# 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:** 1\ **Showing post:** 99
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2011, 7:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274/99 "2011-11-10T07:21:11Z")
_The Turn of the Screw_ by Henry James. It is an over-wrought over-written travesty of a book and do _not_ tell me it was the style at the time. I’ve read Poe. I’ve read Bierce. I’ve read Mark Twain and I’ve read Saki, O. Henry, and Bret Harte. I have _loved_ all those authors because they actually wrote. They did not plant kudzu in their garden and capture it between pages after training and stultifying it to within an inch of its life. Faulkner once referred to Henry James as the “nicest old lady I ever met”; I consider that a calumny against old ladies, who are, in my experience, capable of getting to a point without exhausting all the air in the average zeppelin. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tell-us-about-books-you-most-often-find-yourself-recommending-not-to-be-read/602274)._