# Disapprove of a book list-Don't read these! **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 19, 2013, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132 "2013-04-19T13:54:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Rib\_Eye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/53a042/32.png) [@Rib\_Eye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rib_Eye)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/121 "2013-04-24T22:59:28Z")
My Amazon review: Just a note to echo the other negative reviews found here: If similes like, “I was baffled like a grandchild out visting whose grandparents go on playing cards” are your idea of good “literary” writing than maybe you will pat yourself on the back if you manage to slog through this great clod of rubbish. The rest of us will just lament our squandered time ---
**Author:** ![hiebram](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5fc32e/32.png) [@hiebram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hiebram)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/122 "2013-04-24T23:18:36Z")
**The Cider House Rules**. I read the book when the movie was made because there was a huge uproar over how it advocated abortion. The only thing I remember is one of the characters saying, “Either shit or get off the pot.” I remember wishing Irving had taken his own advice. Terribly slow-moving. ---
**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:** [April 24, 2013, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/123 "2013-04-24T23:33:35Z")
[The Feelies](http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/80805387) by Mick Farran [A Reliable Wife](http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/324774435) by Robert Goolrick and the only two books I’ve ever actively destroyed: Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter (dropped down a storm drain) [The Ladies of Missalonghi](http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/21536845) by Colleen McCullogh (its fate is described in the last line of my review) ---
**Author:** ![Tamerlane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tamerlane/32/7602_2.png) [@Tamerlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tamerlane)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2013, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/124 "2013-04-24T23:44:13Z")
> [@Dung\_Beetle](#): > > Yeah, it’s weird. _Watership Down_ is one of my favorite books ever, but after reading [The Girl in a Swing](http://www.amazon.com/The-Girl-Swing-Richard-Adams/dp/0451163060) I decided not to try any more of Adams’ stuff. TGIAS was boring as shit, and if that was supposed to be a twist at the end, well, it wasn’t. Yeah, Adams is an odd one. Maybe he is what Harper Lee would have been if she hadn’t known when to stop. He had one _superb_ book in him in **Watership Down** - instant classic. Then there was **Plague Dogs** which is at least an interesting attempt, kinda, if not my cup of tea. Everything else has been pretty weak sauce. ---
**Author:** ![Black\_Bisector](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ce73a5/32.png) [@Black\_Bisector](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Black_Bisector)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/125 "2013-04-25T00:30:34Z")
**I Am The Cheese** Screw that book and the English teachers that made us read it! ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/126 "2013-04-25T00:32:46Z")
> [@Infovore](#): > > Okay, I’m probably going to get strung up by my ears for this one, but…the _Dark Tower_ series. Especially the first one. _Especially_ especially the first one. Talk about waiting for something to _happen_. I couldn’t even get through it reading–I had to listen to it as an audiobook during my commute as a captive audience. > > I wasn’t particularly crazy about any of the DT series (and I love King normally) but the first one was by far the dullest. Different strokes and all that–I devoured the first one and found it pretty action packed. But it’s definitely not the best of the lot, as King was young and had a very affected style in it. For best, we’re talking Drawing or Waste Lands. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/127 "2013-04-25T07:11:37Z")
Among American classics, I hated Willa Cather, etc. when forced to read them in high school. Recently I bought and read a volume of Dreiser’s trilogy and thought it was horrible. I do recall being very impressed by Frank Norris’ _The Octupus_ when I read it in high school, but don’t like most American novels of that era. > [@divemaster](#): > > I nominate **The Celestine Prophesy**. I know it’s sold about a gazillion copies but man what a steaming pile. ++. Mine was a gift from Mother, but I couldn’t finish it. > [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Sure and you can reduce the plot of _Crime and Punishment_ to “a guy commits a murder and then he turns himself in.” _Notes from Underground_ is one of my favorite novellas, but I can barely read Dostoevsky’s longer novels. :dubious: BTW, recently I watched the old black-and-white Peter Lorre movie, Crime & Punishment; is it close to the novel? Among writers of thriller fiction, there are several I like a lot (including Adam Hall and many old-timers), several I tolerate, and some I strongly dislike. Don’t waste your time with Colin Forbes. John le Carré – Do read his early books. Do not waste your time on his post-2000 novels. (While browsing my own _Notes about Thriller Writers_ to recall the name of the detested Colin Forbes, I see that a bought a novel by Stephen Horn several years ago and made a note “Be sure to buy some more” :smack: I’ll tie a string around finger for next book-store trip.) ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/128 "2013-04-25T08:21:24Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > BTW, recently I watched the old black-and-white Peter Lorre movie, Crime & Punishment; is it close to the novel? Well, I haven’t read the novel and I haven’t seen the movie. So they have my lack of direct experience of them in common. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/129 "2013-04-25T09:21:44Z")
For classic horribly bad works, _Silas Marner_ wins hands down. I warn you. Do not be led astray by the wonderfulness of Philip Jose Farmer’s _To Your Scattered Bodies Go_, even though it’s followed by the pretty good _The Fabulous Riverboat_. They will lead you down a path, some might say like drifting down a river, to the remainder of the horrendous _Riverworld_ series. And you will end your days frustrated and enraged that so many questions were left unanswered, so many plot lines let adrift, so many conflicts left unresolved. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2013, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/130 "2013-04-25T09:24:58Z")
On the topic of books not to read, let me mention _Heart of Darkness_. I’m sure there’s something there very meaningful for some people, but I just found it tedious. I did like the ending, sort of – perhaps because it was an ending – and am attaching it as a spoiler for those who don’t want to read the whole novel. [spoiler]"‘Ah, but I believed in him more than anyone on earth–more than his own mother, more than–himself. He needed me! Me! I would have treasured every sigh, every word, every sign, every glance.’ "I felt like a chill grip on my chest. ‘Don’t,’ I said, in a muffled voice. "‘Forgive me. I–I--have mourned so long in silence–in silence. . . . You were with him–to the last? I think of his loneliness. Nobody near to understand him as I would have understood. Perhaps no one to hear. . . .’ "‘To the very end,’ I said, shakily. ‘I heard his very last words. . . .’ I stopped in a fright. "‘Repeat them,’ she said in a heart-broken tone. ‘I want–I want–something–something–to–to live with.’ "I was on the point of crying at her, ‘Don’t you hear them?’ The dusk was repeating them in a persistent whisper all around us, in a whisper that seemed to swell menacingly like the first whisper of a rising wind. ‘The tedium! The tedium!’ How could I tell her that most of the readers were just rooting for his quick death as a way to escape the novel? "‘His last word–to live with,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t you understand I loved him–I loved him–I loved him!’ "I pulled myself together and spoke slowly. “‘The last word he pronounced was–your name.’” … Marlow ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha. Nobody else in the boat moved. They’d all long-since fallen asleep.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2013, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/131 "2013-04-26T18:12:41Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > \ The books became more and more shamelessly padded as they progressed, to the point where Armageddon came as a blessed relief.\ I just wanted to point out how awesome this sentence is. 🙂 > [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > The entire output of Ayn Rand. I’m watching the tv series “Lost” on Netflix, and Sawyer is reading “The Fountainhead.” That’s how you enjoy Ayn Rand - stranded on an island with nothing better to do, and a limited supply of books. > [@papergirl](#): > > Another one! **Gerald’s Game** , by Stephen King. I love King, don’t mind his overblown, verbose, overlong stuff even, but that book made me crazy. I just kept waiting for something to _happen_. > I think it would’ve made a great short story, though. I’ve read most of his books, but only started that one - it seemed like the entire story was going to be about someone chained to a bed and trying to survive, and I wasn’t interested. > [@LawMonkey](#): > > Here’s another one for the “Kings to Avoid” file: _ **Insomnia** _. I read it because it was supposed to have a major role to play in the Dark Tower-verse. And, well… I just kept waiting for something to _happen_. 😕 I quite liked “Insomnia” - it’s on my re-read list. I really appreciated a story told from the perspective of old people - it made me realize how few books I’ve read like that, and how invisible old people are in our world. But diff’rent strokes and all that. 🙂 ---
