Books that make you want to spear your eyes out with a fork

[Dar~]

Mine would have to be this new book I am trying very hard to get into called Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. SOOOOO long winded.

Other include anything written by Danielle Steele and most of Walt Whitman's Poetry.

 

[BlackShanglan]

A God-forsaken piece of trash called "Ishmael," if I remember it rightly, wished upon me by my cousin. A maudlin, self-adoring ramble about an intelligent orangutan lecturing a human with a stunningly total ignorance of biological and behavioral realities of the animal world. Admittedly, I did give up looking for sense halfway through and have avoided any further contact.

 

[minsue]

I wouldn't recall. If I can't get into a book within 10 pages, I stop trying and promply forget it even existed. The downfall of this would be that I have purchased the same damned book a few months later and done this on more than one occasion.

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

The Iron Dream by Norman Spinrad, my favourite sci-fi author.

Spinrad is a very experimental writer, and The Iron Dream is supposed to be written in an alternate reality, where Adolph Hitler became a science fiction writer.

I’ve tried to read this about a dozen times, and could never get past the first chapter.

This is strange, because I have reread every other one of Spinrad’s other books several times.

 

[CharleyH]

I dont think any do. I stop reading prior :|

 

[Huckleman2000]

I got to this point reading the first book of the Ghormengast Trilogy. I don't remember who wrote it, but the book jacket blurbs compared it with Tolkein, etc., and I kept reading it, thinking it would start to pick up. After a couple hundred pages, I just got tired of waiting for something to happen that made any sense.

If it takes that long to set up the story, fuck it.

 

[Boota]

I loved Black House, but it got a slow start. I was a fan of The Talisman, so I was ready for the story. Maybe I was just letting my opinion of The Talisman keep me in through the rough part.

A book I fought all the way through, but ended up kind of liking, was Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. My gf kept telling me how good it was and she was getting offended when I suggested that i was going to put it down. I finished it and found at the end that it wasn't that bad. Not a favorite, but not bad.

 

[Dar~]

I Am still trying to read the Black house, but it takes so long. I loved the Talisman.

 

[cloudy]

Mine would have to be this new book I am trying very hard to get into called Black House by Stephen King and Peter Straub. SOOOOO long winded.

It's much better when you get about halfway through it, I promise....just finished it about a week ago, and could not get into it at all during the first half.

 

[Edward Teach]

Son of The Morning Star: Custer and The Little big Horn
by Evan S. Connell

Fantastically researched with detail that made me want to read further for the information but god what a difficult read.

Connell goes of on tangents on top of tangents to the extent that I spent more time backtracking to stay on point than I did on first reads. With the mention of almost every person's name, he goes into detail about all the contradictory information pertaining to that person. It was interesting but very frustrating to follow.

Ed

 

[elsol]

Name the book by Tad Williams...

I like his style, I love his stories... I want to shoot him at the end of each book.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[shereads]

Anything positioned as a mystery novel.

Elements of mystery are fine. But a book whose entire point is to make me wonder whodunnit is annoying. How dare the author give me an assignment? I hate word puzzles. I used to like jigsaw puzzles, though. So if you must recommend your favorite Agatha Cristie, please find out where I can have it laminated onto fiberboard and turned into a 2000-piece jigsaw puzzle.

If it's just a book, I'll read two chapters before I skip to the end to find out if the butler is as obvious as he seemed in Chapt. 2.

Life is too short to read books that don't hook me right from the beginning. I don't hesitate to walk out of movies that bore me, and the same is true of books.

Mystery, schmystery. If murder follows the old woman all over Europe, she's either the killer or makes people crazy enough to kill.

 

[TheEarl]

Some of Robert Rankin's weirder stuff. He's at his surreal best in the Brentford Trilogy (5 books), but some of his later ones are just too strange and you're left going "What the fuck?"

Tom Holt's recent books. He's incredibly talented, has a gift for twisting stories to produce humour out of mundance things and used to be absolutely fucking hilarious. However, he's turned out the same book about 5 times. And it's not funny. 'Little People' = 'The Portable Door' = 'Falling Sideways'

Please Tom, if you're reading this, go back to where you were when you wrote 'Snow White and the Seven Samurai' or 'Only Human'. I couldn't put them down.

 

[Kassiana]

"The Moon is a Harsh Mistress" by Robert Heinlein. Rob, I don't care if you're a right-wing saber-rattler, as Roger Ebert says you are, but for the Gods' sake write in English!

"The Burning" by Jeff Fain. Jeff, if you want to write a book that's complimentary to Paganism, at least learn (a) what Paganism is, (b) what English grammar is, and (c) what English spelling is. I've seen books by ten year olds with better storytelling, grammar, and spelling.

"Bridge to Terabithia" by Katherine Paterson (?). Katherine, don't kill off a good main character for no reason. I know you love giving all your stories unhappy endings, but this was particularly heinous and inexcusable.

"The Giver" by Lois Lowry. Lois, the repercussions of the main character's actions are what would make a good ending, not having him go off so we don't know what happens in his community once he leaves.

