Books that hurt to read.

[notoppings]

Sad books, bad books, books that you wish you never read. Do you have any? What hurt about it?


"Salmon Of A Doubt", By Douglas Adams.

I wish I had never read this book. I took this book on knowing that it was incomplete, I took this book on knowing that Douglas died while writing it but still I took it on. It was great it was fantastic and just when it hooked me, it was over. I was hurt, to never know where Douglas was going to take Dirk Gently. Never to have closure. I hope that there is an afterlife so I can get in line with all the others and ask poor Douglas what, where, how did it go/end? Why couldn't you have written an outline to be discovered? Since I read this book I haven't been able to go back to "The cafe at the end of the universe" or enjoy a " Long dark tea time of the gods". If you haven't read it, don't, but if you haven't read it, you must, just be prepared for the pain.

[merid]

I wouldn't say I wouldn't have read it, but Atlas Shrugged was a long read it was really heavy going.

[lordrrr]

Great Expectations.

[Mafiaangel180]

"Her" by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

I normally love his stuff. But it was so abstract that I could only get it while under the influence. Unfortunately, I'm rarely under the influence. So I would only get so far into the book before I passed out. And the next time...well let's just say...

Drink>Read first 15 pages>Pass out>Repeat.

[Jgib5328]

In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust, the 3000-4000 page book.

Ulysses, by James Joyce, the only book that I couldn't read, I consider it to be above me at that time.

[Cuivienen]

One of the very few books I was ever physically unable to read was Lessing`s Nathan the Wise (it`s about religious tolerance, how the religions are all equal yadda yadda). We were to read it as part of my German classes in 8th grade, I tried to read it several times but once I reached page 15 I was always tired, bored out of my mind and couldn`t remember what I had been reading (probably it isn`t nearly as bad as I describe it, it`s been a while, but back then I really hated it).

Then, my class went to a horrible modernistic theatre production of it and I fell asleep within 20 minutes and continued sleeping through the whole performance. My friends were absolutely amazed how I could sleep even though we were sitting next to the loudspeakers, from which the sound of explosions could be heard for almost the whole duration of the play (don`t ask...as I said it was a truly awful interpretation of the play).

Thank god we didn`t have to write a test about that book.

[Moriarty]

The Satanic Verses. It had it moments, but it was one of the heaviest books I've ever read.

Already mentioned in another thread: A Clockwork Orange. Wow...just...wow.

[Rowan]

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand – it wasn’t difficult, rather, it was the most didactic, overrated, one-dimensional rubbish I have ever had the misfortune of reading – I am stunned by how many people venerate it. In fact, for me, I think it will always be the epitome of bad literature. The intellectual difficulty of certain books is exaggerated, although Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov did demand a lot of thought – usually difficult merely means long, which is only time consuming. Psychologically I found Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro quite harrowing, but I certainly don’t regret reading it.





Rowan added to this post, 1 minutes and 43 seconds later...

A Clockwork Orange. Wow...just...wow.

Indeed.

[acrossthefourthwall]

The Case of Lena S., by David Bergen. Didn't hurt, but reading it wasn't pleasant either. It was just quirky enough that I bought a copy of it and read it. Ended up finding it a mess of melodrama, crammed full of meaningless hookups and contradictory characterisations. I think it's the only book I've read in the last few years that I skimmed because I just couldn't bring myself to get through it in the usual way.

[MrEPenguin]

I always thought Dune made my brain hurt, but in a good way.

*Martha Stewart* "It's a good thing" ;D

[PortInStorm]

Grapes of Wrath- so incredibly depressing

Blue Covenant- About the loss of fresh water on earth. I just can't imagine my life without lakes, but they're disappearing at a crazy rates. Canada is also poised to have its fresh water sucked out by thirsty countries in NAFTA-like contracts forcing us to pipe it out without any control or regard for the environment. This has KILLED me. Imagine having your hands tied while someone robbed your treasure, now I know a little of how Iraq feels

[caracol]

The Scarlet Letter. All of the characters were so boring!

[sriv]

Depressing books are fun. Makes you feel grateful for what you have.

Usually, if I cannot read through a book in less than ten sittings, I do not read it. I do not mean lengthwise, I mean stimulation.

A book I really had to push myself through was How to Win Friends and Influence People. It had a lot of really good stuff, but it is more suited for the title "How to be a Con Artist".

[ShaiGar]

all of Ayn Rands books, Muhammad by Martin Lings, Art through the ages, sixth edition.





ShaiGar added to this post, 15 minutes and 25 seconds later...

all of Ayn Rands books, Muhammad by Martin Lings, Art through the ages, sixth edition.

[yondyr]

I had to read that twice to understand it.

I had to read that twice to understand it.

(btw, what does 'hurt' mean in reading, good or bad?)

[notoppings]

I had to read that twice to understand it.

I had to read that twice to understand it.

(btw, what does 'hurt' mean in reading, good or bad?)

For this question the answer would be either good or bad it is up to you to choose how it applies to you. My answer shows pain that was expected and anticipated but for me had to be endured to express my private respect for the writer.

[Uberfuhrer]

To be honest, I have trouble reading anything that wasn't written by me or directed toward me.

Although A Clockwork Orange (the novel) is definitely up there -- the movie is better and easier to understand.

[ElstonGunn]

Reading Wuthering Heights made me really sad. I had to read it in high school, and I kept thinking, "Man this is really depressing. Here I am wasting time on this stupid book about 19-Century English aristocrats when I could be doing something useful or fun instead." ;)

[integratedvelocity]

Tuesdays With Morrie
The 5 People You Meet in Heaven I really don't like Mitch Albom.
Beloved
The Awakening Or feminist literature. It seems so illogical, though I've never read Margaret Atwood.

[Mafiaangel180]

Tuesdays With Morrie
The 5 People You Meet in Heaven I really don't like Mitch Albom.
Beloved
The Awakening Or feminist literature. It seems so illogical, though I've never read Margaret Atwood.

I actually liked "The Five People You Meet in Heaven." Hehehe.

[Mittens]

Tuesdays With Morrie

Cry! Cry now! Cry or you are an inhuman bastard! I hated that book.

Great Expectations was really, really difficult to finish. Start, too. The middle was bad as well. The Scarlet Letter was also awful. But what made them really depressing was that I think I could have enjoyed them, had they not been written the way they were.

[Vayate]

Anything by Maya Angelou. All of her work makes me seethe with rage. Her poetry is "free verse" in the most rubbish form possible; it's basically prose broken up into convenient lines. Her prose is whiny and her metaphors make no sense (laughter leaping around the room like rainbows? WTF?) and it has no structure in terms of rising action/climax/etc. Got to chapter 5 in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and took a blowtorch to that damn book. Literally.

[Erika Redmark]

Her poetry is "free verse" in the most rubbish form possible; it's basically prose broken up into convenient lines.

Yeah, I hate that. A lot of modern poets write stuff that I honestly think would work as well or better as a prose vignette, but put random line breaks in places and call it a "poem". Probably just so they can say "Hey, I'm a poet, I'm so cool". I had an argument about this with another kid in my AP Lit class last year (which I definitely won, which was pretty awesome, since the girl wasn't very nice in general), then wrote an essay on it for a free topic in AP Lang. It was some great timing.

Some books I had to read in school that I hated were The Secret Life of Bees (overly melodramatic and didactic), Beloved (interesting story, but not much of a fan of the writing style), and A Prayer for Owen Meany (the only good thing to be said about it is that the symbolism was so patently obvious that writing an essay on it was really easy).

[HackerX]

To be honest, I have trouble reading anything that wasn't written by me or directed toward me.

Although A Clockwork Orange (the novel) is definitely up there -- the movie is better and easier to understand.

Erk. I had no real problems reading A Clockwork Orange, yeah the language can be difficult, but that is really the point. I've seen half the movie... maybe the other half is better, but it doesn't hold anything to the book

I always thought Dune made my brain hurt, but in a good way.


Yes, because Frank Herbert died and left the ending of chapter house incomplete... :(

[Tenacious B]

I'm reading Atlas Shrugged right now, and already read The Fountainhead and We The Living. What bothers me about her work is how repetitive it is; Atlas and Fountainhead are very similar with similar characters (Kira=Dominique=Dagny etc).

Two things that really bug me are that she tends to use large paragraphs at times (like Fransisco at Jim's wedding) when breaking a page into a few paragraphs would be easier to read, and that it is not always easy to follow who is speaking in her dialogue. But I enjoy the books enough to keep reading. I do like that she spells some ideas out so blatantly, not for my own benefit since it seems a bit amateurish, but for the few numbnuts who might be able to make it through a book that long. Sometimes you have to say something out loud and repeatedly before people start to get it.

I liked Great Expectations and David Copperfield when I read them in school.



The lit that bugs me is the more modern, vague junk that really doesn't mean anything; most of which is just cobbled together to get others to think it sounds artistic. I forgot which authors bothered me the most since it was back in high school (or maybe I tried to block out the memories), but that stream of consciousness really sucked to read. Even worse was when the teacher would try to tell me what it meant, when nobody in that room has asked the author (assuming the author actually meant something). Most of these were poems and short stories though, not actually books.



I haven't read too many books that I've hated, mainly since I have not had much time for pleasure reading. Also, compared to the books and papers I've read for my graduate research almost any novel would seem palatable.