**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:** [April 26, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/132 "2013-04-26T22:03:47Z")
I thought of another one: [The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History](http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/7511605). The link is to the review I wish I had written. Just as an additional warning, this book contains the following sentence: “And whether his death was a suicide or a true accident, it killed him.” ---
**Author:** ![\_3Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b9e5f3/32.png) [@\_3Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_3Bill)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2013, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/133 "2013-04-27T13:09:59Z")
John O’Hara’s _From the Terrace_ is so bad it strains credulity. I couldn’t believe I was actually reading what I was reading. And at the same time, he was turning out short stories as good as anything he (or almost anyone else) had ever done. George V. Higgins is another whose late stuff is astonishingly dreary, page after page of one-note griping by a pageant of colorful characters who all sound exactly alike. Oh, and that reminds me, Damon Runyan. ---
**Author:** ![Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ulf_the_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/134 "2013-04-28T02:53:34Z")
Liked a lot of these books. _Lord of the Flies_ is really obvious in its symbolism, but I liked it as a kid and again as an adult. Same with _Catcher in the Rye_ minus the obvious symbolisms. _Mystic River_ was extremely depressing but I thought on the whole very well done. A voice crying in the wilderness–the Anne Rice _Sleeping Beauty_ books were IMHO very erotic. _Babbitt_ may not have aged well as fiction, and it’s certainly true that it’s much more loosely constructed than we’d tend to think of a good novel as being…but is a fascinating look at twenties culture in America among the self-admitted upwardly mobile. * * * The trouble with _Left Behind_ is that the authors are telling the wrong story. (Well, that and that they don’t write very well.) Much more interesting would be if the Rapture comes and the folks who get raptured in the books are the ones who are left behind. * * * Agatha Christie’s novel _N or M?_ was a shameful waste of paper. I don’t remember much of anything that happens in _Howard’s End_ except that I thought it sucked. So many books to unrecommend, so little time! (Actually, I take it back. These days I don’t generally finish books I don’t like, and I have some trouble unrecommending books I don’t finish…) ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/135 "2013-04-28T03:50:32Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Are we allowed to defend books in this thread by denigrating the people who un-recommend them? Well, I won’t go so far as to denigrate them, but by the time I hit your post (#82), three books had already been mentioned that I would have put in a “Approve of a book list - Read these!”. To wit: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (Joyce) Blood Meridian (McCarthy) Cryptonomicon (Stephenson) which are all, in my estimation at least, wonderful books, the first two filled with great prose and the third with great ideas. So there. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/136 "2013-04-28T04:46:21Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > \*\*Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang \*\* by Joyce Carol Oates suffers from two major problems. The first is that Oates was a well to do bookish woman in her 50s when she wrote the book, and didn’t seem to do any actual research about youth gangs. As a result, her descriptions of not very uncommon events, like fist fights or smoking marijuana, are laughably inaccurate. > > The second is that the book is full of unapologetic misandry. I probably wouldn’t have cared so much except that I was the only guy in a feminist literature class. There’s a difference between highlighting the difficulties of being a female in a patriarchal society, and implying that all men are potential serial killers just waiting to murder women for our own sadistic pleasures. Oates implies the latter in **Foxfire.** It’s been years since I read _Foxfire_, but I don’t remember there being even one man in the book who wanted to kill women for fun. While most of the male characters were depicted as condescending jerks at best and rapists at worst, the story is set in the '50s and most of the characters (both male and female) are criminals, lowlifes, and delinquents. The members of the Foxfire gang do develop a very anti-male attitude, but these girls are hardly saints themselves and it was never my impression that Oates shared their views about men. I felt the novel made it pretty clear that while some of these girls had definitely been mistreated by men in their lives, the extreme “men are the enemy” view of the gang eventually caused it to self-destruct. ---
