total that are worth something in this novel, had the author just concentrated on those two scenes and left everything else out, it would have been much more enjoyable! That being said, I should thank the author for all the extra hours of sleep this book had given me, I was so bored with reading it that I would nod off as I read.. haa haa

3. 1984: please dont hate me. I know you want to, but dont. I just didnt think it was all that. I wanted to like it, but it was just ..eh...for me. I think it was the writing. Just seemed to be missing something. I couldnt care less about any of the characters.

4. Island by Huxley: Logan will be mad. He loved this book. It was basically a very long essay on the authors idea of the 'ideal' society. And he created characters that have no real emotion or personality to spew his concept to us the readers. Great concept to ponder, but awful reading material as its being read.

5. Valis by Philip K. Dick: Another one of those novels that, concept-wise, is very thought provoking and unique, but written soooo wrong. Remove all the nonsensical spacial blabbering (half of the novel is this 'exgesis' that the main character writes, sort of like a journal but just whacky and irrational) and stick to the main characters and thier deluded friend who thinks God is an ancient satalite in the sky, and it may have made for some great reading. I was mostly confused, which led to boredom, which led to aggrivation. Yet, again, I finished it. Phew.

Okay, well I don't have ten, but even still--don't hate me! :(

1. Blue by Benjamin Zucker

For me, it was an absolute chore to read this book. I didn't understand what the heck the point of this book was and all of the commentaries around the sides of the pages made the story seem so cluttered and like there were 25 stories going on at once!

2. The Lord of the Flies

Okay, don't hate me, please. I just really did not enjoy this book. The writing wasn't poor or anything, it's just that the whole "lost at sea" kind of stories don't appeal to me (as you'll also see with my next book.

3. Robinson Crusoe

I disliked this book for the same reason that I disliked Lord of the Flies. That and the fact that he magically knew everything needed to survive on an island really made the story hard to believe for me.

Ok, Bookworms grab your bats and sharpen your pitchforks!

5.The Glass Castle book in a summary, my mom was a sick woman who refused to get help, my father was an alcoholic who didn't give a crap, I was abused and starved and LOOK AT ME now!!!! I am a gosip columnist ... ah, dreams do come true! - Selfserving, mildly entertaining, just hype.

4.Chicken Soup for the woman's soul summary - take all of the sappy emails your girlfriends send you and read them until your brain hurts, you have just experienced this book. I, in the future will avoid anything with "chicken" on the title. BTW this is one of the three books I have not finished reading in my life.

3.The priviledge of youth in short, he was abused by his parents, so he has set out to change the world against child abuse, he is a motivational speaker, he is a writer, he is involved in the community, he is a superhero! Nevermind that he casually tells you that he has seen his OWN kid 10 days in the last 9 months and not in a single stretch either, but hey is not like neglect and lack of involvement are sides of child abuse, right? He has broken the chain ... right? right... Also, I could care less for the 50 pages he dedicated to his description of riding a motorcycle through the neighborhood.

2.A million little pieces I am not going to tell you what I really thought of this book fo fear Lori might kick me out of the group ... he he he ... bottom line, if it was a memoir it would have been just gross, but maybe bearable, knowing everything in the book is a lie, well it makes for a great fire starter on my fire pit in the backyard.

1.A kingdom of dreams now, I know there are a lot of you that like romance novels, this was my first and only, it was my sister's choice for a book club we belong to, yes I finished it, out of respect we always try to finish each others picks. I just didn't get it, it was almost funny, but insulting at the same time, I would read little phrases and paragraphs to my husband and laugh our heads off ... for all the wrong reasons!

4.Chicken Soup for the woman's soul summary - take all of the sappy emails your girlfriends send you and read them until your brain hurts, you have just experienced this book. I, in the future will avoid anything with "chicken" on the title. BTW this is one of the three books I have not finished reading in my life.


HAHAHAA...............I totally agree.
One went a loooooooooong way.

Thanks for the support Carrie, I expect to get a lot of angry emails ... LOL

Lorena,

what are the other books you didn't finish?

