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Anything by Tom Clancy. I might be being unfair here but as soon as I came across the line "..for this was the mark of such men." I put the book down and swore never to pick up anything by him again.
A friend of mine lent me a book of his essays (Travels in Hyperreality) which I enjoyed imensely and I'm now part way through Foucault's pendulum. Sadly I ground to a halt when he put in a lot of background about the Tempars as I got a bit bored, but that's probably because I'm still smarting from the Dan Brown hype. Bad timing! Must pick it up again soon, if only because my neighbour will want it back.
I know what you mean about the "Da Vinci Code effect" ! but Eco as a Medievalist really is quite a real expert on this period and knows so much about it, beyond all the media-hype. I also love his way with words, a lot of his books are almost like puzzles.
nanannie: glad to hear someone else doesn't like stephen king. It is not PC to say so it seems sometimes, he is that popular. I stopped reading him after "pet cematary". Too violent.
Bad books: Jaws by benchly - made a d*mn good movie though!
Also on book - can't remember title: by martha grimes, in which 2 children drowned somehow ... it was such a depressing book. I never read anything by her again.
I generally don't read the bad ones. I just stop after the 1st chapter if I hate it. Don't have time to read boring.
Any romance novel. My mother used to read these like a chocoholic eats a box of chocolate candy in one sitting (in all fairness, she was going through menopause and the romance novels were like medicine to her). I chose a book and read it one afternoon while sunbathing. Another day, I chose another and read it. This went on for a few more days. When she & I talked about the books, I commented how they were all the same formula, different names, faces, locations, professions, etc. but the storyline was predictible. I haven't read another one in more than 30 years. She kept reading them throughout her lifetime.
Also, Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad. I thought I would die trying to get through this tedious book, and actually needed help writing my high school senior essay because some brain cells fell into a malfunction mode whenever I tried to pick up the book to read it. I'm glad to know that a few other people feel the same way I do about this overrated novel.
A coworker noticed that I was always reading on my breaks so he brought me a present, "the best book he'd ever read."
Some unintentionally hilarious thing by Robin Cooke, I think. Don't remember the title, but this fungus thing made doctors turn into lizard-like predators... When he asked me what I thought of it I told him that I could either be honest or nice, but refused to try to do both.
Thomas Pynchon. Sorry. I know the literati will swoop down on me. But I find the man to be utterly unreadable.
I make my living as a writer with one novel published to nice critical reviews and another one in the works. However, I certainly DON'T claim literary eminence here. But I think there is a widening gulf between what is considered to be literary fiction and what is a good read. I believe strongly that a novel can be challenging and readable at the same time.
That's why I also hate James Joyce (After Dubliners, which I consider to be the finest set of short stories ever written). Finnegan's Wake and Ulysses are incredibly incoherent books that have continued to be propped up by a cottage industry of Joyce scholars, whose only argument seems to be that James Joyce is a great writer because he's a great writer. However, his writing wasn't even particularly groundbreaking, given that Laurence Sterne did a much better job with Tristram Shandy, a good 150 years earlier.
Meanwhile, I'm not inclined to be snobbish about writers such as Robin Cook, Tom Clancy, and John Grisham. I have read one or two of each of their books, all on long beach vacations. Their books are predictable. At the same time, their aspirations are strictly to entertain, with no literary pretensions whatsoever. Heck, John Grisham said in a recent interview that he expects all his books to be forgotten in fifty years. How many writers are prepared to admit that? None that I know.
A coworker noticed that I was always reading on my breaks so he brought me a present, "the best book he'd ever read."
Some unintentionally hilarious thing by Robin Cooke, I think. Don't remember the title, but this fungus thing made doctors turn into lizard-like predators... When he asked me what I thought of it I told him that I could either be honest or nice, but refused to try to do both.
That made me laugh so I googled about a bit trying to find out what it was called. The only thing I've found out is that all Robin Cook books appear to have the plot-line: medical experiment, mysterious illness, hero/heroine uncovers the truth - shock, horror! Shan't be reading any of those then! lol
That made me laugh so I googled about a bit trying to find out what it was called. The only thing I've found out is that all Robin Cook books appear to have the plot-line: medical experiment, mysterious illness, hero/heroine uncovers the truth - shock, horror! Shan't be reading any of those then! lol
I don't seem to mind the awful books/authors that don't pretend to think their stuff is great, or take themselves seriously. While I admire anyone who will see a book through, ie. writing one and getting it published, not all of what makes it to that point is good reading material, much less 'literary.' I have always contended there is a difference between a good storyteller and a good writer. They are not necessarily one-and-the-same.
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Great responses, here. . .