**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:** [April 28, 2013, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/137 "2013-04-28T13:36:30Z")
> [@Ulf\_the\_Unwashed](#): > > _Babbitt_ may not have aged well as fiction, and it’s certainly true that it’s much more loosely constructed than we’d tend to think of a good novel as being…but is a fascinating look at twenties culture in America among the self-admitted upwardly mobile. I always thought of \*Babbit \*as a better version of _Death of a Salesman_. I hate _Death of a Salesman_. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Lurker\_Above](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@The\_Lurker\_Above](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Lurker_Above)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/138 "2013-04-28T14:28:59Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Cryptonomicon (Stephenson) > > which are all, in my estimation at least, wonderful books, the first two filled with great prose and the third with great ideas. I’ve read Cryptonomicon multiple times but I completetly understand why people dislike it. Stephenson has great starts, and I love the digressions, but he writes (relatively) horrible endings. You pretty much have to read his works for the journey, not the destination. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2013, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/139 "2013-04-28T23:04:25Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I’m watching the tv series “Lost” on Netflix, and Sawyer is reading “The Fountainhead.” That’s how you enjoy Ayn Rand - stranded on an island with nothing better to do, and a limited supply of books. I don’t think the limited supply of books is the issue. More the limited supply of toilet paper. ---
**Author:** ![SecretaryofEvil](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@SecretaryofEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecretaryofEvil)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2013, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132/140 "2013-04-30T04:54:53Z")
> [@SecretaryofEvil](#): > > \*\*Foxfire: Confessions of a Girl Gang \*\* by Joyce Carol Oates suffers from two major problems. The first is that Oates was a well to do bookish woman in her 50s when she wrote the book, and didn’t seem to do any actual research about youth gangs. As a result, her descriptions of not very uncommon events, like fist fights or smoking marijuana, are laughably inaccurate. > > The second is that the book is full of unapologetic misandry. I probably wouldn’t have cared so much except that I was the only guy in a feminist literature class. There’s a difference between highlighting the difficulties of being a female in a patriarchal society, and implying that all men are potential serial killers just waiting to murder women for our own sadistic pleasures. Oates implies the latter in **Foxfire.** Oh, and when we stab the hookers, we like to mock them by claiming women’s basket ball is boring and that they lack the emotional self control to be the CEO of a major company. > [@Lamia](#): > > It’s been years since I read _Foxfire_, but I don’t remember there being even one man in the book who wanted to kill women for fun. While most of the male characters were depicted as condescending jerks at best and rapists at worst, the story is set in the '50s and most of the characters (both male and female) are criminals, lowlifes, and delinquents. The members of the Foxfire gang do develop a very anti-male attitude, but these girls are hardly saints themselves and it was never my impression that Oates shared their views about men. I felt the novel made it pretty clear that while some of these girls had definitely been mistreated by men in their lives, the extreme “men are the enemy” view of the gang eventually caused it to self-destruct. It’s been a couple of years since I was forced to read it, but I distinctly remember that dozens of the townsmen lined up and paid for the privilege of raping a girl with severe mental and physical handicaps. I remember one of the characters had a habit of randomly mentioning incidents of violence against women she’d read or heard in the news. And that she literally declared “All men are the enemy.” It was just hard for me to sympathize with protagonists who hated me. Maybe if Oates was a better author she could have made it work. Ignoring the gender relations stuff, I still think it was a crummy book. I felt it was going for gritty realism, but failed and wound up being absurd and unbelievable. It was a while ago so I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but I remember a lot of the gang’s plots were preposterously convoluted and implausible. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/disapprove-of-a-book-list-dont-read-these/656132.md?page=8)