There are very few books that I absolutely have not had any enjoyment reading and they are...

1. Lord of the Flies
2. Setting Free the Bears by John Irving
3. The Sister by Poppy Adams

LittleSaintina - I didn't finish reading Living to tell the Tale, by Garcia Marquez, he is one of my favorite writers and this book is the first half of his memoirs. I couldn't find a copy in Spanish at the time, so I bought it in English (BIG mistake on my part, I have always read him in Spanish) and the magic just wasn't there. I am planing to give it another shot in the future once I find a copy in Spanish and have forgotten what a slow pace it seemed to have in English. I am truly hoping is a translation thing.

The other was the third installment of El Caballo De Troya series, by JJ Benitez, (which was great, btw) it was the book I was reading at the time we left my country. I gave it to my bestfriend before boarding the plain and told him that I would get another copy, and I just never have.

Lorena, Does this chicken-ban traverse into all areas of your life? Have you given up Chicken Noodle Soup? Do you punish fellow workers when they ask why the chicken crossed the road? Will you never be able to purchase a rubber chicken again? I think we need to delve into your psyche and see how far this goes. This book may have scarred your enjoyment of life forever. I smell a "Chicken Soup for the Litigious Soul" coming on...

Here is my Top Ten Books to Avoid:

(in no particular order)

1. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce

2. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

3. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin

4. Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughm

5. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

6. Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

7. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

8. The Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

9. A Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo

10. Moby Dick by Herman Melville

I realize that this will probably stir up some controversy, but I am speaking from the heart.

Oh my,, so many LOTF haters :( I quite enjoyed that novel! And Tale of Two Cities, and Moby Dick are in my to be read pile.. Maybe I will have better luck with them :) Heres to hoping!

I thankfully can't think of 10 books I would want to avoid, maybe I Just haven't read enough, but my top 3 are:

Atonement...I can't even finish it.

A Painted House...I can't even believe I finished this, when I finished the last page I wanted to burn this book for wasting my time.

Please don't hate me for this one...Pride and Prejudice.
I haven't finished it, I probably won't. I try and try to get through this, but I can literally read one page and even if I'm not tired my eyes start to close. It's like they just don't want to read it. I wanted to love this book, so many people have said it's the greatest book of all time, but honestly I just hate it.

Ahh I can't believe you don't love Pride and Prejudice--its one of my favorites and I just read it again. And I am in the process of watching the A&E movie version. But I don't hate you for not liking it--I am just shocked. Have you read any other Jane Austen book?

But I have heard not good things about Atonement--my cousin and my aunt both couldn't finish it.

I can only think of one book off the top of my head that I would tell people to never bother with:
The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

I really can't think of another book that I despised from beginning to end like that.

No I've never read anything else by Jane Austen. Maybe it's my being raised by a single mother, but the fact that the whole book is about finding a husband and pleasing a man, I just cannot relate. Maybe I'll watch the movie...lol.

Try watching the movie LS.You may find that Elisabeth and Darcy change your mind.

I am a little shocked that LotF is so unpopular!I relly enjoyed that book.Oh well different strokes and all...

The only book I would tell people to steer clear of is Men are From Mars and Women are from Venus.Had a marriage conciliar recommend it and after reading the first couple of chapters promptly made the decision to NEVER see that conciliar again.

April :::Laughing:::: oh that was awesome... I just developed an allergy to well meaning e-mails that talked about how wonderful women are. As soon as I open one of these my left eye starts twitching and I get hives. Another side effect was my total aversion for self-help books, and I need them ... the Lord knows I need some help, I got serious issues going on!

Other than that I still eat chicken ...

LOL

Stephanie, you're my new hero. Your list, and especially your reasons for them, is priceless. I tend to hate most all Prozac Nation-like books with a passion normally reserved for politicians. Plus, I can always get onboard for some good old-fashioned Nicholas Sparks hate.

Lorena, glad to see that you did not like The Glass Castle. Me either. I don't like the sappy chicken soup books either.

