# Books you thought you'd love, but didn't **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 7, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529 "2011-04-07T15:25:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/1 "2011-04-07T15:25:11Z")
I really, really liked Joseph Ellis’s _Founding Brothers_, and was looking forward to his biography of George Washington, _His Excellency_, but it was just meh. Didn’t have nearly the lively style and engaging storytelling of the first. You’d think the adventures of Lewis & Clark would be fascinating, but, alas, not as told by Stephen Ambrose in _Undaunted Courage_. Plodding and dull. For that matter, hunting down the crafty, murderous head of the Medellin Cartel should make for a rip-roaring tale, right? Unless Mark Bowden wrote it, and unless that book is _Killing Pablo_. About as exciting as watching paint dry. And yours? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/2 "2011-04-07T15:37:47Z")
Steven Pressfield’s **[Gates of Fire](http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Fire-Novel-Battle-Thermopylae/dp/0553580531)**, a fictionalized telling of the Spartans’ stand at Thermopylae _rocked_. Great historical and day-in-the-life context, a well-deployed and paced plot - just great. So I got his next book, Tides of War, which was meant to be a similar treatment for Alcibiades, Athen’s prodigal son. God, it was crap. I haven’t been able to go back to his work, even though he has ended up with a number of books in this genre… ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/3 "2011-04-07T15:41:51Z")
Patrick O’Brian’s **Master and Commander**. After seeing the movie I couldn’t wait to start going through the series. I was prepared for it to be very slow compared to the film too. But as it turned out, it was too slow for me. I got through about half the first book with nothing actually happening. They barely sailed the boat from point A to point B. Reminded me a little of Moby Dick. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/4 "2011-04-07T15:42:10Z")
I loved Lucifer’s Hammer, Inferno, and The Mote in God’s Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, but I hated Footfall. Elephant men from outer space that can only be beaten by a think tank of plucky sci-fi Mary Sues authors? Lame. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/5 "2011-04-07T15:43:03Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > You’d think the adventures of Lewis & Clark would be fascinating, but, alas, not as told by Stephen Ambrose in _Undaunted Courage_. Plodding and dull. Agreed. My copy is around here somewhere, with a bookmark about a third of the way through, where it’s been for a couple of years. ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/6 "2011-04-07T15:57:56Z")
I was disappointed in John Scalzi’s _Old Man’s War_, which everybody else seems to love. I’m an old Heinlein and Haldeman fan, so it should have been a good read for me. I loved _In the Garden of Iden_, the first book in Kage Baker’s Company series. It was a funny, fascinating time travel/historical fiction novel. But none of the others have been as good, and I really disliked the direction she eventually took the series, especially in _The Life of the World to Come_. ---
**Author:** ![Lightray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lightray/32/391_2.png) [@Lightray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lightray)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/7 "2011-04-07T16:03:36Z")
Moorcock’s _Elric_ books, and Banks’ Culture series. I love the genre, people who like the same books I do recommend those books, and yet… meh. Dull and boring, the both of 'em. ---
**Author:** ![Sicks\_Ate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/258eb7/32.png) [@Sicks\_Ate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sicks_Ate)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/8 "2011-04-07T16:07:59Z")
Stranger in a Strange Land. I like everything else I have read by Heinlein (that I can think of), but I could not get into SiaSL. It’s been years though, I was probably in middle school or high school. I noticed that my wife picked it up at a used book sale, so maybe it is time to revisit it. As King’s ‘Dark Tower’ series progressed, I became less and less impressed by it. I didn’t even bother picking up the last book. I just read ‘The Gunslinger’ over instead. Harry Potter. I mean, everybody loves them, right? Could not get past the first book-and-a-half. Can’t get into anything by Ken Follett, with the exception of Pillars of the Earth and World Without End. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/9 "2011-04-07T16:11:34Z")
_The Wordy Shipmates_ by Sarah Vowell. Everybody loves it. I didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Shoeless](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shoeless/32/7099_2.png) [@Shoeless](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shoeless)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/10 "2011-04-07T16:12:08Z")
I really enjoyed the movie “Last of the Mohicans” and since I had never read any James Fennimore Cooper, I decided to grab a copy of the book one day when I was at Borders. When the cashier was ringing me up she told me that it was the worst book she had ever read. I should have listened to her. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/11 "2011-04-07T16:18:34Z")
> [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](#): > > I was disappointed in John Scalzi’s _Old Man’s War_, which everybody else seems to love. I’m an old Heinlein and Haldeman fan, so it should have been a good read for me… Huh. I’m a fan of both Heinlein’s _Starship Troopers_ and Haldeman’s _The Forever War_, and I thought Scalzi’s book, which owes much to them, was terrific in its own right. To each their own. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/12 "2011-04-07T16:26:11Z")