BTW, The Great Gatsby, makes Great kindling.

[Antares]

Les Miserables... It just saddens me whenever I think about it. I love Valjean's last words to Cosette and Marius; too tragic.

[xwalka]

This book single handedly got me to quit being an English Major. From a critical standpoint, it's masterfully written, but I hated it. I realized that analyzing literature from a critical standpoint doesn't convey how enjoyable it is to read; some really fun books are terribly written in many regards. I decided I would rather read what I wanted and not necessarily what was critically acclaimed.

[Roy G Biv]

Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon. A verbose, paranoid, technical, elaborate, phallic, DENSE, weak, bloated wimp.

That said, I'll probably give it a try again some day. I figure books so far above my level of consciousness must be worth the effort.

[Coraline]

The Great Gatsby, makes Great kindling.

It must be the most fatuous book I have ever read - silly people who have nothing to recommend them except money. Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet is almost as bad.

[gogurtdynasty]

"The Ernesto 'che' guevsara's school for wayward girls" *crindges*

Don't ever buy a book because you like the person listed in the title

[Tenacious B]

It must be the most fatuous book I have ever read - silly people who have nothing to recommend them except money. Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet is almost as bad.
I'll be sure not to read that one. I hated Gatsby so much that I read it in one sitting just to get it the hell over with (had to read it for school).

[Bear Warp]

The Sound and the Fury

The style it's written in is interesting, but everything else about it is just plain boring. I read about 40 pages of it and stopped.

[Beery Swine]

The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

[Arcani]

The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Lord of the Rings wasn't so bad for me, in fact I really liked those books. Yeah they were long, but length doesn't bother me anymore.

Now if you want a book that hurt to read go with Tolkien's Silmarillion. A history book on a world that doesn't exist... can there be anything more mind-numbing?

[RDFDR]

All the Clockwork Orange mention is strange, yet sort of makes sense. I found that after reading the first few chapters, the language became fairly intuitive. Great book by the way.

Lord of the Rings kills me though, unfortunately. I really have to finish reading it one of the these days.

[sriv]

Lord of the Rings wasn't so bad for me, in fact I really liked those books. Yeah they were long, but length doesn't bother me anymore.

Now if you want a book that hurt to read go with Tolkien's Silmarillion. A history book on a world that doesn't exist... can there be anything more mind-numbing?

Blasphemy!

They were both wonderful works. The Silmarillion focused more on writing style and technique than LOTR which may have made it a little bit of a harder read.

[Arcani]

Blasphemy!

They were both wonderful works. The Silmarillion focused more on writing style and technique than LOTR which may have made it a little bit of a harder read.

Oh, I won't deny they are both excellent works, but Silmarillion still hurts to read. I just felt like it was one of those books that was hard to really get into. I've never been a fan of reading history books, and reading the history of a land that doesn't exist just strikes me as a bit pointless, however beautiful the work might be.

[Malotis]

A Tale of two Cities
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

[lnb203]

Not fiction, but Third Culture Kids by David Pollock and Ruth Van Reken hurt like hell to read. It's essentially a study of the psychology involved with repatriation after a childhood abroad, and the associated difficulties and characteristics of being a 'Third Culture Kid'.

I grew up in Hong Kong, and read the book in my second year at University in England when I was having a particularly difficult time. It was incredibly accurate, and it really rammed home my previous realisation that I may never truly feel at 'home' anywhere. Literally couldn't stop crying the whole I was reading it, which I fear may have led to me disgracing myself somewhat on a train...

Having said that, I don't regret reading it at all. Its insights are invaluable, and I was able to take comfort in the fact that so many others experience the same issues as me. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who was brought up outside of their 'home' culture or country.

[Lynne]

Moby Dick
I tried four times to get through it and just can't.

[LancDash]

The worst literature I have ever read was 'The Sound and the Fury.' I forced myself through it, and finally gave up all hope of finishing right before the end.
I also have to include everything that Faulkner has ever written. I despise it so greatly that I even was able to talk a Faulkner-fanatic professor out of teaching it in our class.

Oh yes and 'The Great Gatsby'....

As a literature major I have always been the person in the front of the classroom having screaming matches with professors over the cons of what some like to consider 'Great literature.' I find a great deal of it worthless, and I wish others would break out of this age old tradition of teaching the same books over and over again. The books I mentioned above have been the worst I have encountered.

[SongofSeptember]

Romeo and Juliet, but it's not really a book. That's the only one I can think of right now. I hated it--every page of its soppy, cliche, "romantic", "tragic" tale that brings shame to all the romance and tragedy writers of the world. (I write both.) Totally ruined my view of Shakespeare.

[Antares]

You obviously hate Romeo and Juliet as much as I. Welcome to the club.

[SeaCzar]

Hitler's Willing Executioners. This book was so well written and vivid, I sometimes had to put it down for weeks due to the subject matter.

[LancDash]

I forgot.....'Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.'

I did actually finish it, and it was the most painful experience of my life.

[Beery Swine]

Lord of the Rings wasn't so bad for me, in fact I really liked those books. Yeah they were long, but length doesn't bother me anymore.

Now if you want a book that hurt to read go with Tolkien's Silmarillion. A history book on a world that doesn't exist... can there be anything more mind-numbing?

Sil is definitely worse, no question, but LOTR I actually have read through to the end. In the trilogy's defense the first two times I read it I enjoyed it, but a couple years back I picked it up again and I couldn't think of a simultaneously less constructive and more boring activity. Page after page of guys sitting in tubs, singing songs, smoking pipes and speaking some crazy version of english vernacular that never existed in reality. *snore*

[yondyr]

That was my first impression, Beery, perhaps my second might differ, but I doubt it.

[Isolation]

Depressing books are fun. Makes you feel grateful for what you have.

I too enjoy depressing books.

Read Nabokov's work. His writing is genius. He knows how to describe someone's embarrassments in ways that will make you squirm inside.

Also, Pale Fire (a long poem) is pretty sad. Especially what his daughter did. :cry:

[Rei]

Romeo and Juliet, but it's not really a book. That's the only one I can think of right now. I hated it--every page of its soppy, cliche, "romantic", "tragic" tale that brings shame to all the romance and tragedy writers of the world. (I write both.) Totally ruined my view of Shakespeare.

As much as I hate Romeo and Juliet myself...
A lot of current "romantic/tragic" stories are based on it's outline... star-crossed lovers and all. Of course, those do also tend to be the bad romance stories...

Come to think of it, most of Shakespeare's tragedies hurt to read. The literature itself is interesting, but the stories make me want to strangle the main character.

[tyrantofthought]

"Jane Eyre"
Okay, back when it was written it was for an audience that would be reading a lot and wanted to get a lot more time out of it, I am not that audience. It was the kind of book i had to read for class and would be reading for an hour only to realize I've been looking at each word and turning pages, but not gathering information. :thumbsdown:

Oh yeah, and the year before. Romeo and Juliet. It didn't help the teacher was a sexist idiot, and she practically worshiped it, but god damn i can't stand the story. Thankfully it was short.
Its about two teenagers falling in love at first night and in the end killing themselves because they couldn't be with each other. Okay, sure, it can be a somewhat moving play if your into it, but she practically preached it as a great and all :irked:

[foroneonly]

Lord the Rings. I just felt there was far too much excessive description on the environment. The charactars seems superficial because you never really got into their heads. Like you just seemed their outside demeanor. I don't know. Maybe I missed something. Everyone else I know likes it.

[Rei]

Lord the Rings. I just felt there was far too much excessive description on the environment. The charactars seems superficial because you never really got into their heads. Like you just seemed their outside demeanor. I don't know. Maybe I missed something. Everyone else I know likes it.

I don't...
I couldn't get past the first chapter...

[sriv]

Lord the Rings. I just felt there was far too much excessive description on the environment. The charactars seems superficial because you never really got into their heads. Like you just seemed their outside demeanor. I don't know. Maybe I missed something. Everyone else I know likes it.

In real life, the psyche of others must be analyzed from outside. Did you expect Tolkien to make it easy for you? :rolleyes:

[replicant]

The Great Gatsby - hate that book!
I love the Dune Series but by God Emperor it starts getting very convoluted.

[Kisai]

_A Separate Peace_ - beloved by middle-aged high school English teachers everywhere

[Haphazard]

A Clockwork Orange really isn't *that* difficult. That is, if you can get through the first twenty pages...

Hated Wuthering Heights. I was reading it and wondering when the good part happened. Turned out, it didn't.

[Danisty]

Anything by Charles Dickens or Earnest Hemingway. Honestly, I pretty much hate the classics in general. The only "old" stories I like are The Count of Monte Cristo and Sherlock Holmes. Generally, award-winning books piss me off.

[Oberon]

I liked the sword of truth seris until the last book. I found terry goodkinds style to be imaginative, discriptive, and captivating however he finnished the story in such a weak way i felt cheated.

[Uberfuhrer]

Tiny instruction manuals.

[Arcani]

Tiny instruction manuals.

Like the one for my new phone. And whats with the bilingual-upside-down-I'm reading from the wrong side thing, huh?

