# 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:** 3
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/41 "2011-11-08T19:29:37Z")
**A Song of Ice and Fire**. All of them. Total collapse of what used to be a good writer. ---
**Author:** ![Candyman74](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Candyman74](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Candyman74)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/42 "2011-11-08T19:35:15Z")
> [@Snickers](#): > > The Twilight series. (Yes, to my eternal shame I’ve read them.). Why did you keep reading after the first book? ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/43 "2011-11-08T19:35:49Z")
Never Let Me Go - Kazuo Ishiguro Clones baaing their way to their horrible deaths, like helpless sheep. No one really tries to escape. No PETA group tries to save them. Possibly the differences between my American sensibilities (you are a unique and special individual!) and the author’s Japanese sensibilities (community above all), but no book has ever made me more angry! ---
**Author:** ![Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dread_pirate_jimbo/32/3897_2.png) [@Dread\_Pirate\_Jimbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dread_Pirate_Jimbo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/44 "2011-11-08T19:37:57Z")
“The Female Man” by Joanna Russ is one of the very few books I’ve ever actually thrown across the room infrustration. Stream-of-consciousness style writing at its absolute worst. Unpenetrable. Bleah. Do not want. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/45 "2011-11-08T19:38:28Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > ‘‘When Nietzsche Wept.’’ Fascinating concept - what if Nietzsche sought help from Sigmund Freud? Terrible execution. Worst writing I’ve ever read. I liked it. Not the best style I’ve run across, but far from the worst. The author, Irving Yalom, is a combination of Proust, Tom Stoppard and Shakespeare next to Ayn Rand, for example. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/46 "2011-11-08T19:43:20Z")
Dan Simmons. [Once bitten](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=456461&highlight=Simmons) and all that. (Lots of other examples in that thread). ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/47 "2011-11-08T19:49:50Z")
**Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell** by Susanna Clarke. I know a lot of people love it, but I just don’t get it. She could have cut out about 50 of her 800+ pages by removing the footnotes (that, by the way, add nothing to the actual story). And as for that story, well, it’s quite boring. Her emulation of Dickens’s writing is cute for about 50 pages, then you realize she’s not very good at it. She applies an absurd comedy of manners to every single character. I finished it because I’m sick and have to finish what I start. ---
**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, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/48 "2011-11-08T19:49:55Z")
> [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](#): > > 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_… Oh god I’d forgotten all about that one. Thanks a lot. What makes it worse is the sort of cult-like following it has of people who think it Really Means Something Important. ---
**Author:** ![President\_Johnny\_Gentle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@President\_Johnny\_Gentle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/President_Johnny_Gentle)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/49 "2011-11-08T20:12:42Z")
I was on summer vacation in high school and looking for a book to occupy a fair amount of time. Not being familiar with Scientology, I picked up _Battlefield Earth_. This was the book that taught me it was acceptable to set down a bad book and walk away. I thought the method of destruction of the Psychlo homeworld was laughable even then, and I was reading a fair amount of hack science fiction at the time. But then to realize the story is only half over, and now turns to economics instead of military? No thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/50 "2011-11-08T20:15:47Z")
_Pillars of the Earth_, what a revolting display of presentism. Ugh. I don’t understand what anybody saw in that one. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/51 "2011-11-08T20:21:44Z")
_Fabulous Feasts: Medieval Cookery and Ceremony_. Look at the pictures, read the bibliography, but don’t read the text. Cosman’s interpretation of what and how food was eaten in the middle ages is … unlike anything else. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/52 "2011-11-08T20:25:45Z")
Agree and disagree: **Djibouti** : every few years I pick up an Elmore Leonard book, because they’re really easy to read, and I think maybe THIS time I’ll appreciate him. Every time he leaves me cold: he’s like an 86-year-old hipster who’s so freakin’ satisfied with his coolness that I want to slip a frog down his pants. **Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell** : I loved it. The footnotes are part of its greatness; I love books with obnoxious narrators. It’s one of my favorite fantasies, and given the amount of fantasy I read, that’s saying a lot. Now for the one I disrecommend: **Thraxas**. It won the World Fantasy Award, so I recommended it, unread, for our book club. Its putrid stupid sense of humor killed the club and made half its members never trust a recommendation from me again. The book thinks its Terry Pratchett, thinks it’s engaging in sly satire, but once you realize that you’ve read the same quasifeminist joke about the same chainmail bikini for the dozenth time, the humor, such as it is, wears paper-thin. Stay away! ---
