Ayn Rand-check. Let’s throw Catcher in the Rye in there, too.
Bonfire of the Vanities --and anything else that man has written; throw him on as well.
some horrid “Christian” book entitled, We All Fall Down by Michael someone-worst book, ever.
Left Behind Series-IMO, they should NOT be left behind for others to discover. They need to GO. And let’s burn some of the more “reader friendly” versions of the Bible while we’re at it-talk about mangled syntax, poor grammar and banal, shallow sentiment-it takes some evil genuis to ruin the poetry of the Bible, but it has happened. My Sister’s Keeper --what a waste. A good book with a cowardly, sick ending. Gimme a match.
Let’s burn Faulkner as well-and Joyce. I hated having to read them in HS and upon revisiting, find them pretentious and boring.
And how about all those poorly written history, chemistry, bio and social studies texts we all had to endure throughout school? One of my friends’ books never so much as mentioned the Japanese internment camps, for one example.
(does anyone else feel a bit like the Red Queen? Off with their heads!)
Here’s another vote for metaphorically burning The DaVinci Code. Dumb history plus a bad prose style. Did anyone else find annoying the overuse of cliffhangers? Things along the lines of:
"And then Meg looked up at her shooter. Through the blurry haze, she finally recognized it as a man. And in his hand, he held a piece of paper, and what was written on that paper would change the course of history forever! It was a fact so explosive, so exceptionally surprising, so unexpected, that entire empires had risen and fallen to keep it secret! The sheer enormity of this paper was hardly enough for Meg to bear. The man lifted the paper to his eyes and began to read…
“What?” said Sophie.
“Yes!” said Robert.
“But that would mean…” said Sophie urgently.
“I know, if we don’t act now it’ll be too late” said Robert.
Robert and Sophie quickly sprinted down the steps of the building and out into the street. They couldn’t for one moment imagine what would meet them there…
I’d like to add Wuthering Heights to the fire, if I may. It’s a masterpiece of English literature and all that but every time I read it I nearly drown in all the Atmosphere. Don’t ask why I keep re-reading it; it’s some kind of self-destructive compulsion that leaves me in a black depression for days.
Hmmm, let’s see: Speculative science fiction that depicts religious fundamentalists hijacking North America and turning it into a theocracy vs. a rabidly anti-semitic hoax concocted anonymously and used to justify throwing molotov cocktails and spray-painting swatiskas in real life on actual people’s property.
Sorry, I don’t see the similarities.
Oh and let’s not forget that The Handmaid’s Tale has actual literary merit. It was written by an author who is so accomplished and well-respected that she is practically a national treasure.
Have you even read The Handmaid’s Tale, or did some churchy busybody just tell you that it was anti-Christian propaganda?
I don’t want to hijack this thread, but I am moved to say that I am extremely offended by the implications of your post, and if I weren’t heading out to welcome 2007 in the snowy wonderland that is my corner of the world, I would pit you.
I’ll add my copy too - my mother still seems determined to keep reading the Anderson/Herbert Jr works despite the fact that they’re shit. If they really wanted to desecrate Herbert Senior’s memory why didn’t they just haul him out of his grave and start having sex with his corpse live on TV - it would have been far easier and less offensive to the world of literature.
HAHAHAHAHA - I came into this thread to post almost exactly what you did.
The vast majority of the Xanth books were boring, derivative, unoriginal… Anthony figured out he had a formula and didn’t bother putting any thought into them. Bleah. His non-Xanth stuff was worse - pure nastiness, and not even the weak pleasure of the occasional half-assed pun.
I tried to reread that recently, and soon stopped. I’ve got no idea why I liked it so much, a few years ago. I remember actually thinking that it was ballsy to set a novel in a beloved fantasy milieu created by another (now dead) writer, and to change it to suit your own dramatic ends. (And, I was glad to find that I wasn’t the only one who thought the Wizard in Baum’s book deserved a bullet in the brain.) But now I find Maguire’s book practically unreadably pretentious.
As for book-burning – I wrote a book thirty years ago. It was probably pretty bad, but it really hurt that somebody did, in fact, burn the only copy. However, since we’re just fantasizing . . .
Am I really the first to mention The Bridges of Madison County? And there’s this little thing called Men are From Mars, Women are From Venus, by “Dr.” John Gray. Light 'em up.
Their Eyes Were Watching God - Zora Neale Hurston. There were many books in all my years of schooling that I didn’t read cover to cover; this was the only one that I simply could not read. To call it a steaming pile of shite does a grave injustice to the alimentary canal.