Stupid thing doesn't even have the answer I'm looking for! :irked:

[lambpox]

I really liked The Clockwork Orange! If you were willing to learn the language while reading the book, and reading several passages over and over again, yeah. I liked it the first time I read it.

Due to my age group and friends, I was forced to read Eragon. I hated it. It lacked anything "fantastical" and the characters were so bland. The writing style made me cringe. And the movie?? baaarf.

Right now I'm reading The Great Gatsby and it's sort of difficult for me to finish. Oh, and I remember I didn't finish The Merchant of Venice this year in school. I got a low grade on the final test, I recall. It didn't excite me like Cyrano de Bergerac; it was missing the witty, unloved main character.

[Danisty]

I really liked The Clockwork Orange! If you were willing to learn the language while reading the book, and reading several passages over and over again, yeah. I liked it the first time I read it.I really liked A Clockwork Orange too. I read it over 10 years ago and a lot of the words stuck with me. I've recognized more than a few with my Russian studies.

[rewhu]

Great Expectations.

I concur. Don't know what you thought of it, but I found Great Expectations to be nothing but eye gouging pain

I'd also add The Great Gastby, Of Mice and Men and probably anything by Hemingway. I know that these books are supposed to be classics, but I just can't stand them.





rewhu added to this post, 3 minutes and 10 seconds later...


Hated Wuthering Heights. I was reading it and wondering when the good part happened. Turned out, it didn't.


Ha!

[Freak87]

The Scarlet Letter. All of the characters were so boring!

read my mind!! scarlet letter- the premise of it was great. some of the quotes/themes/symbols were excellent. but the characters (which was the plot basically) were WEAK. it didnt read it. i listened in my english class for answers.
& bewolf. if i ever have to read that again, i dont know. lol

there are a lot of books that hurt.
books that didn't hurt

much ado about nothing
hamlet
great gatsby
the death of ivan illych (sp)
the awakening
love medicine
hedda gabbler
night
lord of the flies
brave new world
the house of mirth
sybil
the Bible (my favorite book)

catch 22 ironically, is in the middle for me, haha. get it? haha





Freak87 added to this post, 0 minutes and 54 seconds later...

i didnt attempt crime and punishment.

[Monte314]

When Harry Potter first came out and was all the rage, I thought I should read it so I could engage in discussion about it with others.

But it was so shallow I just couldn't get through even the first volume. I realize it was written for kids, but come on... there's got to be some substance SOMEwhere.

[rewhu]

The worst are books that start out good but slowly sink into a big stank pile, Quicksilver, for example disappointed me immensely. The beginning hooked me, I got about 3/4 through and then took it to a used bookshop and traded it for store credit.

[Seppuku Savant]

Jumping for your health. Yes, I'm serious. It was made in the dark ages and came complimentary with my indoor trampoline.

[uberosity]

Was anybody else as frustrated with On the Road?

[Rei]

The worst are books that start out good but slowly sink into a big stank pile, Quicksilver, for example disappointed me immensely. The beginning hooked me, I got about 3/4 through and then took it to a used bookshop and traded it for store credit.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures is another prime example.

[Deadgod]

Any book that doesn't allow for my own interpretation or enjoyment isn't worth it. I'm mainly refering to the various books I had to read in High School.

[Snowdragon]

I wouldn't say I wouldn't have read it, but Atlas Shrugged was a long read it was really heavy going.

I feel your pain. I've read the book and it SUCKED! Nuff said, who is John Galt?

[Erika Redmark]

The Secret Life of Bees: badly written, didactic, unrealistic, and assigned by my 11th-grade English teacher.

Has anyone else noticed the trend of all these books with titles including "secret life"? It's like whenever I walk into Borders I see another book with such a title. Do they think the Walter Mitty association will make their books seem that much more clever?!

[manger]

Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It was such a mindfuck but I loved it.

[Seppuku Savant]

Eros The Bittersweet

[Neuro]

Crime and Punishment, though only because it was so intensely beautiful.

I tried reading Catch 22 at too young an age so that was incredibly difficult and I had to put it down. Same with Pride and Prejudice.

Generally though anything that ends up being overly sentimental or moralistic causes great pain. Happens far too often even though I mostly read non-fiction.

Also pretty much anything I was forced to read in school caused some pain.

[eastman]

I was somewhat disappointed by Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan. I think it's a good book, but it's ridiculously overrated. I'm surprised Corporate America loved this book. Taleb's thesis is very simple, so I'm not sure why the Wall Street Journal would consider his book as one of the "smartest books to read".

[rewhu]

The Secret Life of Bees...Has anyone else noticed the trend of all these books with titles including "secret life"?



I hold the same disdain for books titled
The (fill-in-the-blank)’s Daughter
or
The (fill-in-the-blank)’s Wife.

Ugh.





rewhu added to this post, 19 minutes and 42 seconds later...


Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. It was such a mindfuck but I loved it.



That's how I felt about Wang Shuo's Please Don't Call Me Human . What a weird book. It left me feeling uncomfortable and dizzy. The strange story is what drew me to the book, but I was disappointed when the plot spiraled completely out of control and then just fizzled to an end.

[jikin]

I'm noticing that a few people mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Has anybody who has read it liked it? I had been thinking about picking it up for awhile, but don't like wasting my time.

[einnelsate]

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Hauntingly beautiful, yet so biting.

[rewhu]

I'm noticing that a few people mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Has anybody who has read it liked it? I had been thinking about picking it up for awhile, but don't like wasting my time.


I have never read it simply because I have yet to encounter someone who read Atlas Shrugged and also shares my taste in books. That's probably a bit of a cop out for an answer, but whatever.

After suffering through mandatory, mostly effin awful summer reading, I decided that I'll never read anything just because it's supposed to be a classic. I also no longer force myself to finish a book just for the sake of finishing. And I never keep books that I know I won't read again.

I love books and appreciate their decorative qualities, and I realize that displaying shelves of books is for some people equal to displaying a stuffed deer head (sort of a look-what-I-complished kind of thing) but personally I don't see the point of keeping stacks of books that I will never read more than once.

Anyways, more on topic:

Pearl
Lolita
The World According to Garp

[JessicaHavenLea]

The Great Gatsby. It's a print-and-bound episode of The Young and the Restless. Boring as hell.

[MysString]

Don Quixote. Too old, too long, too translated.

[SimplyOtter]

When Harry Potter first came out and was all the rage, I thought I should read it so I could engage in discussion about it with others.

But it was so shallow I just couldn't get through even the first volume. I realize it was written for kids, but come on... there's got to be some substance SOMEwhere.

I had exactly the same reaction as you. When I was a child I use to read lots of fantasy books (like those of Terry Brooks) and I still think now they are so well written and interesting... but with Harry Potter, well, I was really disappointed, as you say, no substance, whatsoever....I never understood what was all that fuss about it.

(apologises with Harry Potter's fans)

[ssrprotege]

When I was in elementary, I used to like the first three series of Harry Potter. But once I read the Goblet of Fire, I found it boring so I quit reading them. I was forced to reach Demian (Hesse) when I was in grade 4, and it was the most terrible reading experience. Didn't like Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried and Austen's Pride and Prejudice, either.

[notoppings]

A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. Probably one of the best comedy books I have ever read. The part that hurts to read his book is knowing there will never be anything else by JKT, as the idiot committed suicide, without ever knowing how great he could be, the manuscript discovered a long time after his death, and nothing else, not even a chance. Just goes to show you that you never know what wonderful thing is waiting for you just around the corner if only you can put up with the defecation you're going through now.

[Stella]

It's a short book, but to me it was so deep with emotions that were not even explained they existed - The Perks of Being A Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. I don't think I've ever seen myself so much in another character. Then again, perhaps it hurt most because I read it on a day off school while grieving over the death of my best friend.

A book I'm currently reading that hurts a bit is The House Of Leaves by Mark Danielewski. It hurts my head when I try to comprehend what is going on, and perhaps I'm reading into it too much.

As far as bad books go, my worst reading experience was when I was recommended Gingerbread by Rachel Cohn a few years ago, my friend's favourite book. I loathe conceitedness, and that was the essence of the main character in the book.

I also couldn't stand the well-received book Life of Pi by Yann Martel, which was recommended to me as well.

[Shakyamuni]

One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

The greatest piece of garbage I've ever been forced to read. Yet it still somehow won some sort of prize. Terrible book.

[MichaelH]

I'm noticing that a few people mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Has anybody who has read it liked it? I had been thinking about picking it up for awhile, but don't like wasting my time.

Atlas Shrugged is the quintessential Ayn Rand novel. If you can tolerate/enjoy Ayn's writing style, it is well worth a read. It had the first literary characters who impressed me with their bravery.

Atlas Shrugged on Amazon (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) <-- you can "search inside" this book and read an excerpt.

Don Quixote. Too old, too long, too translated.

Oh my yes. One of the few books I stopped reading partway through.

Moby dick was tough going too. The beginning was good. I liked the imagery of the city boy bunking down with the surprisingly gentle savage Queequeg. The end was good too. I skipped the historical document in the middle of the novel.

[ssrprotege]

Moby dick was tough going too. The beginning was good. I liked the imagery of the city boy bunking down with the surprisingly gentle savage Queequeg. The end was good too. I skipped the historical document in the middle of the novel.

Anyone read Melville's Benito Cereno and/or Bartleby the Scrivener?

