# Books that deserve burning? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 9, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404 "2003-01-09T00:32:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zorro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/ad7895/32.png) [@Zorro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zorro)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 10:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/41 "2003-01-09T10:38:47Z")
I have never burned a book, and I probably never will unless I have nothing else to light a fire with and the situation is desperate. However, back in the days before Tony said we couldn’t, I emptied a revolver into a copy of _Emma_ by Jane Austen. I hated that book. I still do. ---
**Author:** ![Einmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Einmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einmon)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 10:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/42 "2003-01-09T10:39:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Ace of Swords \* > It was awful, yes, but awfully funny! So Nae to the burning, lads… \*\* Come to think about it, I laughed quite a bit about the crappy Sidney Sheldon I read, so I have to agree… _“Tracy”, he said, in a very heavy German accent…_ I rest my case. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/43 "2003-01-09T10:40:23Z")
Once again, I confess to the only book I’ve ever burned - _The Bible Code_ - which I threw on the fire. I did it because it was bullshit of the highest order, and I couldn’t even give it away (it was given to me by my brother-in-law, who begged me to take it because he hated it so much), rather than for any superstitious reasons. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/44 "2003-01-09T11:26:37Z")
I’ve never burned a book. I share the same aversion to destroying them most others here seem to share. I have, however, shredded one on purpose. I would have pissed on the pieces, too but I lwas living in the barracks on an Air Force base at the time and couldn’t think of anyplace to do the deed that wouldn’t involve embarrassment. I’ve managed to block the name and author of that accursed thing rather completely from my mind. All I remember is what caused my disgust after less than ten pages. The book was some kind of fantasy crap (which I almost never read) and started off with the high priest of some satanist like bunch of sickos preparing for a ceremony. That didn’t bother me, really. I hadn’t gotten far enough to know if this was supposed to be the bad guy or if the whole book was going to be about this sicko. Nope. What got me was the glowing prose used to descibe the whole thing. It seemed like whoever wrote it must have gotten off on the shit. It was written from the point of view of the priest as he was going through his preparations. He put on his ceremonial robe, and as he was doing so he thought fondly back to the days when he himself made the robe from the skin of a still living virgin and how much he enjoyed peeling it from her body and how the blood ran and how she screamed and oh how lovely the echoes were. It went on for several pages like that, with lurid and gory detail about many of the things to be used in the ceremony. It made me sick. It made me feel filthy for having read it. As the priest was finally going to getting ready to actually start the ceremony it dawned on me that things could only get worse, so I stopped reading and shredded it. Right that moment. Ripped it down the spine a few times, and then tore the pages across, and then kept on tearing until there was nothing bigger than an inch across left. I couldn’t burn it in hte barracks, and I couldn’t think of anyway to piss on it without being seen and embarrassed, so I took it out and dumped the pieces into the three dumpsters outback, spreading the crap amongst them so as not to make any one dumpster sick enough to puke that shit back up. Other than that, books that qualify as a waste of trees (specifically including anything written by Ray Bradbury) get sold or dumped on … er um … donated to the local library. BTW: I didn’t intentionally by that vile piece of shit. It was in a box of used books that I had bought somewhere cheap. There were some pretty good books in there, but that one was just too awful. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Death](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ecccb3/32.png) [@Evil\_Death](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Death)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/45 "2003-01-09T11:59:09Z")
Everything Irvine Welsh has ever written should be used as kindling for copies of that fucking movie based on one of his books. Then, because Welsh is the vilest human being alive, throw him on top. ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/46 "2003-01-09T12:03:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by lukaspriest \* > \*\*I’d burn Mein Kampf for what it advocates. \*\* Irony really _is_ dead. ---
**Author:** ![airdisc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e19adc/32.png) [@airdisc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/airdisc)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/47 "2003-01-09T12:08:49Z")
Julius Caesar by Shakespeare. If I ever see that train wreck of a book again, I stick it through a woodchipper. ---
**Author:** ![DarRRva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/53a042/32.png) [@DarRRva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarRRva)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/48 "2003-01-09T12:54:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lynster \* > \*\*I agree that generally, burning not OK. > I found American Psycho really awful. I have read good things by the author, and yes, I know it’s a parody, or self aware, or whatever - but I just found many passages to be horrific. Couldn’t burn it though, it was a friend’s copy. If it was mine? yeah, I probably would have chucked it. \*\* How is American Pyscho worth burning? Because it is fantastically well written, or actually allows you to think slightly for yourself. I mean, sure its very graphic but the gratuitous violence/sex is needed for the author to convey the intenteded message of the text. ---
**Author:** ![DarRRva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/53a042/32.png) [@DarRRva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarRRva)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/49 "2003-01-09T12:56:22Z")
The Whole of the Moon ---
**Author:** ![lesa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/34f0e0/32.png) [@lesa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lesa)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/50 "2003-01-09T13:17:02Z")
My brother once appalled a friend by ripping the introduction out of a book. He said the book itself was fine (a classic of some kind), but the introduction was awful. The introduction was about the person writing the introduction, not the book or the book’s author. So my brother ripped it out and threw it away. Our friend called it censorship. But my brother said, No, I’m not stopping anyone else from reading it. I just don’t want to see it again. ---
