# Tell us about books you most often find yourself recommending NOT to be read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 8, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274 "2011-11-08T14:44:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/21 "2011-11-08T16:26:07Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > The Twilight series. Seconded. Twilight is so bad that I don’t even think a backlash is coming where educated folks start saying it isn’t _that_ bad. It is _that_ bad and no one should read it. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/22 "2011-11-08T16:27:35Z")
Virginia Andrews. I was young when I read Flowers in the Attic, and it was delightful then. A guilty pleasure. All books I read after that, I had matured enough to see that you really have to be an immature, self absorbed, cruel, vain, superficial, sad, misogynic twit to be able to fully identify with Andrews heroines. ---
**Author:** ![AuntiePam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@AuntiePam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AuntiePam)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/23 "2011-11-08T16:29:17Z")
> [@alice\_in\_wonderland](#): > > FWIW, I’ve enjoyed other Timothy Findley books a great deal - this one was just too over the top for me. I dumped one of his just last week – _The Piano Man’s Daughter_. I admit I didn’t give it much of a chance (maybe 10 pages). It felt like the book was going to be heavy on navel-gazing and self-absorption. My life was hard - waaaaaah. I take every chance I can get to warn people away from _The Historian_ by Elizabeth Kostova. Every character sounds just the same and the plot is nonsensical. Count Dracula wants someone to catalog his library. That’s it. ---
**Author:** ![badlyburnttoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ad7895/32.png) [@badlyburnttoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/badlyburnttoast)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/24 "2011-11-08T16:30:25Z")
I’ll third (?) the wheel of time books. It started out good… then started to drag on, then _REALLY_ started to drag on… Then the author died. I’ve not read the newest books… I sort of lost track for so long I’d have had to reread them all to get back into it, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It’s an interesting setting and world, and it had a good start, but man… You know something is wrong when wikipedia can sum up your 300,000 page book in 3 very short paragraphs. ---
**Author:** ![Lacunae\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lacunae\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lacunae_Matata)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/25 "2011-11-08T16:56:53Z")
Unless your lit instructor forces you: anything by Herman Melville. Dear God, who decided that he wrote great literature!? I realize that he may be someone’s favorite author, but… gaaah! ---
**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:** [November 8, 2011, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/26 "2011-11-08T17:30:56Z")
Heinlein’s later stuff. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/malleus_incus_stapes/32/3293_2.png) [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malleus_Incus_Stapes)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/27 "2011-11-08T17:39:37Z")
_The Colour of Magic_. It’s happened again and again- people hear “Terry Pratchett is the most awesome writer ever!!!” and pick up his first book, and put it down wondering what all the fuss is about. Even the small percentage of people who like CoM agree that that’s not the book to start with. Re: Wheel of Time. Agreed that it’s 90% filler and has a lot of annoying characters, but Brandon Sanderson is finishing the series, and Brandon Sanderson _rocks_. He managed to make _Nynaeve_ likable, or at least bearable. The guy’s magic (no pun intended). I’m not saying that’s a good enough reason to read the whole thing. But if you’ve gotten to the point where Jordan dies, you might as well keep on going. ---
**Author:** ![OpalCat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/8edcca/32.png) [@OpalCat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OpalCat)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/28 "2011-11-08T18:09:02Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > The Twilight series. (Yes, to my eternal shame I’ve read them.) It’s the indoctrination simmering under the surface that bothers me the most, I think. I haven’t read it or seen the movies and I never will. Everyone I trust tells me they’re terrible and I believe them. ---
**Author:** ![happycamper\_5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/cab0a1/32.png) [@happycamper\_5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happycamper_5)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/29 "2011-11-08T18:14:27Z")
Let me preface my opinion by saying that I haven’t actually not-recommended this to anyone because I don’t know anyone IRL that likes post-apocalyptic/dystopian fiction. However, if I did, I would most seriously not-recommend S.M. Stirling’s Emberverse. Well, that’s not fair. I can’t, in good conscious, not-recommend it all because I only made it through two chapters of Dies The Fire before my eyes rolled out of my head and onto the floor. Those first two chapters read like so much horrible fan fiction that I just couldn’t continue. It’s the first book I’ve ever bought that I seriously felt was a waste of money. An ex-Special Forces Scandinavian/Ojibwa uber-pilot who’s winter hat “left his black hair ruffled the way it always did” and a Wiccan earth-mother bard named Juniper who speaks Gaelic, ASL and can take charge of any situation? No. Just…no. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/30 "2011-11-08T18:19:43Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > _The Colour of Magic_. It’s happened again and again- people hear “Terry Pratchett is the most awesome writer ever!!!” and pick up his first book, and put it down wondering what all the fuss is about. Even the small percentage of people who like CoM agree that that’s not the book to start with. I’ll have to disagree with this one – I actually liked the Disc World books better when they were just satires of sword and sorcery rather than social commentary. But you may have to be an old school nerd to appreciate TCOM I won’t say that I have to do it \* often \*, but if I ever found a friend contemplating reading “Hannibal”, I’d certainly do everything in my power to dissuade them. ---