[Hitorijime]

Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. Hauntingly beautiful, yet so biting.

I really loved this book. We had to read it for my freshman English class, and most of the class was split over it. Once I got past the descriptions of the rhoderdendrons in the first few pages (seriously, I was asleep by page 8), the rest of it moves really quickly, and I finished it within a day. I loved how unexpected it was.

[Seppuku Savant]

I'm noticing that a few people mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Has anybody who has read it liked it? I had been thinking about picking it up for awhile, but don't like wasting my time.

I think many people are divided on this one. Some people found it to be an incredible read. Others, not so much. I recommend reading her stuff, solely for knowledge about her work. Whether you agree with her views or not.

[Tenacious B]

I'm noticing that a few people mentioned Atlas Shrugged. Has anybody who has read it liked it? I had been thinking about picking it up for awhile, but don't like wasting my time.
I liked it very much, she is one of my favorite authors. Sometimes in Atlas her scenery descriptions can be a bit long and repetitive, but the principles in the book are what you read it for, not the scenery. It is a long book and not the lightest reading for a fiction novel.

I would recommend reading her fiction works in order (which I did). This provides greater context and understanding of her philosophy; they sort of build on the previous novel, getting more overtly philosophical. Her fiction works in order are:
We The Living
Anthem
The Fountainhead
Atlas Shrugged

I believe that many literary critics think Atlas is her worst work as far as traditional fiction writing is concerned (plot buildup, climax, resolution etc). I guess they mean her other books are a little "cleaner" plot wise; they were certainly easier to read. Atlas hits you hard with philosophy pretty much from the get go, while the others just suggest it. Her writing is probably somewhat of an acquired taste, a taste I apparently have. I'd try out We The Living, see if you like it, and go from there. You can find her books used for just a few dollars at online book stores since they were all written at least 50 years ago or more, plenty of used books available.

[Sara27]

The Tin Drum


It has some great imagry that still pops up unwanted, but reading it is like getting out of quicksand. It took me 2 years of picking it up and throwing it down to finish it. I was half way through when a German Lit Major told me to save myself and stop reading it immediately. Maybe I should have listened to her.





Sara27 added to this post, 4 minutes and 44 seconds later...

A Tale of two Cities
Lord of the Flies
The Scarlet Letter
The Great Gatsby
Hamlet

I love those books! :) Do you also hate 1984, Heart of Darkness, Slaughterhouse 5, and Les Miserables? I love those too.

[Kuroyue]

I loved The Scarlet Letter and Lord of the Flies (the latter of which I actually read on my own time)! The Scarlet Letter was really dense in the good way. So many details and imagery you could find new stuff every time you read it. I haven't read all of The Clockwork Orange (I skipped to the end after a while...), but the language was fairly intuitive to me from the start, and it was mildly interesting.

But man, I hated:

The King Must Die
Oliver Twist (the long AND the short. Oliver, can you get any wimpier!?)
The Wuthering Heights. (No. Just...no.)
Romeo and Juliet
Harry Potter (but only in retrospect, unfortunately. I just hate the Hogwarts school system--because the four houses and reward system obviously teach you practicality and the values of teamwork despite differences in character. And JK Rowling...Ugh. That book puts magic to shame. Oh, and seriously--the Jesus act at the end? What a stock plot device. Potter, please. Just di--I mean, STAY dead.)

...Sorry about that unexpected rant. Never saw it coming.

[Noehelia]

Baudolino from Umberto Eco. I kept saying to myself when I was reading it "why am I reading this?". It had no purpose, a fairy tale with no meaning.

[allenlam]

The Bible.
Too boring and too illogical. I can't finish any one chapter. The first few pages in the Old Testament (full of names of people and places) are killers. After some healthy discussion with Bible followers I conclude that it is useless for me to discuss any more, so there is no need to do further debugging on that book.

[rewhu]

Was anybody else as frustrated with On the Road?

Dear sweet good gravy. Yes. Wait, let me type that again.
YES.

What a hideously, over trumpted, sorry excuse for a book. I read it twice, once quickly just to get it over with and once slowly because I thought that maybe I missed something the first time, something that would allow me to realize why everyone else treats it like a frickin' sacred document.

But it was just rotten futility, both times.

[Angellus]

One of Anne Rice's books by the name of "The Vampire Lestat". Not really hurts to read, but it gave me a headache. Some of it is tedious to read, like... Lestat is already telling a story, then he meets someone that starts telling a story and then again someone else telling a story within that story. Kind of headachey and confusing, but I got through it all and understood it.

"The Scarlet Letter" was boring until the child Pearl started doing stuff, then I could read it.

"Hamlet" was okay for me to read, kind of blah for the first part of the story.

And, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows". Once again, I read it up till where they kept having to run and teleport and they were all mopey. Got boring, same old same old. It lost my interest for 4 months, then I decided to pick it up and read the rest since I wanted to know what happens in the end.

[Andantino]

Light in August - William Faulkner
V. - Thomas Pynchon

Both of these I read in high school. It could be that I just wasn't in the right mindset for the symbology of them both, but I remember thinking "Man. These suck!"

It's so bad that I actually have thought about reading them both again just to see if I could get a better perspective on them. I remember hating them so much, though... I just can't bring myself to do it!

[spiritdetectivegirl]

Due to my age group and friends, I was forced to read Eragon. I hated it. It lacked anything "fantastical" and the characters were so bland. The writing style made me cringe. And the movie?? baaarf.




I agree on this one. At first I thought the first half was pretty good when I was 14/15--that's all I could get through at the time.

Now I'm 18 and having re-read it I can see why I did'nt finish it to start with. Most of my friends love those books--including Harry Potter, which is something I won't touch with a ten foot pole.


I'm reading Twilight now because it keeps me entertained--not because it's a good book. It goes by fast and it has a few funny moments, but I always get this "You know better than this" feeling in the back my mind the whole time I read.

It's time to face it, anything that's vastly enjoyed by the mases is more than likely going to be superficial and shallow by our standards.

Now The Obsidian Chronicles trilogy by Lawrence Watt-Evans is a good read--up untill I had read it I thought I did'nt like long books. Turns out it was trusting my friends' taste in books was the thing that was off. :/





spiritdetectivegirl added to this post, 2 minutes and 36 seconds later...

Your Gon avatar is killer, allenlam.

[LionsPride]

Stone Diaries by Carol Shields. If I wasn't forced to read it, I would have stopped after a few chapters. The main character is a complete waste of a human being and for some reason I was forced to read about her. There's a portion where she's on her honeymoon and she sneezes and her husband falls out the window to his death. It's written with all the tragedy and emotion of me ordering a drink at a restaurant. The whole thing moves from one incredible bland moment to another. I'm sure there are equally boring people in this world, but you don't see me needing to read about them...

[phobus]

His Dark Materials. It ended up separating myself from cristian faith. I already had some doubts in the belief system, but the universe presented in this book made a whole more sense than the cristian universe.

Someone else mentioned El Quixote and A Hundred Years of Solitude. I liked both, but Spanish is my primary language. That's why I prefer to read books in the original language.

El Quixote is too long but had a lot of excellent stories that could be told by itself. It is very comical.

A Hundred Years of Solitude tells the history of family that keeps messing up because they never communicated between them, a very IXXX family. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a genius that gets involved in a story even if its describing someone reading the newspaper.

[Luthor Rex]

Great Expectations

Grapes of Wrath

The Scarlet Letter

Wuthering Heights

The Awakening

I was forced to read all of these books in high school or in college. I lump them together because I hate them all for the same reason: their characters are clinically retarded. Then the teacher and the students had the nerve to jump on me when I told everyone in class I thought the characters were retarded.

[taintedkitty]

I was so delighted to have found a writer who shared the same views as I did on gender. And furthermore, used my exact example to demonstrate her point.

How mistaken I was when I picked Gender Troubles by Judith Butler. The few pages I read before actually borrowing it were exciting and refreshing. Yeah? Try 300 pages (or whatever large number). I'm a voracious reader, and picking it up (it's about 3cm thick) I was like "Oh yeah, this will be done in one day". The obfuscatingly verbose nature made my brain sputter pure indignation. It took me 2 months.

And those views, superficial similarity. Requires more research on my part to really be able to comment.

I noticed a lot of you have mentioned Great Expectations. I was similarly misguided in my attempts to "enlighten" myself with the Canon (shh! I was a young lass of 12years...). I credit that book with single handedly moving me off fiction and into non-fiction.

[LionsPride]

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'? When I read it, I couldn't help thinking that even though I believe in true love and the strength of love a person can have for someone, that I wouldn't be daft enough to commit suicide over someone I met a week ago when I was 14 (or however old they were). Now the staging of my own death would be something I would contrive, but that whole real death thing I might waver on. Just saying...

[Vayate]

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'? When I read it, I couldn't help thinking that even though I believe in true love and the strength of love a person can have for someone, that I wouldn't be daft enough to commit suicide over someone I met a week ago when I was 14 (or however old they were). Now the staging of my own death would be something I would contrive, but that whole real death thing I might waver on. Just saying...
Shakespeare is renowned more for his technical excellence than his storytelling abilities. The plot was actually a previous work by another author, if I remember right. On the whole, there have been numerous writers before and since who have had greater mastery of the English language, Chaucer and Poe being superb examples.

