# Worst Best-Seller (Novel?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 30, 2015, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872 "2015-04-30T05:16:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**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:** [May 2, 2015, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/41 "2015-05-02T03:15:28Z")
I once asked a very smart and learned Episcopal clergyman what he thought of _The Da Vinci Code_ and, after a pause, he said, “There’s a reason you’ll find it in the ‘Fiction’ section of bookstores.” > [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Has anyone actually read “The Satanic Verses”? I did. I bought a copy and read it to smite the Ayatollah and push back against his _fatwa_. The book was all right but not great. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/42 "2015-05-02T07:04:39Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > [The Celestine Prophecy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy) I see this nomination has already been seconded and thirded, so let me fourth it. (My copy was a gift from my mother. :o ) Most of my fiction reading is simple thrillers. Some are very good (though I forget to memorize the good authors’ names :smack: ); many are just OK. I thought _Davinci Code_ was OK, better than most thrillers, just not deserving of its huge hype. A thriller writer to avoid is Colin Forbes, as I mentioned [in a previous thread on this topic.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=16245202) ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/43 "2015-05-02T14:39:35Z")
Of bestsellers I’ve read in their entirety, I’d say _The Bridges of Madison County_ and _The DaVinci Code_ were the worst. I don’t remember _The Bridges of Madison County_ well enough to judge between them, but I _do_ remember that the writing was so terrible that I had to call a friend up to read bits of it aloud to her. As others have said, I think _The DaVinci Code_ worked reasonably well as a thriller and I did feel motivated to keep reading to find out what happened next. So on that level I’d say it was a success, but it’s also extremely stupid and badly written. When the _Twilight_ series was at peak popularity I spent a weekend reading the first book aloud with friends, which proved to be quite entertaining. (At one point someone literally fell off the couch because she was laughing so hard.) Reading aloud is slower than reading to oneself though, and we didn’t get even halfway through the book. I later took a copy off the shelf at the library thinking maybe I’d finish it just for the sake of finishing it, and flipped through it until I found the place where we’d left off. I read a few pages and then put it back on the shelf without checking it out. It was bad enough that, without someone to play literary _MST3K_ with, it seemed like it would be a real chore to get through. _Twilight_ isn’t just badly written, but (if you’re not making fun of the bad writing) it’s also really, really boring. There are several points where even the author seems to have become bored with the story and just started writing about what she’d be cooking for dinner that evening. There’s also an extended, almost _Waiting for Godot_-like sequence where the heroine is planning a road trip to Seattle that _doesn’t even happen_. > [@Trinopus](#): > > I think I agree with **Amateur Barbarian** , that best-sellers are “ordained” by the publishers. The Harry Potter phenomenon, for instance, seemed to overlook tons of other YA fiction that was out there, every bit as good – in many cases better – than the HP books. Someone made up their mind that this was going to be big…and it became big. In the case of _Harry Potter_, that “someone” seems to have legitimately been the reading public. The first book was rejected by several publishers and wasn’t expected to be a big hit even by the one that did pick it up. However, it received good reviews, proved to be popular with kids, and won several awards. Even so I don’t remember hearing much about the series aside from a book review or two until 1999, which was the year the third book was released and (perhaps more importantly) the film rights were sold. Then _Harry Potter_ was all over the media and a lot of people stood to profit from the franchise continuing to be successful, but things got to that point only because the first few books had already done so well. ---
**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:** [May 2, 2015, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/44 "2015-05-02T20:29:23Z")
I remember, before the Harry Potter series really took off, the British publisher did a special edition of the first book for grownups who didn’t want to be seen in public reading a “kids’ book.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/45 "2015-05-02T20:50:51Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > . . . In the case of _Harry Potter_, that “someone” seems to have legitimately been the reading public. . . . Then _Harry Potter_ was all over the media and a lot of people stood to profit from the franchise continuing to be successful, but things got to that point only because the first few books had already done so well. You may be right, but the gigantic puff piece that Time magazine did was at the time of the first book, and was probably a big part of why it sold so well. They may have been following promising early sales…but they certainly gave the book a hell of a boost. ---
**Author:** ![DummyGladHands](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/49beb7/32.png) [@DummyGladHands](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DummyGladHands)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/46 "2015-05-02T22:11:07Z")
Anything Danielle Steele. Awful. I don’t mind trashy novels, but the writing was just so damn bad. Judging by the beach reading I noticed a few years, everyone liked the “Girl” novels–Dragon Tattoo etc. I thought they were just awful. Clan of the Cave Bear I found impossible. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/47 "2015-05-02T22:25:11Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > You may be right, but the gigantic puff piece that Time magazine did was at the time of the first book, and was probably a big part of why it sold so well. They may have been following promising early sales…but they certainly gave the book a hell of a boost. There was a _Time_ cover story (“Wild About Harry”) about _Harry Potter_ in September 1999, around the time of the US publication of the third book, but I don’t remember any “gigantic puff piece” in _Time_ prior to that. I’m a librarian and have access to a database containing _Time_ articles going back to 1923 through work, and I just checked and got no hits on “Harry Potter” at all prior to the spring of 1999. (The first book was published in the UK in June 1997 and in the US in September 1998.) There was a one-page article in April 1999 about the “stunning popularity” of the first two books, the second of which was soon to be published in the US after already becoming a bestseller in the UK. In July 1999 there was another one-page article about how the third book had been a smash hit in the UK (“The Birmingham Waterstone’s sold 32 copies in the first 10 minutes. Blackwell’s sold 92 in the first half hour. At Storyteller, in the small town of Thirsk in north Yorkshire, a staggering 56 were snapped up that first afternoon”) and was hotly anticipated in the US, where there were already “more than 1.7 million copies of the first two books, _Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone_ and _Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets_, in print”. The September 1999 _Time_ cover story must have helped increase sales of the third book in the US, but again, the series was already very popular by that time…and presumably wouldn’t have merited a cover story if it hadn’t been. