# Books you've thrown across the room in rage (open spoilers likely) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 24, 2006, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799 "2006-07-24T08:41:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 8
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2017, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/141 "2017-12-07T04:22:57Z")
Both Elvis Costello’s and Morrissey’s autobiographies… insufferable. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/142 "2017-12-08T01:50:24Z")
I don’t remember if I replied to this in the past eleven years, but two of them would be by Sherman Alexi and Terry Pratchett. I handed in better writing than that when I was in high school Enslish, and got a C. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/143 "2017-12-08T02:02:08Z")
After seeing the movie several times in TV, I went and bought Frank Herbert’s Dune, and I enjoyed it. And I read his other Dune novels in the library, they were fair, I liked where the story went, and how it wrapped up. Fine. So they use his notes to write a prequel, _The Butlerian Jihad_. And they really didn’t have to. What I like least about it is how, even though this is going to be one of several prequel novels, everything that’s going to happen 10000 years from now, we’re seeing the beginings happen right now. Like they were going over a checklist. ---
**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/144 "2017-12-08T02:09:45Z")
I loved the first three-quarters of Stephen King’s **The Stand** , but the ending completely pissed me off. The book left a solid dent in the drywall. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/145 "2017-12-08T02:16:15Z")
I like Harper Lee’s “Go Set a Watchman” more then some people do, the beginning and ending do a good job of providing context for “To Kill a Mockingbird.” However, there’s a whole bit in the middle, regarding, her first kiss leading her to believe she his pregnant and the fear of the shame and getting suicidal that just feels like its the notes for another, less mature novel. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/146 "2017-12-08T02:47:00Z")
I’ve never thrown a book across a room. I did, however, hand my copy of **Rabbit, Run** to someone in my dorm who hurled it down the hallway. (I didn’t know she was planning to do it; she was having a bad Finals Week and was throwing any books people would let her get her hands on.) That said, I concurred with this action, due to the scene where the woman was bathing her baby in the sink and lets the baby drown. ---
**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:** [December 8, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/147 "2017-12-08T03:05:33Z")
> [@Catamount](#): > > Ah, throwing bad books. A cherished hobby of mine. > \ > The book that suffered the most at my hands was Thomas Wolfe’s 700-page snorefest **Look Homeward, Angel**. I read the whole thing thinking that it couldn’t possibly get worse. I was wrong. It got worse and worse with each successive page. I not only tossed that one across the room, I stomped on it several times. I would have torn it into bits and burned them, but it was a library book. In the eleven years since this thread began I lived in Asheville for a while and reread **LHA**. Now I get it and it’s one of my favorite books. All it took was the realization that all the people he talks about are still there. Nothing has changed in a century. (Except there are more tourists now.) These days I hate [The Ladies of Missalonghi](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/550343.The_Ladies_of_Missalonghi), which I ran over with my car, and [Heroes and Villains](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/81034.Heroes_and_Villains), which I dropped down a storm drain. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/148 "2017-12-08T06:35:16Z")
Unfortunately I’m too repressed to really let go and throw books across the room, but I’ve been tempted. By Toni Morrison’s _Beloved_, for one–I had to read it for a class but when it was over I refused to keep it in my house. Yes, slavery was terrible; I’ve read some really moving and excellent books about it, like Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I know that it’s a topic that needs to be explored and recorded. But I was completely turned off by what struck me as the sheer pretentiousness of the writing and of the over-the-top horror plot. Another fling-worthy book is _Flambards Divided_ by K.M. Peyton. It’s the 4th and last novel in a series and has the characters from the first 3 books acting so completely out of character that it’s disturbing and disillusioning. I hated the way that the author dragged down people who were very likeable in the first three books and wish I had never read it. As for _The Ladies of Missalonghi_, if I had a copy I would throw it as far as possible and then destroy it. It sounds like an absolute horror, especially since I’m a fan of _The Blue Castle_, the charming L.M. Montgomery novel which Colleen