I'm certain there are others. These are the ones that came to mind.

 

[impressive]

My friend keeps recommending James Patterson's murder mysteries to me. I slogged through one -- and opted to forego the rest. Ugh.

 

[Dar~]

Anything by Dick Francis . . .I grabbed a couple off the free cart at our library and actually brought them back! PUH LEASE!

 

[shereads]

My friend keeps recommending James Patterson's murder mysteries to me. I slogged through one -- and opted to forego the rest. Ugh.

Dear impressive,

Exchanging book recommendations with a friend can be a rewarding, if challenging way to broaden your literary horizons while strengthening the bonds of friendship. Insist that your friend read Humor and the Presidency by Gerald R. Ford. If he or she still wants to exchange book recommendations after that, get a different friend.

Happy reading!

~ The Advice Bitch

 

[dis_pac]

Clive Cussler

Nuff said

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I got to this point reading the first book of the Ghormengast Trilogy. I don't remember who wrote it, but the book jacket blurbs compared it with Tolkein, etc., and I kept reading it, thinking it would start to pick up. After a couple hundred pages, I just got tired of waiting for something to happen that made any sense.

If it takes that long to set up the story, fuck it.

Mervin Peak was the author, if I'm not mistaken.

My experience was similar, except that I'd read a brilliant excerpt from the book in a fantasy anthology, and so I read the entire trilogy looking for that excerpt and never found it.

I've often wondered what the story behind the Gormenghast trilogy was. It was obviously a labor of love and dedication--Peak had drawings and floor plans to go with it--but as far as I can recall, nothing ever happened in it at all. The prose was so dense and atmospheric that I just kept slogging along. I'd really like to give them another look. I think I heard that there's an animated film of it, but that might have been a dream.

I had the same kind of feeling from Dune. As soon as I put it down I couldn't remember a single thing about it excpet for the sandworms and those suits that let you dirnk your own sweat. I had absolutely no desire to read any more in the series.

Sorry to hear about Walt Whitman, Dar. I always liked him a lot.

 

[impressive]

I had the same kind of feeling from Dune. As soon as I put it down I couldn't remember a single thing about it excpet for the sandworms and those suits that let you dirnk your own sweat. I had absolutely no desire to read any more in the series.

Oh, not me. I got so much from them -- a sociological treatise, of sorts. Same with Lord of the Rings.

 

[BlackShanglan]

The works of John Steinbeck.

"Once upon a time, there were some people. Everything they ever loved died."

Repeat as needed.

 

[Samandiriel]

I scour a book before I attempt to read it, I'm not going to waste my time or money if I think it may suck.

 

[shereads]

A book I fought all the way through, but ended up kind of liking, was Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. My gf kept telling me how good it was and she was getting offended when I suggested that i was going to put it down. I finished it and found at the end that it wasn't that bad. Not a favorite, but not bad.

I read Wicked ages ago, and loved it. Now that it's a Broadway hit complete with show tunes, I feel compelled to distance myself from it and accuse the author of shamelessly pandering to...some group. That's the problem: Wicked was an absolutely original take on someone else's work, and I can find fault with it. I was hooked from the first mention of the "green elixer," and by the time she was sewing wings on those monkeys, I hated that fascist Wizard and his idiot pawn, Dorothy.

That makes two mentions in two days of books that play Devil's Advocate to classic novels: Wicked tells the Wizard of Oz story from the witch's point of view; Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rys is the untold story of Jane Eyre's "madwoman in the attic," Mr. Rochester's inconvenient wife.

What a ballsy challenge for a writer: telling a beloved story from a completely contrary perspective, while remaining faithful to the original. The wicked witch of the west is a political activist, battling ethnic cleansing, while Dorothy is an innocent but dangerous establishment pawn. The deranged wife who stands between virtuous Jane Eyre and noble Mr. Rochester is made a victim without turning him into a villain. She's crazy, yes, but it happened because she was hopelessly out of place as a Victorian wife; insanity wasn't an uncommon diagnosis back then, for wives who couldn't get with the program. Her passion makes Jane Eyre seem pallid, as if Sigourney Weaver and Laura Bush had been rivals for the same man. (Sorry, Sigourney Weaver. I'm not suggesting that you'd actually...eww. Nevermind.)

The one thing I don't like is that I know I wouldn't dare write my own version of a book that people have loved for generations. People get a little crazy defending their cultural icons.

 

[cantdog]

I got to this point reading the first book of the Ghormengast Trilogy. I don't remember who wrote it, but the book jacket blurbs compared it with Tolkein, etc., and I kept reading it, thinking it would start to pick up. After a couple hundred pages, I just got tired of waiting for something to happen that made any sense.

If it takes that long to set up the story, fuck it.

It is hideously bad. Fearsomely bad. The publishers were jealous of the money Ballantine was raking in with Tolkien.

PS I think it was Gormenghast, too. Just so you can avoid it better.

 

[cantdog]

The works of John Steinbeck.

bingo