Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Ive only read 92 books in my life, but the worst of all was Insomnia by Stephen King. Im normally into his books for the most part, especially the early stuff, but that book was so bad. I have a supersition that if you dont finish a book, it will bring you bad luck, so I trudged thru this miserable piece of crap. Irony is it took me 3 months to read because INSOMNIA put me to sleep after 4 pages nearly every time
Ive only read 92 books in my life, but the worst of all was Insomnia by Stephen King. Im normally into his books for the most part, especially the early stuff, but that book was so bad. I have a supersition that if you dont finish a book, it will bring you bad luck, so I trudged thru this miserable piece of crap. Irony is it took me 3 months to read because INSOMNIA put me to sleep after 4 pages nearly every time
TOO funny, sberdrow. I am a fan of King's but I do recall being disappointed in this one, too. Like, I wanted to knock him out with a sledgehammer!
. . . I was hoping, pleading, "OMG, let something good happen to these people, when are they going to get a break?!?" But they never did. I guess I kept reading that sad story due to curiosity.
Another title much like it is Nectar in a Sieve. The first year I taught World Lit, with 10th graders no less, I pulled 30-odd copies of the work out of the English teachers' book room, got started, and threw the kids into the book, thinking, "we'll do this together." I trusted reading it with the class as both the Department Chair, and the 10th grade cluster leader, recommended it.
I thought I'd die before I could get myself, and those students, through it. It was the same -- nothing good ever happens for this family in India, and it goes from bad to worse, without anything much to salvage in the end. I knew I had made a terrible 'teaching error' when the fifteen/sixteen-year-olds found no empathy with the old woman begging passers-by to help her get the body of her dead husband off the streets of Calcutta.
Some time later, I re-read the book with members of a Book Club, and found so much more in it, but still, it was hardly a read for a classroom of young people, the previously targeted audience.
Worst book? I dunno. I wouldn't waste my time finishing a book that I thought was lame.
Worst author, hands down in opinion, has to be Stephan King. He is just too effin long winded! The guy can spend twenty pages describing someone walking down the street; with nothing happening except that the guy is walking down the street. Total bore.
However, two books tie for my worst: Howard Zinn's "A History of the United States" (if I recall the title correctly) and David Thoreau's "Walden's Pond".
I kind of resented the fact that Zinn presented himself as a historian but was so biased. I like my history, no matter how bad, stated as coldly as an algebra equation and I find it terribly annoying when an author tries so desperate to put a spin on it... Pathetic... especially his attempt.
What spin? That it presented the history of the United States as it was seen through the eyes of the people who it affected? C'mon, the man earnestly joined the Army Air Force during WWII to almost exclusively drop bombs on the fascists. He was one of the first people to use napalm in a campaign. After the war he went back to visit one of the places that was bombed. It was there that he learned of the many civilians who died and of the American commanders who ordered the bombings as a move to simply advance their careers. Then he began to write books on it and others regarding the 'history' of those that it affected.
Howard Zinn is a historian and a professor at Boston University.
There are many people who feel that this book is not biased in anyway and those that do tend to fall on the extreme right-wing side of politics.
Worst book? I dunno. I wouldn't waste my time finishing a book that I thought was lame.
Worst author, hands down in opinion, has to be Stephan King. He is just too effin long winded! The guy can spend twenty pages describing someone walking down the street; with nothing happening except that the guy is walking down the street. Total bore.
Bag of Bones was last good book of his I think.
Hey, ever notice that King kills alot of kids in his books?
Oh great...i have Dreamcatchers that i havent read yet. thanks for letting me know i may sleep through it. lol
I also just started Bag of bones. It's a very long book, so i hope he isn't describing someone walking down the street for 100 pages or so.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