McCullough refused to admit she plagiarized. From her NY Times obit: She drew unwelcome attention in 1987 with the publication of her novella “The Ladies of Missalonghi,” about an impecunious woman in early-20th-century Australia. As some critics pointed out, the book’s plot, characters and narrative details strongly resembled those of “The Blue Castle,” a 1926 novel by L. M. Montgomery, the author of “Anne of Green Gables.” Ms. McCullough, who said that she had read “The Blue Castle” in childhood, swatted away charges of plagiarism. “I am not a thief,” she told The Daily Mail, the British newspaper, in 1988. “Neither am I a fool. I have too many wonderful ideas of my own to have to steal from another writer.” > **[Colleen McCullough, Author of ‘The Thorn Birds,’ Dies at 77 (Published 2015)](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/books/colleen-mccullough-author-of-the-thorn-birds-dies-at-77.html)** > > Ms. McCullough’s novel, set against the sweeping panorama of her native Australia, became one of the most-watched mini-series of all time. ---
**Author:** ![nachtmusick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ac91a4/32.png) [@nachtmusick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nachtmusick)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/149 "2017-12-08T11:31:57Z")
Math books. So many math books. I wasn’t terrible at math, just never got the answers right. I have flipped, dropped, and torn fiction; but with math books I wrecked drywall. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/150 "2017-12-08T13:57:39Z")
**Sophie’s World** - a clever concept for a book which then went all to hell in the last chapter or two in a nihilistic frenzy of anarchy and underage sex. It’s like the author basically went “Fuck it, I dunno how to finish this.” Last week I was on a train chatting to a college student who was slogging her way through **Tristram Shandy** (assigned reading, naturally) and who probably would have hurled it out the train window had it opened. We came to the conclusion that Sterne was an asshole who didn’t like his readers very much. ---
**Author:** ![Dag\_Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/439d5e/32.png) [@Dag\_Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dag_Otto)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2017, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/151 "2017-12-08T14:11:54Z")
> [@jaycat](#): > > …Morrissey’s autobiographies… insufferable. C’mon, you had to have been expecting that. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/152 "2017-12-09T21:43:31Z")
Another one here who gave Atlas Shrugged a flying lesson. I did struggle through most of it just because I didn’t want it to beat me, but when I got to the interminable several hundred pages of John Galt’s radio speech (which must have taken hours to deliver and got his audience banging their heads against the wall to make it stop) I gave up. Second … one of the Gor novels. I read one that my elder brother brought home and hid under his bed (to hide it from our parents!). Then I went and washed my hands. ---
**Author:** ![Eclipse\_Chaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@Eclipse\_Chaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eclipse_Chaser)\ **Post date:** [December 9, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/153 "2017-12-09T21:46:07Z")
Just to clarify my earlier post about washing my hands after reading the Gor novel … I am female and wanted to wash my hands to remove the contamination! Only wished I could have washed my eyeballs and brain as well. ---
**Author:** ![Patx2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/73ab20/32.png) [@Patx2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patx2)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/154 "2017-12-10T00:33:18Z")
Gone Girl I disliked it a lot. I don’t care that it was a bestseller. I never saw the movie and never will especially since the books are always better imo. Perhaps my problem was I just didn’t care enough about the characters. ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/155 "2017-12-10T00:35:36Z")
Palace walk by Naghib Mahfouz. First book I didn’t finish since Moby Dick. It was just mind bogglingly boring. I still maintain that no one has really read Moby Dick. Gravity’s Rainbow is an impenetrable pile of poo And I enjoyed Infinite Jest. ---
**Author:** ![Aquadementia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aquadementia/32/555_2.png) [@Aquadementia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquadementia)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2017, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/156 "2017-12-10T01:01:07Z")
There was a fantasy novel with unpronounceable, unreadable names that I could not abide. I believe I tossed it. I can’t remember what it was called. Its title may have been unpronounceable. I’ve given a pass to H.P. Lovecraft for including names and words that need to be mentally jumped over or your inner dialog will trip over them and land on its face. It fits his style of mocking our pathetic human understanding of how the universe should work. He’s the exception to the rule and I’m not keen on letting others into that club. > [@Paintcharge](#): > > I still maintain that no one has really read Moby Dick. I loved Moby Dick. Especially the parts about whaling. I’m serious about that. ---
