# Worst Good Book You Have Ever Read **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 24, 2004, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163 "2004-03-24T18:29:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/81 "2004-03-25T13:15:34Z")
Fortunately, I’m not well-educated enough to have been forced through most of the crap in this thread…I tried _Gatsby_ on my own and just couldn’t do it. I had to take notes while reading _Wuthering Heights_ (too many characters with the same names), and I agree about hating Heathcliff and Cathy. My mom is actually named after Cathy, so as you can imagine, I had some serious questions for my grandma! Turned out she had only seen the movie version. Now, to piss off all the sci-fi fans, the worst book I ever read was ---
**Author:** ![PookahMacPhellimey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pookahmacphellimey/32/3175_2.png) [@PookahMacPhellimey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PookahMacPhellimey)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/82 "2004-03-25T13:17:14Z")
I think **The Celestine Prophecy** doesn’t actually qualify as a bad good book. That one was just popular and very very bad. My vote goes to Elizeth Barrett Browning’s **Aurora Lee**. Poem in novel form? Novel in poet form? Whatever. Yawn. P.s. I completely and utterly disagree with some of the other books mentioned here, but this is a poll not a discussion thread. Isn’t my restraint admirable? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/83 "2004-03-25T13:17:30Z")
Oops! I wasn’t trying to leave you in suspense…the worst book I ever read was _Stranger in a Strange Land_. I didn’t grok dick! ---
**Author:** ![js\_africanus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/87869e/32.png) [@js\_africanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/js_africanus)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/84 "2004-03-25T14:10:23Z")
Of the books I’ve read for fun, as opposed to school, I have to go w/ The Arithmetic of Life. Good premise, but some things just can’t be tackled with arithmetic. ---
**Author:** ![HumptysHamhole](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f0a364/32.png) [@HumptysHamhole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HumptysHamhole)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/85 "2004-03-25T14:37:17Z")
> [@](#): > > Funny that you can say this about your guy Dickens but not for Faulkner, who you didn’t get. Hmmm. Dickens can at least be understood on a first reading whether or not it stands to someone’s taste. I didn’t mean to sound so contentious on the points about Joyce and Faulkner. I actually like them and if you didn’t get it from my post I have read “Absolam, Absolam” a few times and I think it is a great book. I do think that we should perhaps classify books like “Finnegan’s” and “Absolam” in a separate catagory than other novels. Maybe this can be a discussion for a different thread. If they must be approached in an entirely different way than other novels perhaps they should be considered differently. I think that this could actually bolster their popularity as works of art as well as help the general reader know what to do with them. As for book titles in quotes - get over it you punctuation nazi - this is a internet message board - the quotes help the book title stand out. I don’t believe that this MB will ever be up for printing but if it does I’ll be sure to hire you as a copy editor. ---
**Author:** ![Albert\_Rose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9de053/32.png) [@Albert\_Rose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Albert_Rose)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/86 "2004-03-25T17:06:52Z")
I’m glad someone mentioned Dune Messiah and Interview with the Vampire. I loved Dune, and was unprepared for Herbert’s confusing follow-up. The “action” and “legend” parts of the story appealed to me more than the “special powers” parts. My own contribution would be Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano. It was a day in the life of an alcoholic in Mexico, with lots of non-English words thrown in to show how well-educated Lowry was. Painful (O.K.), but boring and incomprehensible (not O.K.). I love Dickens and Faulkner, but don’t always like their books. Oliver Twist and Intruder in the Dust aren’t personal favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Homebrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Homebrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Homebrew)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/87 "2004-03-25T17:51:43Z")