[enWTFp]

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'? When I read it, I couldn't help thinking that even though I believe in true love and the strength of love a person can have for someone, that I wouldn't be daft enough to commit suicide over someone I met a week ago when I was 14 (or however old they were). Now the staging of my own death would be something I would contrive, but that whole real death thing I might waver on. Just saying...It's all about people. Now you have billions of them, connected to you, quite cheap transportation around the globe, compatible language and cultures. With all these people available as choice for you, would you even be able to believe that your whole world is only one person, and *nothing*, I repeat, *nothing* in the world matters without this person?

We called it true love, just a dozen years ago, without the mass freedom of Internet.

Much easier to imagine in ancient times, when traveling was hard, communities were small, and the educated were just the few bona fide rarities on top of aristocracy. Even to find your love was a miracle, and the devotion was *complete*. Without the psychological burden of choice (check Barry Schwartz), there was no doubt in the soul of the lovers, no second thoughts, no hesitation. In addition, the small pool of choice offered them tolerance to their flaws that would make them truly and sincerely love each other even when beauty fades and so on. Is it possible now? Have we killed it, to replace it with plastic factory that treats us like broilers? Sadly, yes.

Should we claim all the art throughout the ages is emotional nonsense? We could, if we want to impress the masses, make good profits, and lead our stupid broiler lives. However, this would still be plain ignorance. Just because we are blinded by our current reality and we cannot understand how and why the past worked, doesn't mean it wasn't deeply meaningful in its own time.

In addition, there's no reason to trust the present so much more than the past, when we form our goals for the future. After all, we are still humans, and the human nature is encoded in the past.

[LionsPride]

It's all about people. Now you have billions of them, connected to you, quite cheap transportation around the globe, compatible language and cultures. With all these people available as choice for you, would you even be able to believe that your whole world is only one person, and *nothing*, I repeat, *nothing* in the world matters without this person?

We called it true love, just a dozen years ago, without the mass freedom of Internet.

Much easier to imagine in ancient times, when traveling was hard, communities were small, and the educated were just the few bona fide rarities on top of aristocracy. Even to find your love was a miracle, and the devotion was *complete*. Without the psychological burden of choice (check Barry Schwartz), there was no doubt in the soul of the lovers, no second thoughts, no hesitation. In addition, the small pool of choice offered them tolerance to their flaws that would make them truly and sincerely love each other even when beauty fades and so on. Is it possible now? Have we killed it, to replace it with plastic factory that treats us like broilers? Sadly, yes.

Should we claim all the art throughout the ages is emotional nonsense? We could, if we want to impress the masses, make good profits, and lead our stupid broiler lives. However, this would still be plain ignorance. Just because we are blinded by our current reality and we cannot understand how and why the past worked, doesn't mean it wasn't deeply meaningful in its own time.

In addition, there's no reason to trust the present so much more than the past, when we form our goals for the future. After all, we are still humans, and the human nature is encoded in the past.

Wow, you really took what I said down a slippery slope argument there. At what point does disliking Romeo and Juliet imply "claiming art throughout the ages as emotional nonsense"? If I don't worship that particular tome of Shakespeare, why do you suggest that I must feel that all novels of previous eras are somehow lacking? I suppose you must also feel that because I didn't like Zoolander that I must have no appreciation for all comedies, ever. Past, present and future...:rolleyes:

[Uberfuhrer]

Books with rough-sided pages. They give me paper cuts.

[Amaterasu]

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy. It is relentless in the depiction of the main character's suffering...

[Snowdragon]

The Legend of Rah and the Muggles by N.K. Stouffer (the lady who tried to sue JK Rowling because of Rowling's use of the term "muggles"-a term that Stouffer claimed that she copyrighted). I read the introduction (and didn't get any further) and it's God-awful; I felt like cutting my wrists.











The less said about this, the better. If you're going to read the book anyway, please check it out from the library. Do not give this talentless oaf YOUR hard earned money.

[Amaterasu]

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'? When I read it, I couldn't help thinking that even though I believe in true love and the strength of love a person can have for someone, that I wouldn't be daft enough to commit suicide over someone I met a week ago when I was 14 (or however old they were). Now the staging of my own death would be something I would contrive, but that whole real death thing I might waver on. Just saying...

As I get older I have less and less sympathy for Romeo and Juliet, but when I was younger I was totally on their side. What I get from it now is how their rash behaviour is a product of the community their respective fathers have created. And we're all aware of how much teenagers love kicking against the system...? The other sad thing is their deaths seem to be the only thing to bring the Capulets and Montagues together. I think if their marriage had been discovered while they were alive there would've been hell to pay. Because of the strange situation they've found themselves in these children have to go to their surrogate parents (i.e. the Nurse and Friar Lawrence) for advice, who in turn, help them get together on the sly. All bad news for the lovers!

Plenty of people have made suicide pacts with their lovers, or killed themselves after their lover had died. You never know until you're in the situation, I guess.... Kids have killed themselves in anticipation of exam results.

[enWTFp]

Wow, you really took what I said down a slippery slope argument there. At what point does disliking Romeo and Juliet imply "claiming art throughout the ages as emotional nonsense"? If I don't worship that particular tome of Shakespeare, why do you suggest that I must feel that all novels of previous eras are somehow lacking? I suppose you must also feel that because I didn't like Zoolander that I must have no appreciation for all comedies, ever. Past, present and future...:rolleyes:And do I argue that *you* claim it? No. I take your comment as a general example of how our contemporary thinks when analyzing the past. We think we are smarter and know better, but in a way it's the other way around. And this has nothing to do with worshiping either. The point: does the story capture life truthfully, does it bring understanding? It does. But if we are blinded from our contemporary perspective, we cannot see it.

I actually thank you for commenting R&J in this way, it is a very good example of where we are headed.

[metamagnet]

I agree with everyone who has cited Great Expectations...
the plot is interesting and intricate, HOWEVER
Charles Dickens, in typical Charles Dickens format, cannot simply state, for example, "Bob went to the house"
he has to say "Bob...'insert five page biography here'....went to the...'insert four pages of description here'...house."
i'm all for detail but geez, that book was mind numbing in that sense

[Nikita]

The Call of the Wild by Jack London - easiest way to make me cry. I've never gotten past the first 5 or 10 pages. I can't stand animals being in pain.


My favorite book, and one I highly recommend, is The Satires of Juvenal by Juvenal, translated by Rolfe Humphries. I also like The Collected Poetry of Dorothy Parker by Dorothy Parker, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us by Robert D. Hare, Ph.D., and The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene.

[Kisai]

Iron Council by China Mievelle

Perdido Street Station was a great read. The Scar got long and slow. I got halfway through Iron Council before I dropped it. *sigh*

[Luthor Rex]

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'? When I read it, I couldn't help thinking that even though I believe in true love and the strength of love a person can have for someone, that I wouldn't be daft enough to commit suicide over someone I met a week ago when I was 14 (or however old they were). Now the staging of my own death would be something I would contrive, but that whole real death thing I might waver on. Just saying...

Romeo was reguarly made fun of for acting like a woman.

R&J was a warning to men, trying to teach them to not be emotional tampons.

[graciela224]

I absolutely hated Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively. She'd write three paragraphs, stop, and then retell the three paragraphs in a slightly different way. I started pulling my eyebrow hairs.
A sad one that I highly recommend is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

[metamagnet]

Romeo was reguarly made fun of for acting like a woman.

R&J was a warning to men, trying to teach them to not be emotional tampons.

LoL! Amen! Kind of like how "MacBeth" was about how great military leaders make very poor political leaders.

[LionsPride]

And do I argue that *you* claim it? No. I take your comment as a general example of how our contemporary thinks when analyzing the past. We think we are smarter and know better, but in a way it's the other way around. And this has nothing to do with worshiping either. The point: does the story capture life truthfully, does it bring understanding? It does. But if we are blinded from our contemporary perspective, we cannot see it.

I actually thank you for commenting R&J in this way, it is a very good example of where we are headed.

*snickers*

Thanks for the "contemporary" label and then suggesting everyone who is "contemporary" is blind to your perspective, which incidentally HAS to be the enlightened perspective. I'm sorry, but I still think R&J was a simple play for simple people. It has the depth of a kiddie pool. I will give some of the other characters credit for being amusing or good caricatures of people of the times, but Romeo and Juliet were both rash people, something I don't identify with or have sympathies for.

Continuing on with really crappy books, I'd like to mention Jaws was a dull read. In comparison to the movie, it lacked any sort of suspense and had a few detours that could have been nixed.

[Smotor]

I was forced to read all of these books in high school or in college. I lump them together because I hate them all for the same reason: their characters are clinically retarded.

Me too! I would also add any Edith Wharton work and most early American literature for that very reason.

[leopurrpurr]

Okay, most despised first:

fiction: "Don Quixote" Cervantes :cry:
non fiction (somewhat): "Critique of Pure Reason" Immanuel Kant :thumbsdown:

most loved:

Fiction: "Neuromancer" William Gibson
non fiction: (somewhat) : "Holy Blood and The Holy Grail: Search (quest?) of the Knights Templar

[Snowdragon]

Any Twilight Book.