**Author:** ![spudmanyeah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9c0ed/32.png) [@spudmanyeah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spudmanyeah)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/51 "2003-01-09T13:43:04Z")
I’d agree with the half-a-Crossroads of Twilight. What actually happens in this book? I know I’m gonna incense people here, but the book I hated most of all was “A picture of Dorian Grey”. I wouldn’t burn it though, it would probably disappear up its own arse (is this possible) ---
**Author:** ![raygirvan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ac91a4/32.png) [@raygirvan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raygirvan)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/52 "2003-01-09T14:06:31Z")
I once burned a copy of a paperback SF novel called _Habitation One_ by Frederick Dunstan. It combined daft sadism (a character had his moustache ripped out by hydraulic jack) with outrageously bad physics. The combination of seeing this ludicrous novel in print, from a local author I didn’t like, when I’d just had my own novel rejected, was just too much … As to books which _ought_ to be burned, I’ve a very large list. everything by JK Rowling, Agatha Christie and Jeffrey Archer; Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen; all plays by Alan Ayckbourn (and in fact any plays that are regularly staged by am-dram companies); all Mills & Boon style romances; Colin Dexter’s novels (now the Morse series is safely filmed, no-one needs to read the excruciatingly pompous source books any more); all Tolkien-clone fantasy; all novels by celebrities; and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Indygrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@Indygrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indygrrl)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/53 "2003-01-09T15:13:34Z")
Man Crazy, by Joyce Carol Oates, was a shameful waste of paper by a usually talented author. I thought the writing was terrible and the subject matter was gratuitously violent without any real point. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/54 "2003-01-09T15:15:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dejahma \* > \*\*Yes Wild in the Streets was a book in the 60’s. Every other word was the F word. Basic premise was that 16 year olds should get to vote. This was when voting age was 21 and draft age was 18 and in real life people were trying to get the voting age reduced to 18, “If I have to die for my country don’t I at least get to vote on it?” No and you don’t get to drink either, lol. > > I think I may be the only person to ever read the book, lol. But I still remember it as one of the stupidist books I’ve ever read. Eventually everyone over 21 got sent to concentration camps. LOL, who would do all the work? \*\* Actually, at least one other person read it - me. And I agree with you, it’s among the stupidest books I’ve ever read. IIRC the last scene in the book was some 10 or 12 year old kids talking about how when they get to vote they’ll get rid of all the “old people” - meaning the 18 year olds. I’ve never deliberately destroyed a book but I did throw one in the garbage rather than pass it on. I’d picked it up at a garage sale out of curiousity; it was one of those “television is rotting the morals of this country” diatribes whose authors seemed to think that everything after “Ozzie & Harriet” and “Father Knows Best” was immoral trash and the FCC should be given absolute control over everything that was aired on TV. And yes, I’m aware of the irony involved in my effectively censoring the authors because I didn’t agree with their beliefs. ---
**Author:** ![Mort\_Furd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Mort\_Furd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mort_Furd)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/55 "2003-01-09T16:05:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LurkMeister \* > \*\*And yes, I’m aware of the irony involved in my effectively censoring the authors because I didn’t agree with their beliefs. \*\* That is not censorship. You didn’t destroy all copies of it or try to prevent other people from reading it. You just disposed of your own copy. ---
**Author:** ![NailBunny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@NailBunny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NailBunny)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/56 "2003-01-09T16:19:27Z")
How bizarre. I can’t imagine anyone hating _Julius Caesar_ or _The Regulators_. But, opinions are like assholes, I guess… I wouldn’t burn it, because I think that _somehow_ in _some way_ it is a good piece of writing (I just can’t for the life of me figure out how), but I really, really despised _Naked Lunch_. When I was done with it, I totally felt like Nelson in The Simpsons: “I can think of two things wrong with that title.” Seriously, you know how other people make you read their poetry sometimes, and it’s a whole page of just random gibberish but you feel like you should really be getting something out of it but you’re totally not? Imagine HUNDREDS OF PAGES OF THAT, and you have _Naked Lunch_. ---
**Author:** ![susan\_foster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d9b06d/32.png) [@susan\_foster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan_foster)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/57 "2003-01-09T16:21:38Z")
Burnt Offerings by Laurell K. Hamilton. I liked the rest of the series before that - but that one I just hated, loathed and despised. Susan ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/58 "2003-01-09T16:42:48Z")
I can think of several books that should be burned, just to prevent psychotic english lit. professors from forcing their subjects to be tortured by them. Moby Dick. Good. God. Almighty. Look, I know whaling was a popular subject back in the 1800s, but it’s dreadfully boring in the here and now. Frankenstein. Kill me now. Most boring book on the face of the earth that has been most misinterpreted in popular culture. The Old Man and the Sea. Just because I wrote a fantastic, researched, **original** paper interpreting the book and got a bad grade because it wasn’t the traditional intepretation of the book and I’m still bitter. ---
**Author:** ![Misha77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f19dbf/32.png) [@Misha77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Misha77)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/59 "2003-01-09T16:46:52Z")
There are a few that immediately came to mind. I’ve enjoyed books by Dean Koontz. Some of them are just fun escapist reading. (Especially _Watchers_.) But, good God, _Ticktock_ was a waste of time. _Night Chills_ was awful too. However, Bentley Little’s _The Store_ truly deserves burning. I’m a fan of horror, so a friend of mine suggested his writing. She asked me to borrow it, happy that she’d discovered a “great” author. I knew her taste and mine differed often, but I think her enjoyment of that horrendous novel made me lose respect for her. ---
**Author:** ![magog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/fbc32d/32.png) [@magog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/magog)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2003, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404/60 "2003-01-09T16:58:22Z")
For me, David Eddings, _The Losers_. Combination of annoying writing, annoying plot, annoying characterization, and (IMHO)annoying politics. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-that-deserve-burning/147404.md?page=4)