April, Chicken Soup for the Litigious Soul! Thanks for the laugh.
That's just too much.

;o)

This list seems a very cathartic beginning to my activity in this group (although probably not a very endearing first impression). The most painful books I've ever read, in no particular order:

1. She's Come Undone : Wally Lamb
2. Dogs of Babel : Carolyn Parkhurst
3. Of Mice and Men : Steinbeck
4. Talk Talk : TC Boyle
5. Son of a Witch : Gregory Maguire
6. The Quality of Life Report : Meghan Daum
7. The Edible Woman : Margaret Atwood
8. Angels and Demons : Dan Brown
9. Book of Ruth : Jane Hamilton
10. Dive from Claussen's Pier : Ann Packer

Looking back, most of these can be attributed to poor choice on my part...I should have known better.

Oh Ashley ... I liked Dogs of Babel, I thought it was a great look at the grieving (sp?) process and at even better look at what mental sickness what must feel/look like to an spouse. Also I liked the fact that at the end he pulls through the pain ... I felt bad for the whole dog thing, I know. I do love animals but I thought it was ok within the plot of the book.


BTW Welcome to the group!!!! ;o)

Thanks for the welcome, Lorena. I've enjoyed reading your comments throughout this and other discussion threads.

Ashley, your list reminded me of so many books that I had repressed the memory of. Frickin' Dan Brown. What a hack! Sure, he had a good idea with The Da Vinci Code, but his writing style is just atrocious and had me clawing at my eyes the whole time. Unfortunately, I've read every one of his books because English lit was hard to find when we were in Prague and I took what I could get.

i just started catch 22 and i agree its very hard to get into but ill give it a try!!! im always reading a few at time anyway so if it gets old just call in a fresh player!!!lol

OK i will put in my 2 cents here....my two cents only being 3 books

The Memory Keepers Daughter - I try very hard to be an honest person. That being said,this book may be why I do. It details a secret hidden from a family, in which the whole family dynamic gets screwed up. Dude.....get over yourself and your self serving closed minded ways and just tell your wife what you did. yeah you had no other help ( besides your nurse ,...) anyway HATED is not a strong enough word.

Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrell- uh ....just stay away is what I say....I have started and restarted this book like 4 times. Someone tells me it gets better after the fairies show up.I would not be able to tell you. However I do think most things get better after the Fairies show up :) .

Lunar Park- Brett Easton Ellis- maybe its just me but I DID NOT get this book. Is this stuff happening , is he just crazy ????? To this day I have no clue as to what happened.

Just for the record I also Loved Lord of the Flies, and although Dickens has written some bad stuff, I would not throw Tale of Two Cities in that group. 1 of the three I like ( The other 2 being A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations)

I didn't much like The Glass Castle, it was okay but nothing spectacular and you know there are people out there doing it hard and also doing it a lot harder. Good for her for writing it but not something I'd recommend.

Also I didn't much like The Lovely Bones either, perhaps I was expecting too much after all the hype but that book just didn't get me going.

Logan, The Da Vinci Code was an intriguing idea for a book. Why the @#$%!!*&& didn't he have editors! I hate the idea that such a poorly written piece of crap could be read by so many people and loved. What an awful thing to do to the written word.

Mandy, I know what you mean about The Lovely Bones. It just seemed whiny or something. It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what it was that I didn't like but it did nothing for me.

Glad to know I'm not the only one, Val.

STEPHANIE! Omg. I just don't know what to say! I like almost all of those books! :) haha :P

Oh boy. perhaps now is not the time to go screaming from the mountains how much i really enjoyed Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons??? Dan Brown was my first christian conspiracy novel... i was addicted to that stuff for quite a few months after reading those books. Needless to say, I dont think I would go diving back into that pool anytime soon, but while I was swimming in there, I was having a great time :) It wasnt the writing that I fell for, it was the whole web he was spinning. Ahh.. please dont think any less of me!