[El Cas]

My Work's "Professional Development Guide"

[Silverity]

'Mistress of Dragons'. Only book I've ever wanted to burn. Complete trashy waste with no ending. No ending!!!

[NoStoneUnturned]

Sex, Drugs, and Coco-puffs

[Night Runner]

Any book from the Twilight series;
Green Mars by Kim Robinson was unbearable due to huge chunks of the story told from a bipolar perspective;
War and Peace should not be assigned as mandatory reading anywhere - it's the definition of cruel and unusual punishment;
I kept waiting for Battlefield Earth to get better, but it never did; :(
I love John Sandford's Prey series, but Frozen Prey was unbelievably hard to get through;
I actually bought a copy of Let's Go Play at the Adams by Mendal Johnson just to see what all the controversy was about, and I was this close to actually burning it by the time I finished reading it. :stunned:

[NoStoneUnturned]

*snickers*

Thanks for the "contemporary" label and then suggesting everyone who is "contemporary" is blind to your perspective, which incidentally HAS to be the enlightened perspective. I'm sorry, but I still think R&J was a simple play for simple people. It has the depth of a kiddie pool. I will give some of the other characters credit for being amusing or good caricatures of people of the times, but Romeo and Juliet were both rash people, something I don't identify with or have sympathies for.

*Counter-Snickers*

Simply put: some people are just simply simple and rash. From what I remember, both Romeo and Juliet were simply kids in love; I think they played their parts well.

Though, It's been awhile since I've read it and I wasn't as smart in psychology back then so I could easily be missing something from the whole picture here.

[HAL 9000]

Anything by GK Chesterton. He and I reach roughly the same conclusions about most things, only the way he gets to them is entirely different. A hundred pages of him are like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle to me.

[TheBlackKnight]

War and Peace. While I greatly enjoyed the book, my god, no book should take 6 months to read!

[Megalomania]

Anything by GK Chesterton. He and I reach roughly the same conclusions about most things, only the way he gets to them is entirely different. A hundred pages of him are like a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle to me.


I was going to read The Everlasting Man soon.


As for me, Xenocide by Orson Scott Card was almost unbearable. A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin was pretty crappy too. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley as well.

[Syntax]

"Less Than Zero" by Bret Easton Ellis was a bit painful when it wasn't numbing/desensitizing. It's absolutely NOTHING like the movie...but then again, I don't think anyone could get away with making a movie which resembled the book even slightly in this day and age.

[WhiteHart]

Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt! I liked it, but I found it to be rather brutal.

[INTroJect]

The Power of One was pretty rough to get through

[Deliberator]

Misery by Stephen King. Couldn't put it down, but hated every minute.

---------- Post added 04-09-2010 at 09:49 PM ----------


non fiction (somewhat): "Critique of Pure Reason" Immanuel Kant

I agree that this hurts to read, good lord, but it is good philosophy.

[Megalomania]

Misery by Stephen King. Couldn't put it down, but hated every minute.


I love that book. I read it in a day I believe. Why did you hate it?

[purplesky]

Kite Runner

It was just a really sad and made me cry! I didn't like the way Amir betrayed his half-brother, Hassan. :*( But I don't regret reading it :p

[Silence]

I think I chose a very poor time in my life to start God is a Bullet by Boston Teran. Although it was written well, I found it almost painful to read. I'll need to give it another shot (no pun intended.)

Fiction:

Child of Fortune by Norman Spinrad. Painful in a beautiful way; I was too young to understand some of the more major concepts when I first picked the book up from the store, but after ten years I am happy to say that I gave it another try. I've never regretted it.

The Yearling by Marjorie Rawlings. I love this book and I hate this book, and I re-read it at least once a year.

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls, and A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck. Both of these books were read to my fifth and sixth grade classes by my teachers. Up until that point in my life, I'd somehow managed to miss those rip-your-heart-out YA books. They're simply and beautifully written, but they're also tear-jerkers. I actually embarrassed myself horribly during the reading of A Day No Pigs Would Die, during the main character's revelation that his father was desperately trying to teach himself how to read and write before he died. I couldn't fathom anyone (much less an adult) not knowing how to read and write. I was quite shaken, and ended up crying because my concept of the world as I knew it had been turned upside down.

Beautiful Mutants by Deborah Levy. This book was so painful that after struggling to get through five pages, I shoved it back in the bag and brought it back to Barnes and Noble. I was not going to suffer it under the same roof as my family. The perforated edges of toilet paper hold more meaning than this entire pompous, heavy-handed and didactic load of crap that this author churned out.

[TheBlackKnight]

I think I'm going to go ahead and add A Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. To have the opposing morals stated so blatantly and for no one to see anything wrong with that. Ow. My brain.

That and the fact that's it's futuristic and still includes things like a manual elevator operator, and there are still no computers. That just throws me off.

[Firebrand]

"Death of a Salesman" - I think the author should find another hobby rather than wasting paper and ink writing crappy books. I could not connect with the character and thought he was an idiot the entire book. If I want to deal with idiots, I'll just spend more time at the mall.

I second LoTR. I so wanted to like this trilogy as much as I liked The Hobbit, but it just never took off the same way. Way to long-winded. I don't need chapter-long descriptions of mountains. I read it up to halfway through the RotK and just gave up. Twice. I seriously doubt I'll ever even attempt it again. There's far too many good fantasy series out there that I could read instead.

Anyone else think that Romeo and Juliet was less 'romantic tragedy" and more a 'story about really dumb people who did the world a favour by offing themselves'?

I agree. I think Shakespeare is a fantastic storyteller of emotional people gradually screwing themselves through their own stupidity. Pure Darwinism. Romeo and Juliet is about 2 vacuous teenagers controlled by their hormones and emotions to their eventual demise. Where's the loss?

Great Expectations.

Yeah, I was bit let down.

[Celeborn]

The absolute worst time I ever had reading a book was in an English class, of course. The book was "Stone Angel." The main character was an idiot who I had no sympathy for, which defeated the entire purpose of the book.

[drydenxenvik]

Anything by Whitley Strieber is painfully bad.

In 2012, the longest chapter revolves around the main character discovering a pseudo past life of his, along with a family that is waiting for him, going into the history of an entirely irrelevant alien species. Where does this lead the reader or the story? Absolutely nowhere. By the end of the chapter, the main character decides to go through a procedure to forget everything he just learned, making the entire chapter a waste of time.

Why is this guy a best seller?

---------- Post added 04-13-2010 at 05:13 PM ----------

Shakespeare is renowned more for his technical excellence than his storytelling abilities. The plot was actually a previous work by another author, if I remember right. On the whole, there have been numerous writers before and since who have had greater mastery of the English language, Chaucer and Poe being superb examples.

Shakespeare was the Bill Gates of "back in the day." He didn't produce a single original work of his own, but understood how to take the ideas of those around him and present them in a manner both more successful at intent and in popularity.

[Naga]

Catcher in the Rye
A Raisin in the Sun

[ArtistTyrant]

Globalization and its Discontents

now, i'm very antiglobalization, but this book is nothing but a long list of lies and blame placed towards Europeans...its ALL the book is, and Making Globalization Work is almost as bad, you CAN'T make globalization work

[Brittle]

Accounting 101

;D

I did, however, receive for one birthday a collection of "banned books". I had requested this as I thought it might be full of intellectually stimulating, if not - at least controversial material, and it also contained many of the "classics".

This has been one of the hardest collections to read in my life and includes:

..the much mentioned Great Gatsby - can't even remember the story to give my opinion, so it can't have been that good
A Clockwork Orange - I just haven't been able to get into the language and was frustrated as hell by it (although I have been intending to give it another crack)
Heart of Darkness - too much blathering on and on about nothing much in particular and "descriptive language" just for the sake of being wordy and not much else
Poet in New York - I hate reading poetry and half of this is in Spanish as well
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - while the story is interesting enough, there are no bloody chapters or real paragraph breaks, so it feels like the whole book is one solid dialogue. It may be the intention to grind in the drudgery of this guy's life, but doesn't make for easy reading.

Outside of this collection:

The Dark Room - 3 short stories set in wartime Germany, all lacking actual dialogue. Again, interesting enough stories, but you are so disengaged from the characters because they are written at such a distance that you just don't care.

Anything more by Dan Brown. I read Angels and Demons and quite enjoyed it - fun (if not totally unexpected) plot twists - but once you've read one, you've read them all. Just insert different locations and character names.



Ah Stephen King.... where would I be without you? ;D

[wunder]

I'm incapable of reading 19th century English lit. How 'bout them Cliff Notes!

The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by Charles Pellegrino

Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, [Pellegrino] describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever. At the narrative's core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand, the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for Nagasaki, where they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.

[blackbelt]

ANYTHING and everything by Stephen King.

[Vivek]

Night by Elie Wiesel.

[stasis]

Night by Elie Wiesel.
Excellent book. Short, but excellent.

[delasoul]

Judging from your first post, OP, did you mean "hurt" as in sad? I interpreted your thread title as books that were tedious to read --

The first time I read The Prince by Machiavelli was excruciatingly. I was 15, go figure!

[Findley]

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson. Brutal to read. Brutal.