**Author:** ![black\_rainbow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/d26b3c/32.png) [@black\_rainbow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/black_rainbow)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/157 "2017-12-11T22:08:21Z")
Zombie by: Joyce Carol Oates. It wasn’t even a bad book, it was just really disturbing (about a serial killer/child molester). I remember physically throwing it across my bedroom I was so creeped out by it. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2017, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/158 "2017-12-11T22:48:17Z")
> [@Aquadementia](#): > > There was a fantasy novel with unpronounceable, unreadable names that I could not abide. I believe I tossed it. I can’t remember what it was called. Its title may have been unpronounceable. I had a similar issue when trying to read The Goblin Empeoror, which is filled with names to be pronounced with a mouth full of marbles. I gave up on the book and decided to play along with it a little. Calibre allows you to edit ebooks, and has a spell-checker that can list words sorted by numbers of occurrences. So I started replacing names (in order of greatest number of appearances) with whatever random extremely plain names and saved my own custom copy of the book (which I still never read.) I tired of the project before getting down to the names that had only a handful of instances, but here’s a taste. The original passage in the opening chapter went like this: > [@](#): > > The messenger was maybe a year or so older than Maia himself, but elegant even in his road-stained leathers. He was clearly fullblooded elvish, as Maia was not; his hair was milkweed-pale, and his eyes the color of rain. He looked from Setheris to Maia and said, “Are you the Archduke Maia Drazhar, only child of Varenechibel the Fourth and Chenelo Drazharan?” > > “Yes,” Maia said, bewildered. > > And then bewilderment compounded bewilderment, as the messenger deliberately and with perfect dignity prostrated himself on the threadbare rug. “Your Imperial Serenity,” he said. > > “Oh, get up, man, and stop babbling!” Setheris said. “We understood that you had messages from the Archduke’s father.” > > “Then you understand what we do not,” the messenger said, rising again to his feet, as graceful as a cat. “We bear messages from the Untheileneise Court.” > > Maia said hastily, merely to prevent the altercation from escalating, “Please, explain.” > > “Your Serenity,” the messenger said. “The airship Wisdom of Choharo crashed yesterday, sometime between sunrise and noon. The Emperor Varenechibel the Fourth, the Prince Nemolis, the Archduke Nazhira, and the Archduke Ciris were all on board. They were returning from the wedding of the Prince of Thu-Athamar.” In my edited version, it became this: > [@](#): > > The messenger was maybe a year or so older than Kevin himself, but elegant even in his road-stained leathers. He was clearly full-blooded elvish, as Kevin was not; his hair was milkweed-pale, and his eyes the color of rain. He looked from Todd to Kevin and said, “Are you the Archduke Kevin Foster, only child of Trevor the Fourth and Tracey Davis?” > > “Yes,” Kevin said, bewildered. > > And then bewilderment compounded bewilderment, as the messenger deliberately and with perfect dignity prostrated himself on the threadbare rug. “Your Imperial Highness,” he said. > > “Oh, get up, man, and stop babbling!” Todd said. “We understood that you had messages from the Archduke’s father.” > > “Then you understand what we do not,” the messenger said, rising again to his feet, as graceful as a cat. “We bear messages from the Johnson Court.” > > Kevin said hastily, merely to prevent the altercation from escalating, “Please, explain.” > > “Your Highness,” the messenger said. “The airship Wisdom of MacGuffin crashed yesterday, sometime between sunrise and noon. The Emperor Trevor the Fourth, the Prince Truman, the Archduke Nathan, and the Archduke Chris were all on board. They were returning from the wedding of the Prince of Athamarland.” ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/159 "2017-12-12T00:24:08Z")
I would have trouble believing that any character named Kevin is not the bad guy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2017, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799/160 "2017-12-12T00:36:34Z")
I just skimmed the thread, but has anyone mentioned the Bible yet? I throw it across the room and into the trash in every hotel room I ever find myself. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799.md?page=7) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/books-youve-thrown-across-the-room-in-rage-open-spoilers-likely/365799.md?page=9)