I'll support you in this Lori! I don't think Dan Brown is a great writer, but I loved his web-spinning too. Besides, I love any book that has a protagonist who says "Quick! I need to get to a library immediately!"

thanks HeatherR for the support :)

1. A Sister's Secret - just a horribly amateur book. Constant repetition and just plain boring. ugh.

2. All He Ever Wanted - Couldn't even get halfway due to boredom, despite that being a pet peeve of mine.

3. Atonement - a complete disappointment and Briony is incredibly annoying throughout the book.

P.S. I agree it the dislike of all the Chicken Noodle books.

I found the DVC an interesting read, we read it as part of a bookclub and was great discussing it too. I haven't read anything else by Dan Brown though.

I liked DVC and have Angels and Demons waiting to be read at some stage. I didn't understand how everyone was getting hot under their collars when this book was a fiction work, as long as you keep that in mind I think it's a good book.

One book that I had been trying to read was Snow.I just hated it.It started off good but I came to detest the main character and his angst about does he, doesn't he love the woman he came to see.I wanted to reach into the book and smack him!

Also the book had spoilers written into it every time something of interest was going to happen which completely removed all sense of tensionand suspense.Although over all it has received very good reviews for me I just hated it and would never recommend it.(It was one of the very few books I couldn't finish)

Oh Sherry, that makes me so sad! I loved Snow. Orhan Pamuk's descriptions were pure poetry and I really felt for the character. That he was simply trying to resolve this affair of the heart while all around him a revolution was taking place, I loved that. I also tend to like it when authors foreshadow a character's death. Sure, you know what is coming, but you don't know how or how that death will effect the direction of the story.

I'd still recommend Snow to readers, and definitely feel that Pamuk's Nobel Prize was very much deserved.

Logan I made it to page 270 and for me it's the love affair and his angst that is driving me nuts.I hate to give up on a book and see that as something of a shotcoming on my part but somehow the rhythm of this book is not working for me.Does it improve?I can handle the foreshadowing,I don't care for it but I can handle it,it's the love affair that's frustrating to me.

truthfully, I don't remember much of the book, I read it a few years back. I just remember loving the way that Pamuk described the silence of the snow as it fell. It was a very visual style that left me happy with the book. I wish I could remember more so as to convince you to plug through the remaining pages...

I look down upon no one, I'm not that tall!

and anyway, I think it's great that people can disagree and agree to disagree... if we could just get the world that way we'd be in a better place.... corny, I know

oh, and by the way,

I'm riding my exercise bike and I if I'm not doing that I can't be on goodreads until after 6p.m. ---my new resolution---wonder how long I'll keep it!

He does write poetically about the snow and there was one beautiful passage in particular that i underlined, where a character spoke so eloquently about the idea of taking off her head scarf and it reflected on something similiar I experienced that I underlined it,something I seldom do.I wish that it focused more on that and less on the romance.Maybe I'll give it another shot.

I don't this I have 10 books to avoid, but I'll list the ones that are on the top of head.

1. The Delivery Man by Joe McGinniss Jr.
2. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
3. Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline
4. Death by Chick Lit by Lynn Harris
5. Deception Point by Dan Brown

The Road... oh. no. I looooovvveed that book!
Tho I know that McCarthy isnt for everyone. I am actually afraid to read any of his other novels, as they just dont sound as good as The Road...

To each their own.

I can't come up with 10, but here are a few:

1. Portrait of the Aritist as a Young Man by James Joyce : The name is long and confusing - I should have seen that as foreshadowing.

2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard : The author was so in love with herself at the time, she wrote an entire book on her own thoughts - and then I read it! I am very disappointed in myself for this one.

3. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne : yick!

I loved all of Dan Browns book, I'm like you Lori I like the web he weaves in the stories.

The Shipping News - I can't stand this book, it was such slow going and I don't remember anything much about the characters, which suggests they are unforgettable.

Salemn Falls(i think I spelt that right) - Jodie Picoult - I found I couldn't read this book, I kept trying and couldn't get through it. Maybe it was the subjested matter and the fact that children can be so damned cruel.

I'll be honest I love most of the books I read.