**Author:** ![Ponch8](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ponch8/32/9883_2.png) [@Ponch8](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ponch8)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/53 "2011-11-08T20:45:52Z")
_Wuthering Heights._ We had to read this crap in my senior year of high school. I got so bored I couldn’t help but skim through the last three quarters of the book. If it weren’t for Cliffs Notes, I surely would have flunked the test. As a result, I’ve vowed never to read anything else by any of the Bronte sisters, and I’ve also thrown in Jane Austen for good measure. ---
**Author:** ![Implicit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Implicit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Implicit)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/54 "2011-11-08T20:53:43Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > **Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell** by Susanna Clarke. I know a lot of people love it, but I just don’t get it. She could have cut out about 50 of her 800+ pages by removing the footnotes (that, by the way, add nothing to the actual story). And as for that story, well, it’s quite boring. Her emulation of Dickens’s writing is cute for about 50 pages, then you realize she’s not very good at it. She applies an absurd comedy of manners to every single character. I finished it because I’m sick and have to finish what I start. I liked it, but I don’t recommend it to people because it was unbelievably long and slow moving, which isn’t something most people would tolerate. I lobbied my bookclub to abandon **Catch-22** , only one out of 5 of us actually managed to finish it. I didn’t care what happened to any of the characters and got sick of being hit over the head with the repetitive message. ---
**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, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/55 "2011-11-08T20:58:54Z")
> [@well\_he\_s\_back](#): > > I’ll add that I warn people about to read “The Painted Bird” that it made me physically ill. Oh yes. I actually have that one on my bookshelf, because I can’t quite bring myself to throw a book into the garbage, but I also don’t want to inflict it on the unwary by donating it to a charity shop. My recycling bin will be here in a few days, and that should solve my moral quandary. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/56 "2011-11-08T22:01:29Z")
Like I said, I know I’m in the minority with **Strange and Norrell**. Ooh, yes, \*\*Catch 22 \*\*is another one that I didn’t like. I guess it’s supposed to be funny, but like **Strange and Norrell** , it recycles the same “humor” throughout. It just gets old fast. And it’s another one that most people like. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/57 "2011-11-08T22:05:40Z")
> [@Lacunae\_Matata](#): > > 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! Remember, kids, if your teacher ever asks you to read anything by Herman Melville, tell her “I would prefer not to.” ---
**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, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/58 "2011-11-08T23:49:09Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Like I said, I know I’m in the minority with **Strange and Norrell**. I remember being _frustrated_ with Strange and Norrell, but not whether or not I liked it. How odd. It’s been a number of years now. I’d probably have to reread it to decide. Not sure it’s worth the effort. ---
**Author:** ![Svejk\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ea666f/32.png) [@Svejk\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Svejk_1)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2011, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/59 "2011-11-08T23:53:31Z")
I’ve told those who asked me that I did not like books 2 and 3 in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy. Out of some sense of duty, I am trying to finish number three but it just drags on forever, and if I have to read another paragraph detailing the specs of whatever mac computer someone has in their possession, I might just toss the book out of the window. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2011, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/60 "2011-11-09T00:01:03Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > I liked it. Not the best style I’ve run across, but far from the worst. The author, Irving Yalom, is a combination of Proust, Tom Stoppard and Shakespeare next to Ayn Rand, for example. I actually started a whole thread about how much I hated _When Nietzsche Wept._ [QUOTE=When Nietzsche Wept] How much of life have I missed, he wondered, simply by failing to look? Or by looking and not seeing? …He had seen nothing, registered nothing. No images had transfered from his retina to his cortex. All of his attention had been consumed with thoughts of Bertha: her beguiling smile, her adoring eyes, the feel of her warm, trusting body as he examined or massaged her. …Is this to be my lot forever? he wondered. Am I destined to be merely a stage on which memories of Bertha eternally play out their drama? There were times–today, ensconced in the fortress of his consulting room–when he felt strong and safe. At such times, he saw women as they really were: struggling, aspiring creatures dealing with the endless pressing problems of every day life; and he saw the reality of their breasts: clusters of mammary cells floating in lipoid pools. [/QUOTE] I rest my case. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274.md?page=4)