I liked _A Tale of Two Cities_, but nothing else by **Dickens**. A more modern book I loathe, and often mention in these types of threads, is _The Ginger Man_ by **James Patrick Donleavy**. [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com) includes these reviewsof it: > [@](#): > > Editorial Reviews > > The New York Times Book Review > There are a few novelists who are writing out of a sense of what the contemporary world is all about. The best of them is J. P. Donleavy. > > V. S. Naipaul > It is one of the books which reveals their quality from the first line. On every page there is that immediacy all good writing has. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. > Book Description > First published in Paris in 1955 and originally banned in America, J. P. Donleavy’s first novel is now recognized the world over as a masterpiece and a modern classic of the highest order. Set in Ireland just after World War II, The Ginger Man is J. P. Donleavy’s wildly funny, picaresque classic novel of the misadventures of Sebastian Dangerfield, a young American ne’er-do-well studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Dangerfield’s appetite for women, liquor, and general roguishness is insatiable–and he satisfies it with endless charm. “Lusty, violent, wildly funny … The Ginger Man is the picaresque novel to stop them all.”–Dorothy Parker, Esquire All I have to say is apparently the NYT reviewer, Dorothy Parker and V.S. Naipaul must have had some financial incentive in this book’s success; because it is not funny, charming nor picaresque. The main character is a boorish lout with no redeeming qualities and the other characters are cardboard cutouts who have no personality nor merit. Far too many trees were sacrified for the paper copies of this book are printed on. In other words I agree totally with online reviewer Chris T Eigsti from Hyde Park, MA United States > [@](#): > > There is no need to pick up this book and read the reviews on the back because they are misleading, and there’s no reason to read the book unless required for a class. You can capture the essence of the story from the beginning and believe, me the story doesn’t change throughout. I forged on to finish the book thinking there would be some wonderful climax to the story or turn of events but found the same old boring characters and story with lack of depth, and if I’d stopped at the beginning of the book I wouldn’t have missed anything. Leopards don’t change their spots and neither did Dangerfield. As far as the writing goes, a grade school child could’ve written half of it. Not a literary wizard in my mind. I was recommended this book when at Greane’s bookstore in Dublin and was told it was very funny. Not so. Not funny. Don’t read it and be led on that it must get better as you go because it does not. Unlike him, I couldn’t finish it. I also despise **Kerouac** ’s _On the Road_. Perhaps I just don’t like books about selfish, drunken louts. I don’t mind flawed heroes. I don’t even need the main character to be a hero at all. But these guys are just worthless. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/88 "2004-03-25T17:55:52Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Thomas Hardy’s _Tess of the D’Urbervilles_. Only good part of the entire book was when she died at the end. I’ve said it before and I’ve said it again, **Tess** is the worse book I have ever read. The endless descriptions of landscape is anoying and the charecters are even worse. Angel is portrayed as the good guy, but is a complete hypocrite. The way Tess lets people treat her made me want to slap her, and Alec was WAY too stereotypically villan. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/89 "2004-03-25T18:16:16Z")
**Frankenstein**. There are very, very few books I don’t like. I can usually slog through anything and find _something_ redeeming about it. Most of the time, it would never even occur to me to dislike a book, regardless of its flaws. But **Frankenstein** gives me THE RAGE. I probably wouldn’t be able to explain why I hate it so very, very much. I read it last semester in my Horror Novel class, and we read **Dracula** right after (which I loved) and while I was describing in class all the reasons I loved it, my Prof interupted and said “So basically you like it because it’s not **Frankenstein**?” “Well…yeah…” “You can’t judge all books based on that criteria.” No, I think I can. It’s the lowest denominator for me. ---
**Author:** ![askeptic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/eb9ed0/32.png) [@askeptic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/askeptic)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/90 "2004-03-25T18:24:19Z")
Good grief, I am shocked that no one has yet mentioned Walden or Leaves of Grass.(the Leaves of Grass was meant to be sarcastic) While I have followed the entire thread I have to say that I enjoyed almost every freakin book mentioned. It completely suprises me that so far no one has mentioned Finnegans Wake buy James Joyce… ---
**Author:** ![RogueRacer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ab992/32.png) [@RogueRacer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RogueRacer)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/91 "2004-03-25T18:50:23Z")
_Atlas Shrugged_ tops my list of complete trash. I also remember _The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant_ being a complete waste. I’m not sure if they were actually supposed to be good though. They were just fantasy at a time when there weren’t a lot of options. ---
**Author:** ![istara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e79b87/32.png) [@istara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/istara)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/92 "2004-03-25T19:08:59Z")
> [@RikWriter](#): > > Great Expectations by Dickens. Read it for sophomore English lit class in High School. Hated then, hate it to this day. A-men. The most awful fucking boring dirge of all must be Middlemarch. I refuse to even provide an Amazon link to it, it’s so dire. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/93 "2004-03-25T19:43:03Z")