[SongofSeptember]

The Sound and the Fury broke my brain. First book I gave up without finishing. And I gave it up on the second chapter... though I'm sure I'll go back to it someday.
As for a completely different kind of hurt, American Psycho. Just the image of sewing live mice into a vagina.. ALWHERLKHAWFALWHERK;AWHRLKHREAWERLH BRAIN BLEACH PLEASE

[Anreader]

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is harder to read than Crime and Punishment. I've had it checked out from the library for more than a month now. Surprisingly, no one tries to reserve it, so I can re-check out for eternity.

[Taste of peat]

Night by Elie Wiesel.

This book was written by the ghost writer François Mauriac.

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[stasis]

This book was written by the ghost writer François Mauriac.
The article you link establishes nothing of the kind. He may have edited for the French edition. Unless you're suggesting that Mauriac was literate in Yiddish and composed the work before he and Wiesel first met. Which would be fairly absurd.

[Anreader]

Heart of Darkness - too much blathering on and on about nothing much in particular and "descriptive language" just for the sake of being wordy and not much else This was required for my AP eng class. None of us had any idea what it was really about bc of all the stupid descriptions. We discussed it, and I still have no clue.

[epox]

Science of logic...My Ni breaks down with Hegel`s abstractions and i feel like rolling on the floor just thinking about it.

[OwenF]

1. An American Tragedy, because Dreiser is linguistically retarded. (Good title, though.)

2. I agree with epox about Hegel, though I wonder if maybe too much Ni (Hegel's) is the problem.

3. Of Grammatology, because logocentrism is where it's at, man, and because juvenile cheek wrapped up in obscurantism is boring as all hell.

4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius somehow manages to combine the worst of meta-irony with the worst of warm-cockled earnestness.

5. The Celestine Prophecy. Gag.

6. Blood and Guts in High School, by Kathy Acker, because it tries so, so hard to be shocking.

7. I thought Absurdistan was a compilation of fat/sex/Slav jokes that didn't quite work, watered down with sentimentality.

8. The Detective, by Roderick Thorp, because it's full of tedious conversations and psychobabble about re-lay-shun-ships.

9. Satan Says, by Sharon Olds. Whine, whine, cuss, whine; cuss, whine, cuss, cuss. Insert line breaks.

10. Ideas Have Consequences, by Richard Weaver, because an important argument is made less good by meandering, weirdly archaic prose.

11. Atlas Shrugged allows no room for complexity, is filled with characters who deliver the same interminable speech over and over again, and contains some of the most ridiculous writing about sex I have ever read.

12. Villages, by John Updike, because it reminded me that a very talented fiction writer spent most of the second half of his career with nothing to write about.

13. Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, because permissiveness can go too far.

14. Logic: A Very Short Introduction, by Graham Priest. Logic: A Slapdash and Pissy Introduction would have been truth in advertising.

[paperclip]

Ethan Frome. That is all.

[Mayumi2012]

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco... It did hurt my head.

[psykhe]

The Good Earth I was emotionally drained after reading it.

[stiletto]

Ulysses. Fuck you, James Joyce. Seriously.

It's way beyond me, or I need to read it alongside with a companion manual or something, because man.

[Exodus]

"Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo and "1984" by George Orwell. Oh, also "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque.

[Megalomania]

This was required for my AP eng class. None of us had any idea what it was really about bc of all the stupid descriptions. We discussed it, and I still have no clue.


I read it a few times before I realized how good the book actually was. Wasn't too time consuming, it's only 100 pages or so. His writing is dense, but the book is quite profound.

---------- Post added 12-15-2010 at 09:34 AM ----------

"Johnny Got His Gun" by Dalton Trumbo and "1984" by George Orwell. Oh, also "All Quiet on the Western Front" by Erich Remarque.


Johnny Got His Gun. My hippie English teacher made me read it. I agree it was basically stupid. Stream of consciousness as a literary technique should be abolished.

[pip]

DaVinci Code
You could not have told the difference between that and someone passing a loose bowel movement into a printing press.
Digital Fortress wasn't any better.

And surprisingly, Inversions by Iain Banks was a complete chore to read.
Surprising because I love most of his other stuff.

[Solaris]

I rarely stop reading a book, but I know I have. Fortunately, I have also blocked out their titles. And, as much as I love Shakespeare normally, I could not tolerate Hamlet and never did finish reading it.

[rara avis]

4. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius somehow manages to combine the worst of meta-irony with the worst of warm-cockled earnestness.


I tried to like this; made it about halfway through before giving up. Eggers is involed in some interesting stuff, but it's like eating at a whole wheat bakery- everything has kind of the same pervasive and quickly annoying flavor.

[OwenF]

I tried to like this; made it about halfway through before giving up. Eggers is involed in some interesting stuff, but it's like eating at a whole wheat bakery- everything has kind of the same pervasive and quickly annoying flavor.

The whole "knowingness" shtick, while also being earnest and sincere about how knowing one us, and still being pretty much a pretty decent guy and all, while not making a big deal about decency and all, and so on, and so on, and so on and all—it all strikes me as something someone might write a quick essay about before giving up essay writing forever. I get it, I guess, but it gets old very quick.

The whole-wheat bakery metaphor captures the sameness of it well. If I'm going to be bored, I would rather it be with an honest loaf of Wonder Bread.

[Merle]

I couldn't finish Stranger in a Strange Land... I think it's too much a product of its time, it reads as just unbearably unfashionable and twee to modern eyes I think (or at least to mine).

Virginia Woolf's The Waves I couldn't finish either, it was just too much effort for very little reward. I like most of her other novels, though.

Atlas Shrugged... didn't finish that either, the style is just appalling...very similar to some of the incredibly overwrought fan-fiction out there (I don't agree with the politics either, but if it was well written I would have stuck with it).

Zadie Smith's On Beauty, has ever a novel been more pleased with itself?...Well, maybe only Dave Egger's You Shall Know Our Velocity...they hurt to read, if only because I get extraordinarily irate at their self importance.

[zef]

May be sacrilage, but Neil Gaiman is just pretentious drivel to me.

In support of my wife, I made it through the first two Twilight books, but the third was just too painful. . .like serious, physical pain. . .I needed Vicodin. . .and didn't have any. . .still better than Neil Gaiman, though.

[oodlesofnoodles]

Romeo and Juliet, but it's not really a book. That's the only one I can think of right now. I hated it--every page of its soppy, cliche, "romantic", "tragic" tale that brings shame to all the romance and tragedy writers of the world. (I write both.) Totally ruined my view of Shakespeare.

I actually have a theory that Shakespeare meant for it to be one of his comedies but has been reinterpreted over time as a tragedy. Always thought he was poking fun at Romeo for "falling in love" so quickly and easily and for Juliet following his impetous lead.

[Anreader]

I read it a few times before I realized how good the book actually was. Wasn't too time consuming, it's only 100 pages or so. His writing is dense, but the book is quite profound. If I hated it the first time, I'm not trying it again. I only reread stuff I LIKE.
I made it through the first two Twilight books, but the third was just too painful. I agree. Twilight sucks. Pregnant with Vampire baby?! WHAT? I shudder when I think about all those pathetic tweens who are going to see that in a movie!

[zef]

Shakespeare. . .I love him and read the plays for enjoyment. . .but what everyone should realize is that he was just the Steven Spielberg of his time.

[Supaslim]

State of Fear by Michael Crichton. I love every other book of his I've ever read... but I just can't get past the first few chapters of this one. It hasn't even earned a place in my bookshelves. It's currently (literally) gathering dust on an end table in the loft.

Also, The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. I read this one when I was about twelve, and actually managed to finish it, but only because I hate not finishing books once I've started them. Somehow I powered through those few hundred pages of dry, dry storytelling.

And everything I had to read for a course I had to take last year. The Unbearable Lightness of Being and Mr. Wilson's Cabinet of Wonders in particular. It's a shame about that second, one, too. It might have been more enjoyable if he didn't make us analyze it and try to make sense of it. For those who never read it, the point of the whole book is that the information given in it could be entirely fabricated. Impossible to make sense of it when the author could be spinning a yarn.

ANYTHING and everything by Stephen King.

Heheheh. I love me some Stephen King. Although, movies of his books tend to suck. I much prefer his miniseries (plural) and movies of his short stories over movies of his books.

[mieu]

'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' hurt my brain in a good way.

'The Scarlet Letter' was a book that I remember wishing I could gouge my eyes out while reading.

'The Things They Carried' was heavy...I'm not really into nonfiction or realistic fiction, to be honest. As for the saddest fiction, I suppose 'Speaker for the Dead' was possibly the most depressing thing that I read while young. I avoided those 'depressing on purpose' books like The Lovely Bones or The Notebook or whatever.

In my shallow literary world, it only gets about as sad as the end of the fifth (oh, and sixth) Harry Potter book(s).

[mozartus]

Because I'm Native American, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee was very sad for me to read. I cried so much... and it makes me tear up to think about that book right now.

[Solaris]

Wuthering Heights. I thought I'd rather throw myself in front of a train, but I happened to have an English teacher sit down next to me and convince me there was something worthwhile in the book. Also The Old Man and the Sea....WTF??

[Thinker]

The Rosary Crusifixion (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

I tried to read this on a long flight many years ago.
All I can remember is that each time I picked one of the books up, I quickly dozed off.
They ended up in a bin in London. :)

[pip]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

I read that as: The Unbearable Lightness of Hovertanks
Maybe I should leave Alpha Centauri alone for a while. :laugh:

Another oddball is The Number of the Beast by Heinlein.
An interesting premise wrapped up in several layers of WTF!?

