# Tell us about books you most often find yourself recommending NOT to be read

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274>\
**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:** 2\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![Infovore](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/infovore/32/420_2.png) [@Infovore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Infovore)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/121 "2011-11-11T16:29:40Z")

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Oh, I thought of a couple more. I love Chuck Palahniuk, and have liked most of his books and really liked a couple. However…

I would seriously try to dissuade friends from reading _Snuff_, which was the worst piece of crap I’ve ever waded through, and _Rant_, which wasn’t much better. Chuck is definitely hit-or-miss these days (his latest, _Damned_, is quite good.)

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**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\
**Post date:** [November 11, 2011, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/122 "2011-11-11T16:47:46Z")

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I feel lucky; so far the only ones on this list I’ve read were ones for school. Whoops, except for _Prey._

The worst one I’ve read was _Pieces of Payne_ by Albert Goldbarth. I’ll admit I could be biased because it was also for school, but I hated every page of it. It skips around a dozen different plots. It is about 50 pages of novel followed by 100 pages of footnotes. It talks for a page about a guy painting a picture of a horse and then has like an 8-page footnote on the biology of horses. (Sounds like Melville, who is talked about in the book too). It also discusses grocery stores, physics, superheroes, medicine, and I think werewolves too.

I actually dropped the class when that project was over and I did consider burning the book but I was able to get 5$ for it at the school bookstore.

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