**Author:** ![lew\_cody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e274bd/32.png) [@lew\_cody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lew_cody)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/31 "2011-11-08T18:23:59Z")
Read one of the Goosebumps series back in elementary school–“My Hairiest Adventure”, I think. Something about a teenage boy discovering that he’s a werewolf. Oh my. I hated that book with a PROFOUND fury. Not before or since have I read such a steaming pile of shit. ---
**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:** [November 8, 2011, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/32 "2011-11-08T18:27:21Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > …[Jordan] basically renamed the characters and places (sometimes not very well, the book ends on Mt **Dhoom**!?) and just rewrote LOTR. The “h” is for “hack.” I’ve been in the same book club since 1998 and the hands-down, no-doubt, kill-me-now worst book we’ve read in all that time was _The Celestine Prophecy_ by James Redfield. Stupid, poorly-written, historically inaccurate, hackneyed New Age dreck. Stinkeroo Supremo. Man, is it _bad_… ---
**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:** [November 8, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/33 "2011-11-08T18:34:56Z")
I find myself warning people away from [“A Canticle For Leibowitz” by Walter M. Miller.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz) I love post-apocalyptic fiction, but I barely made it through this book - it was dry, confusing, and not all that entertaining, in spite of being the first book that a lot of people recommend in this category. I have had the sequel, "[Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman"](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Leibowitz_and_the_Wild_Horse_Woman) on my bookshelf for years now - I can’t even get started on that one. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/34 "2011-11-08T18:40:38Z")
A short-lived book club I joined had us read Elmore Leonard’s Djibouti. I have never read anything by the man before. I will never read anything of his again until he gives me those two hours of my life back. A total piece of shit. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/35 "2011-11-08T18:44:08Z")
> [@Malleus\_Incus\_Stapes](#): > > _The Colour of Magic_. It’s happened again and again- people hear “Terry Pratchett is the most awesome writer ever!!!” and pick up his first book, and put it down wondering what all the\*\* fuss is about. Even the small percentage of people who like CoM agree that that’s not the book to start with. Seconded. Pratchett is a fantastic writer - I’d rank _Night Watch_ and _Hat Full Of Sky_ among the best literature written in the last twenty years - but the man can write a stinker: _Colour Of Magic, Eric, Making Money_. ---
**Author:** ![Dante](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dante/32/9673_2.png) [@Dante](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dante)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 6:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/36 "2011-11-08T18:51:53Z")
_A Catcher in the Rye_ by **J.D. Salinger**. Over the years, I’d come to understand that this book was Important. I’ve never met a protagonist I’ve loathed more, with the possible exception of Thomas Covenant, the Rapist. I’ve read three books by **Peter Benchley** , and as far as I can tell, he just gets bored writing one day and ends whatever book he’s working on. “…and suddenly the antagonist dies.” The End. Forgot to add in that Brandon Sanderson is doing a good job with the Wheel of Time series. I’m actually looking forward to the last book. But damn, it was a tough go to get through Jordan’s last few. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/37 "2011-11-08T19:05:37Z")
I reshelve books at 3 different libraries. I shelve many books I dislike or hate(crop circles are made by aliens, deny the holocaust = examples ) but the only ones I’ve seriously thought of misplacing are the first Shannara books by Terry Brooks. Tolkien should have gotten royalties for those. I’ll add that I warn people about to read “The Painted Bird” that it made me physically ill. ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/38 "2011-11-08T19:19:54Z")
Seconding “Atlas Shrugged”: total wankage. Any of the Donovan Creed novels by Locke: utter shite. “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”: Moderately interesting, but could have been summed up in a short story. ---
**Author:** ![BlankSlate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/blankslate/32/80_2.png) [@BlankSlate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlankSlate)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/39 "2011-11-08T19:21:27Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > A short-lived book club I joined had us read Elmore Leonard’s Djibouti. I have never read anything by the man before. I will never read anything of his again until he gives me those two hours of my life back. > > A total piece of shit. Nooooooooooo. I love Elmore Leonard. I _liked_ Djibouti, not his best but keep in mind that he’s 86 now. (Djibouti was published in 2010.) ---
**Author:** ![Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c37758/32.png) [@Eugene\_of\_Sandwich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eugene_of_Sandwich)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/40 "2011-11-08T19:21:56Z")
Running With Scissors. A best seller at the time, as soon as I finished the last sentence I got up, walked to the kitchen, and slung it in the trash. I would have gladly burned it but didn’t want to waste any more time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274.md?page=3)