[Grimace]

Has anyone honestly read Finnegan's Wake? I hear that, in the most objective sense possible, that is the most painful book to read.

[Miryr]

My first one has to be Wuthering Heights,then there's The Tin Drum, the Pern novels,The Edible Woman, The Catcher in the Rye, Don Quixote and just about anything you get to read in school. I mean seriously, it almost seems as if there's a grand conspiracy to deter kids from reading.

[INiTeJer]

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven

There's a parody I got a chuckle out of called The Five People You Meet In Hell.

Hurt to read bad: anything by Mitch Albom, Dan Brown, and most things by John Grisham.

Hurt to read good: Dave Navarro Don't Try This At Home, anthything by Nick Flynn, anything by Christos Tsiolkas.

[Regnum Ignis]

That and the fact that's it's futuristic and still includes things like a manual elevator operator, and there are still no computers. That just throws me off.

Don't forget, it was written in 1931. I do wonder how much of Huxley's experimentation with LSD (was that contemporary? Can't be arsed to check at the moment) influenced it as well. The whole "Noble Savage" contrast-thing just struck me as hamfisted and trite, though :undecided:

[Megalomania]

If I hated it the first time, I'm not trying it again. I only reread stuff I LIKE.


Part of the enjoyment of literature is understanding the theme of it. If you're looking for a fun-filled fast-paced romp then Heart of Darkness definitely isn't for you. If you want to discuss some philosophy then it might be.

[DewFuel]

Pride & Prejudice. Just finished it last week.

The story and plot are good, but Jane Austin's writing style is a crime against literature. It almost physically hurt to read that entire novel.

[crabnebula]

The Magus by John Fowles - Its not heavy to read. It is just too "mindfuck" to attempt completing it.

[Anamalech]

The Lovely Bones.

[snipah3]

Anything fictional.

[ModernLit]

anything faulkner. also, "the scarlet letter"

[Anhedonic Lake]

If you're not used to reading epic poems then Beowulf can hurt to read the first time.

---------- Post added 12-21-2010 at 09:47 PM ----------

Ulysses. Fuck you, James Joyce. Seriously.

It's way beyond me, or I need to read it alongside with a companion manual or something, because man.

Yes, it's something else alright...

[OwenF]

I once tried to read a Patricia Cornwell novel written in the present tense. Had to stop reading because I was worried about developing a permanent facial tic.

[MortalWombat]

Pride & Prejudice. Just finished it last week.

The story and plot are good, but Jane Austin's writing style is a crime against literature. It almost physically hurt to read that entire novel.

I just downloaded this on my phone. I am excited to finally read it. :mellow:

[LaoTzu]

The Sickness Unto Death ---- Søren Kierkegaard (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)


It's a circular bunch of circularity, relating circularly, in a counter-clockwise ellipse.

[Firebrand]

"Apt Pupil" by Stephen King. The first (and most likely the last) Stephen King I'll ever read. Hacky and groan-inducing. Makes me want to kick puppies it's so bad.

[LonelyObserver]

Really hurt to read: The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo-
Boring drawn-out desciption of Paris. I skimmed over it. What was the point of page upon page of describing all that? I also hate the way it ended. It was all a needless tragedy. A waste of time in my opinion.

[Booko]

Has anyone honestly read Finnegan's Wake? I hear that, in the most objective sense possible, that is the most painful book to read.

My husband has. Well, I suppose if you're an English Ph.D. it's rather expected. He agrees that it's a painful book to read and describes it as "just nuts."

My most painful book to read: Ethan Frome, by Edith Wharton.

Only a Calvinist with severe constipation would find that book worth reading. Stock up on Fleets if you plan to check it out yourself.

[Anima Mundi]

The Da Vinci Code. And anything by Dale Carnegie.

[ModernLit]

I just downloaded this on my phone. I am excited to finally read it. :mellow:

i have it now too. i'm not sure i'm in love with the style, but it's not awful. it's not like faulkner! i do feel like i'm missing out on something all these years having not read jane austen...

[stiletto]

Part of the enjoyment of literature is understanding the theme of it. If you're looking for a fun-filled fast-paced romp then Heart of Darkness definitely isn't for you. If you want to discuss some philosophy then it might be.

This. Heart of Darkness is amazing, easily my favorite novella ever.

[Nonsuch]

Just finished reading a book on soldiers who served in Waffen SS units (mainly the 5th SS Division and 23rd SS Panzergrenadierregiment). I can describe the tone of the book in four words:

Disillusionment, Despair, Defeat, and Death.

In addition the book has a list of every member of these units who died in service, including a mugshot when possible. In the cases where there exists data on how they died, the author goes on to describe this in detail. So the book is filled with stories of SS servicemen being shot in the head by Soviet sharpshooters, blown to pieces by an artillery bombardment, squashed by tanks, shot by a firing squad for attempting to desert, committing suicide, shot by Soviets while attempting to surrender, etc.

[jkatra]

Linchpin by Seth Godin. He basically doesn't write... he just scribbles stuff down off the top of his head probably on his way to some meeting. Not a single valuable insight anywhere.

[The Habitat Dr]

Oblivion by David Foster Wallace.

Most people in the U.S. beat the English language to death. Wallace beats you to death with the English language. It's extremely common to find the space of an entire page taken up by two sentences.

[InfiniteLoop]

I'm sure the Twilight saga's already been mentioned...

Personally? I really could not stand To Kill A Mockingbird. Yes I know it's a classic, but the first half was so boring I actually felt pain building up in my skull. Jesus, if you're going to write about how some black dude was wronged by a racist white prick in the south during the Great Depression or whatever, then just write about *that*. I don't give a flying monkey fart about these two dumb kids, give me the stuff I *really* want to read.

The Awakening. Ehh... No really, I am not interested in this random chick's life. It *bores me*. It is a *boring book* and Edna is a *boring person* who can't even gather the balls to be a true feminist.

Grapes of Wrath was *horrifically* dull. I *barely* read half of it and passed the test on it by looking stuff up on SparkNotes. Same with Of Mice And Men.

The Education of Little Tree. Yup, I hate growing-up stories. Meh.

Romeo and Juliet. I don't care how great Shakespeare is, that was just *tripe*. Screw romance-tragedies, and screw them hard. Okay so the wit was funny, but that was the *only* good thing about it.

Urgh, Mrs. Dalloway. Why? Just... why why why? No, I don't like it, the only vaguely interesting character was Septimus and he's also the only one I actually have any pity for in the novel. He actually has a mental problem nobody will help him with. Dalloway's just whiny. Not exactly pitiable material there.

That said, I *did* like Great Expectations, Hamlet, and A Confederacy of Dunces. The first because I like that Victorian style of writing (and if you mix it with horror it's even better), the second because once I understood the language, the psychology behind the characters was interesting, and the third because it was the funniest damn book I have ever read in my life.

[M382]

Most of the books my book clubs have ever wanted to read. She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb was the absolute WORST book I have ever read.

I am no longer in book clubs.

[themuzicman]

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

Characters were 2d, plot line was both boring and unreasonable. Interaction between characters was horrible. Even the sex scene was completely messed up.

Worst book I've ever read.

[tyra]

heavy ones in bed
worse are hard backs - flip side good to keep other stuff stable

[Myrna]

Not books, but short stories: Family Happiness, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. These were very good but literally emotionally painful to read, which is a testament to how good Tolstoi was.

[Dolores]

La Bodega by Noah Gordon. Boring like hell. The book was a present. So I had to read it. It was pure pain.

[BellaBianca]

The Booktradesman of Kabul by Åsne Seierstad.

I'm not sure if booktradesman is the correct translation, but you get the idea.
The book was immensely popular in Norway and I quit reading it after a few pages because I found it embarrassing.

Somebody played a CD - version of it on a car trip I was on, however.
It is a good documentary of cultural differences, but not in the way it's intended to be so.

[chaostheory]

Do textbooks count?

Calculus hurts my brain. :(

[Taryuna]

The Beaver Coat by Gerhart Hauptmann. A story about how everyone is looking for a thief, everyone is suspected and in the end he isn't caught. It's a wonder how the author managed to cram so much boredom in such a short story. Plus, it's a play and written in a terrible dialect.

[Rhian]

Micheal Crichton's Next was a difficult one for all the interwoven plots. I barely managed to read any of Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species, the style was too dry for me I guess. I could get through Douglass Adams, but Catch 22 took that style to a whole new level. I literally got a headache and had to stop at chapter 2 or so.

[envirodude]

'Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid' hurt my brain in a good way.I think GEB was one of the first books I put down and couldn't bear to pick up again. I rejected Atlas Shrugged about the same time.

[pip]

United Kingdom Air Legislation Act

My head is full of fuck.

[thebrainpolice]

I'll probably catch hell for this, but I couldn't make it past the first chapter of Beyond Good and Evil. The only thing I got out of it was that Nietzsche really hated Kant. The guy just seemed like some angry deranged douchbag. That said I suppose its not fair to judge a book by just one chapter and maybe I'll give it a second try, but my expectations will be much lower.