# Another bitchy "worst-of" thread: Your votes for worst bestsellers or classics **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 7, 2005, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147 "2005-10-07T04:18:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Millit\_the\_Frail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@Millit\_the\_Frail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millit_the_Frail)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/121 "2005-10-11T02:35:32Z")
**Patricia Cornwell’s** Kay Scarpetta series started as a really fun and interesting set of mystery novels. She was way ahead of the medical examiner craze (predating CSI and all its clones), and her characters were well-conceived to the point where I wanted to meet them, work with them, be their friends, etc. However, the last several books have steadily declined in quality. It’s like she’s not even trying. What can we put these characters through? Oh, how about bringing someone back from the dead? More job losses/job changes, that’ll mix things up! I have the newest one on loan from the library but it’s been sitting on my bedside table for two weeks unopened. I’m worried it’ll be crap like the last few. Since children’s and mystery/crime are what I read most of the time, I’ll add **Artemis Fowl.** Those books are really popular, but I read the first and was completely unimpressed. Among other things, I’m sick of the fantasy cliche that humans aren’t alone on earth, but they’re so dumb that the other life forms/races/whatever need to protect them from that knowledge. JK Rowling does this in a good way, but Eoin Colfer’s fantasy world just didn’t do it for me. ---
**Author:** ![zenith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zenith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zenith)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/122 "2005-10-11T02:52:07Z")
> [@Beware of Doug](#): > > Right now I’m regretting I can’t change my screenname. > > For worst classic novel, I give you Joseph Conrad’s _The Secret Agent._ It contains so much pointless, eye-glazing exposition, written in ostentatiously long sentences full of subordinate clauses, that I couldn’t even get far enough into it to see the plot start. See Hitchcock’s movie instead. It’s what Conrad would have done had he had an editor. Hitchcock did another excellent editing job on the short story “Rear Window”, as well. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/123 "2005-10-11T02:52:52Z")
Anne McCaffrey has been on the bestseller lists for a long time. Her core Pern series is excellent but her last few novels have been utterly awful. If you have nothing to say anymore, stay away from the typewriter! ---
**Author:** ![Scissorjack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c67d28/32.png) [@Scissorjack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scissorjack)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/124 "2005-10-11T04:04:10Z")
> [@SmartAleq](#): > > Ah yes, the famed “Plot Hole Ouzo,” rarer than absinthe… You couldn’t use absinthe as a plot device for a character forgetting a lover, since absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Rieux](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@Dr.Rieux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Rieux)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/125 "2005-10-11T04:10:23Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > You couldn’t use absinthe as a plot device for a character forgetting a lover, since absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. Dammit, **I** wanted to say that! ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/126 "2005-10-11T06:25:47Z")
For that matter, the movie version of Mr. Roberts is far more enjoyable than the book of the same name, that the play the movie is based upon was written from. How that happened I’m not sure, but it is. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 12:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/127 "2005-10-11T12:17:52Z")
> [@Case Sensitive](#): > > You couldn’t use absinthe as a plot device for a character forgetting a lover, since absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. You, sir (ma’am?), win at everything. 😃 I’m adding that line to my sig. ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/128 "2005-10-11T12:27:54Z")
Wow… three pages, and no one has mentioned [**Atlas Shrugged**](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlas_Shrugged). I read it. Cover to cover. Included the never-to-end radio speech. That was 5 years ago. Recovery has been slow, but I can still feel the pain. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/129 "2005-10-11T13:56:33Z")
One question for you, **Crafter Man** : Why did you read it? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Crafter\_Man](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crafter_man/32/458_2.png) [@Crafter\_Man](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crafter_Man)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 2:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/130 "2005-10-11T14:35:55Z")
> [@OtakuLoki](#): > > One question for you, **Crafter Man** : Why did you read it? 😃 Because I’m an idiot! 😛 Over the years I have read quite a few books on libertarianism, gun ownership, individual liberty, etc. The authors of these books were always talking about the “classic” novel _Atlas Shrugged_. And one of my very favorite novels (_[Unintended Consequences](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_Consequences)_) was constantly compared to _Atlas Shrugged_. So I thought, “Hmm. Guess I better read this thing.” And so I did. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/131 "2005-10-11T16:13:01Z")
> [@LavenderBlue](#): > > Anne McCaffrey has been on the bestseller lists for a long time. Her core Pern series is excellent but her last few novels have been utterly awful. If you have nothing to say anymore, stay away from the typewriter! She’s doing exactly that. Her last Pern book was co-authored with her son, and he’s now written his first Pern book by himself. She benched herself and sent in the relief pitcher. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2005, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/132 "2005-10-11T19:27:20Z")
> [@SpazCat](#): > > Joseph Conrad’s _Heart of Darkness_. I read it over the summer because I’m taking a course in African lit and a lot of African writers hate that book. I’m with them. 100-odd pages of NOTHING HAPPENING. I had to force myself to stay awake through it. Heh. My lit professor loved this book, and harped on how brilliantly the monotony of the nothingness was presented. Seriously. He felt the major success and genius of the book was creating a mind-numbing atmosphere of hopeless boredom, free of stimulation or variety. Darkest bleakest Africa. In that case I wish to nominate my tax return of last year for the National Book Award. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2005, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147/133 "2005-10-12T13:59:47Z")
I’d also like to submit **David Copperfield** for this list. I have to read it for class and that’s the ONLY reason that book hasn’t gone flying into the nearest stump grinder. The ratio of Stupid to Halfway Intelligent in this book is way overbalanced. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/another-bitchy-worst-of-thread-your-votes-for-worst-bestsellers-or-classics/325147.md?page=6)