I love folklore, I love the oral histories, I love the macabre. So a locally published book about haunts and ghost stories in my area should be right up my alley, right? Somehow the four people who wrote [Huanted Rochester](http://www.amazon.com/Haunted-Rochester-Supernatural-History-Genesee/dp/1596294183) managed to take all the spook, all the wonder, and all the shivers out of a collection of various ghost stories. Instead they spent more time, in general, talking about disputed locations for various stories than they did explaining why the story was interesting in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/13 "2011-04-07T16:27:28Z")
> [@Shoeless](#): > > I really enjoyed the movie “Last of the Mohicans” and since I had never read any James Fennimore Cooper, I decided to grab a copy of the book one day when I was at Borders. When the cashier was ringing me up she told me that it was the worst book she had ever read. I should have listened to her. Did it at least give you more appreciation for [Twain’s critique](http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/projects/rissetto/offense.html)? ---
**Author:** ![Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a88e4f/32.png) [@Eleanor\_of\_Aquitaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleanor_of_Aquitaine)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/14 "2011-04-07T16:34:30Z")
> [@Lightray](#): > > Moorcock’s _Elric_ books, and Banks’ Culture series. I love the genre, people who like the same books I do recommend those books, and yet… meh. Dull and boring, the both of 'em. I’ve been hearing about the Culture books for years, but I’m reading _Consider Phlebas_ now and I don’t like it at all. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/15 "2011-04-07T16:39:04Z")
Matthew Pearl’s [The Dante Club](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dante_Club). It’s set around the US Civil War period, in and around Boston, and features historical figures like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Oliver Wendell Holmes, who are in a Dante appreciation society together. A series of murders is committed in styles resembling the various punishments in Dante’s _Inferno_, and they try to investigate who is doing this, and why. I freaking **love** the _Inferno_, plus I visit Boston at least once a year typically, and find that time period in American history very interesting. But this book just did not grab my interest at all. The characters felt wooden, and I just wasn’t engaged in the story. I tried to start over again months later and felt the same way about it. I really don’t know why I just couldn’t muster up any appreciation for he book. ---
**Author:** ![Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maggie_the_Ocelot)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/16 "2011-04-07T16:45:54Z")
LOTR. Classic series, everyone seems to love it, but I just cannot. read. it. For an adventure story, it’s just so damned BORING! ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/17 "2011-04-07T16:51:11Z")
_Anonymous Rex_ by Eric Garcia. The concept was a wonderful – dinosaurs never went extinct and live secretly among humans. It was cute and clever, but the structure of the concept became so top heavy that the whole thing collapsed for me. As set up, there was no way the dinosaurs existence would not have become common knowledge (they walked around in plastic “human suits” as a disguise, something that would have been discovered the first time one of them got into a auto accident). The more they showed the characters doing thing, the more ridiculous the concept was. **Memoirs of an Invisible Man**. I had heard good things, but the main character was such a utter moron that I tossed the book aside with great force. Lots of stupid things, but I quit when he spent an hour sitting his apartment watching the government set up a trap to catch him and doesn’t decide to leave until after they’ve completed it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/18 "2011-04-07T16:58:39Z")
> [@](#): > > Patrick O’Brian’s Master and Commander. I’ll second this. I love sea stories, especially C.S. Forester (and not just his _Hornblower_ series), and I have part of a bookcase with various other writers. (And I _loved_ Moby Dick, myself). But I couldn’t get into O’Brian. Reading him is work. it doesn’t flow easily, and he leaves out an awful lot of bridging material. He’s the anti-Stephen King. I read the first three books in the series and just stopped. Agree about Moorcock’s _Elric_ series. I picked one up in the early 1970s and simply couldn’t get into it. I’ll add Pierre Benoit’s **l’Atlantida**. usually I like early fantastic fiction, especially when it’s formed the basis for films. This one has been filmed about half a dozen times. It’s about the lost continent of Atlantis, discovered by French explorers. Except 1.) It’s in the Sahara, for some reason; and 2.) The story is incredibly _boring_. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/19 "2011-04-07T17:02:27Z")
_Guns, Germs & Steel_ seemed right up my alley. I already agreed with the basic premise but Diamond’s presentation turned me off. He seemed so convinced about how right he was that he went to extraordinary lengths to try and dismiss any minor points that might detract from his theory rather than let the overarching theory stand as a whole. As though he was worried that if he didn’t extinguish every plausible doubt on every possible point, he somehow failed. Eventually, the whole thing felt like “trying too hard” and bogged down for the extra effort. I already knew how it ended and gave up on it before finishing. ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2011, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529/20 "2011-04-07T17:13:25Z")
> [@Maggie\_the\_Ocelot](#): > > LOTR. > > Classic series, everyone seems to love it, but I just cannot. read. it. For an adventure story, it’s just so damned BORING! Yup. I forced myself to read it twice, but there’s nothing in it for me. Many a Stephen King book published in the last twenty years would fit this thread also. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-you-thought-youd-love-but-didnt/577529.md?page=2)