Anything by Faulkner. Everything by F. Scott Fitzgerald. And - I read _Pride and Prejudice_, and loved it. I am currently about half-way thru _Emma_, and it is painfully dull. Someone reassure me - does anything happen besides this pretentious little twit messing up other people’s love lives? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/94 "2004-03-25T19:51:30Z")
To be honest, I rarely liked books I ever had to read for any class. But I think part of that is that the act of teaching a book sucks ALL the enjoyment out of it. Having said that, there are some books that are worse than others: **The Stranger** by Albert Camus. I wanted Mersault to just DIE already. Anything by Dickens. I’ll be the first to admit that Dickens helped to create many of the staples of fiction. And that he was a genius. But, maudlin is too mild a word. ---
**Author:** ![Legolamb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4491bb/32.png) [@Legolamb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Legolamb)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/95 "2004-03-25T20:28:12Z")
> [@Nathan S](#): > > **Interview With a Vampire** , by Anne Rice I forgot about that. I much prefer the [Book-a-Minute version](http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/rice.interview.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![misshannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/3e96dc/32.png) [@misshannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/misshannah)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/96 "2004-03-25T20:45:38Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > I am currently about half-way thru _Emma_, and it is painfully dull. Someone reassure me - does anything happen besides this pretentious little twit messing up other people’s love lives? > > Regards, > Shodan I just finished rereading _Emma_. She is kind of a jerk. I don’t want to be responsible for reassuring you if you end up hating it (yes, my self-esteem rests in the opinion of others), but I can say that I enjoy the end and that Emma does grow, somewhat… ---
**Author:** ![Bandersnatch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8edcca/32.png) [@Bandersnatch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bandersnatch)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/97 "2004-03-25T20:59:25Z")
Personally I think Heinlein is GOD. But that’s just my opinion. However, the worst SF/Fantasy book I’ve every read is Dhalgren by Samuel R Delaney. Eight hundred pages of tripe. The first book that I ever threw across a room after finishing it The book that inspired t-shirts at Cons that read “I survived Dhalgren”. David ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/98 "2004-03-25T20:59:47Z")
> [@askeptic](#): > > It completely suprises me that so far no one has mentioned Finnegans Wake buy James Joyce… Probably because no one’s actually read it. 🙂 > [@pepperlandgirl](#): > > But Frankenstein gives me THE RAGE. I probably wouldn’t be able to explain why I hate it so very, very much. I read it last semester in my Horror Novel class, and we read Dracula right after (which I loved) and while I was describing in class all the reasons I loved it, my Prof interupted and said “So basically you like it because it’s not Frankenstein?” **Dracula** is complete and utter dreck, but it’s fun dreck. And **The Annotated Dracula** is even better, as the annotations take care to point out the especially dreck-y parts – like how Van Helsing’s accent comes and goes. ---
**Author:** ![JoeSki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b487fb/32.png) [@JoeSki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeSki)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/99 "2004-03-25T21:06:46Z")
**A Confedereacy of Dunces** : Reading this book is like reading a script to a really bad sitcom…only it involves reading. I’ll never be able to understand why so many people thought this book was funny. **Catcher in the Rye** : I thought this book was written really well, it’s just it had no point! It was like some moody teenager just wrote about his day to day life. **Fellowship of the Ring** : I felt like I was reading a fantasy book written by Tom Clancy (whose books I often enjoy, but whose writing style is all wrong for fantasy). It was just so dry and lifeless. I loved the movies though. ---
**Author:** ![JoeSki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b487fb/32.png) [@JoeSki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeSki)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2004, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163/100 "2004-03-25T21:09:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Reading this book is like reading a script to a really bad sitcom…only it involves reading GAH! I hate not having an edit button for when I say dumb stuff like this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-good-book-you-have-ever-read/236163.md?page=6)