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I did not like "The Time Traveller's Wife" but I would not consider it a bad book.
As a previous post I started to enjoy "Life of Pi" halfway through.
Even thought I quite liked that "The kite runner", I do agree it was a topic used a lot.
A book that I really found awful was "Rococò" By Adriana Trigiani. Somebody gave it to me because I am Italian and therefore....I should enjoy it? It was a struggle not to throw it away before finishing it.
"Twilight" - why this series is so popular is completely beyond me. I read the first one and have absolutely no inclination to waste my time with the other ones.
One writer that I have mixed views on is John Grisham. "The Firm" and "The Pelican Brief" were, I thought, really well written and well paced thrillers that I enjoyed a lot.
Everything he has written since he became better known has been, in my opinion, rubbish. Sorry John.
I have started using the net for that, and some of these reviews have been great essays in their own right.
I have four acquaintances whose opinions on books I listen too with rapt attention. Whatever else they may be they are reading bottom-feeders.
I know what you mean.................
I have a friend who will happily read the crappiest pile of tripe - I avoid anything she recommends - the first (and last) book I read at her suggestion was "The Shack" - uuugh I really should have known better.........
One of my best sources for good books is my mum - we have slightly diverse tastes and interests yet always enjoy the books we swap with each other
"Time Travelers Wife" was a book that is impossible to write, because of the inherent contradictions in the concept that time can travel in any other direction than forward. Or that two events can be both simultaneous and not simultaneous. Coupled with the fact that a huge number of its readers have had no experience with grappling with such logical dichotomies.
Nevertheless, I think she pulled it off, and made it an entertaining read that did not beat one over the head with bloody stumps of logical thought.
I was really looking forward to "Cutting for Stone" by Abraham Verghese. I had enjoyed two of his other books, "The Tennis Partner" and "My Own Country". This was his first non-fiction that I'm aware of and I was sorely disappointed. The beginning was a captivating story of a nun in a mission hospital in Ethiopia who gives birth to twins fathered by a talented surgeon. It all went slowly and painfully down hill from there until it culminated in a total mess with lost story lines and forced endings.
For me a "bad book" is often a worse book if I was really anticipating reading it and it turns out to be a disappointment.
Anything by Paul Coelho, and at the other end of the pole, Ayn Rand - pretentious fairytales for expounding her philosophy of personal fascism....zzzzz zzzzz zzzzzzzzz
Paul Coelho eeewww! Gets way to much attention for really nothing books that pretend to be of some great spiritual significance.
And how about the ever best-selling Mary Higgins Clark.
Yep, "The Lovely Bones" is crap, which they are now going to make into a movie--will skip that one. That book got a huge amount of positive publicity when it came out. Not the first time I have been sucked into buying a book because so many folks were writing great things about it. Now I am more careful to know who is doing the reviews. Maybe some writers have friends (old sorority sisters?) in the publishing industry and get an undeserved leg up.
That's my rant. David Glen Gold is the husband of Alice Sebold (author of Lovely Bones). David Glen Gold is a terrific author--historical fiction. I highly recommend "Carter Beats the Devil". He has a new book out "Sunnyside" which I will be looking for. Check the opinions of reviewers you respect!
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It was a struggle not to throw it away before finishing it.
I really should have known better.........
