Well, I thought this would be an interesting subject…We’re all familiar with the undisputedly great written works (Mostly nonfiction, for this thread, I suppose) in history, like the Magna Carta, the Code of Hammurabi, the U.S. Bill of Rights, etc. But don’t think anyone’s complied a list of, as the title says, the not-so-great written works. The embarrassing ones, the badly thought out ones. The ones that we look back on with a grimace, or a shudder, if we even remember them at all. For example, I came up with…
Neville Chamberlain’s Nonaggression pact with Hitler
The Hollywood Production Code
The Comics Code
And, as I recall, one of the more ineffectual Roman emperors wrote a work called “The Care of Hair,” which I wouldn’t imagine compares very favorably with something like “Conquest of Gaul.”
Malleus Maleficarum by Kramer and Sprenger Protocols of the Elders of Zion Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard The Unabomber’s Manifesto by Theodore Kaczynski Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
On the pseudoscientific front, along with the aforementioned Dianetics I’ll further nominate the following.
Worlds In Collision by Immanuel Velikovsky Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey Talking To Heaven by James Van Praagh
I’d nominate the books of Mary McCarthy, although I happen to think they’re great myself. But literary types don’t seem to consider her to be on a par with, say, Edith Wharton.
A second to Genseric’s nominations…plus, any book ever advertised by some slimy televangelist con man type (i.e. Peter Popoff, Robert Tilton, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, D. James Kennedy or anyone who’s a regular on TBN)