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2015, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/48 "2015-05-02T22:31:39Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > [The Celestine Prophecy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Celestine_Prophecy) > > I recall this one as being a huge best seller so I gave it a read. Egads! Bonkers sophomoric quasi-spiritual fantasy, but at least it was poorly done in a thunderously oafish way. So, it had that going for it. > > One thing I remember is that, strangely enough, even the printing of the first few chapters was junky - as if it were a second generation photocopy. Whereas in the rest of the book the printing was no issue. You beat me to it. Egads, that book stank on ice. ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/49 "2015-05-03T00:36:58Z")
The “Left Behind” books–I read the first two and got about two chapters into the third before I finally gave up. I only got that far into them because of a girl I liked. They are horribly written dreck, and they sold like hotcakes to the Christian audience they pandered to. ---
**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:** [May 3, 2015, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/50 "2015-05-03T00:43:58Z")
> [@Tangent](#): > > The “Left Behind” books–I read the first two and got about two chapters into the third before I finally gave up. I only got that far into them because of a girl I liked. They are horribly written dreck, and they sold like hotcakes to the Christian audience they pandered to. I’ve read a few and they do receive a C grade from me at best. However, they are far better than Twilight. They are adequate. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/51 "2015-05-03T01:30:30Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > There was a _Time_ cover story (“Wild About Harry”) about _Harry Potter_ in September 1999, around the time of the US publication of the third book . . . I appear to be misremembering it, then. Never mind. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/52 "2015-05-03T01:33:17Z")
I love the concept of the “Left Behind” books. Bummer that they didn’t live up to the potential. Same for Piers Anthony’s “Bio of a Space Tyrant.” The concept is magnificent, the life of a poor immigrant who rises to absolute power. But the actual writing (according to the reviews I’ve read; I’ve never read the books) was really crappy. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/53 "2015-05-03T02:43:55Z")
Chesapeake Tai Pan Without Remorse Scarlatti Inheritance The Negotiator Illusions Mirrors of the Soul From Russia with Love Sir Gawain and the Green Knight The Telltale Heart Wait, are we talking about worst works of best-selling authors? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![RikWriter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/49beb7/32.png) [@RikWriter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RikWriter)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/54 "2015-05-03T02:51:49Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Chesapeake > Tai Pan > Without Remorse > Scarlatti Inheritance > The Negotiator > Illusions > Mirrors of the Soul > From Russia with Love > Sir Gawain and the Green Knight > The Telltale Heart > > Wait, are we talking about worst works of best-selling authors? 😃 Without Remorse? You’re surely joking…Tom Clancy wrote FAR worse books than that. ---
**Author:** ![the\_diego](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7bcc69/32.png) [@the\_diego](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_diego)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/55 "2015-05-03T02:56:26Z")
BUT, I read his worst as a young un. Read WR long after I outgrew Clancy. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2015, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/56 "2015-05-03T04:57:43Z")
> [@the\_diego](#): > > Scarlatti Inheritance Robert Ludlum’s _The Bourne Identity_ was very good but I regret reading it. I ended up wasting hours of my life reading some of his other books, all of which are utter dreck. Evidently his family missed the money and, realizing that a dreck ghostwriter can’t be any worse than Ludlum himself, some of “his” recent books were written while he was six-feet underground. :smack: Nitpick: It’s “The Scarlatti Inheritance.” Every Ludlum book has a three-word title: The, Proper-Name, Noun. Perhaps he has a copyright on this phrase formula. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2015, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/57 "2015-05-04T11:54:28Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Robert Ludlum’s _The Bourne Identity_ was very good but I regret reading it. I ended up wasting hours of my life reading some of his other books, all of which are utter dreck. Evidently his family missed the money and, realizing that a dreck ghostwriter can’t be any worse than Ludlum himself, some of “his” recent books were written while he was six-feet underground. :smack: > > Nitpick: It’s “The Scarlatti Inheritance.” Every Ludlum book has a three-word title: The, Proper-Name, Noun. Perhaps he has a copyright on this phrase formula. 😉 Mad magazine once suggested a title for a Ludlum book – **The Marsupial Knish**. ---
**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:** [May 5, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/58 "2015-05-05T16:34:32Z")
I’ll take a dozen copies! ---
**Author:** ![Richey84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Richey84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richey84)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/59 "2015-05-05T19:42:55Z")
Anything by James Grey. I’ve read _A Million Little Pieces_ and _Bright, Shiny Morning_ and they were both dreadful. I couldn’t finish _My Friend Leonard_. ---
**Author:** ![LibrarySpy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f9ae1b/32.png) [@LibrarySpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LibrarySpy)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872/60 "2015-05-05T20:12:36Z")
> [@panache45](#): > > And does anyone even remember Love Story? How dare you, sir. Seriously, that’s a pretty good book. Well, it’s a pretty fun book. Well, it’s okay. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-best-seller-novel/718872.md?page=4)