# Worst popular books **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 13, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445 "2009-11-13T15:06:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/81 "2009-11-13T21:03:36Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I loved that book -[Jonathan Livingston Seagull] when I was 12. 😃 I was about 15 or so when I loved it, and then I loved _Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah_ a few years later and loved it. Then I read a couple of his next books- _One_ and _Bridge Across Forever_ and realized “this guy is full of shit”. What was more amazing was when I read about the man himself. He was married and had six kids when he left his wife to “find himself” and was a deadbeat dad for several years. He had essentially no contact with his family for many years and when his daughter was killed in a car wreck he wrote a “sympathy” card to his other kids saying something New Agey like ‘I know it is hard for you but it is a choice her soul made before she was born so she could advance’ or some other such nonsense. Also, _Illusions_ was a novel- he referred to it as a novel in the book itself and in his next book- and then he began referring to it as non-fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Speak\_to\_me\_Maddie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speak_to_me_Maddie)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/82 "2009-11-13T21:10:04Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Oh good god, I had a couple of those as audiobooks from the library and yeah, they were pretty horrid! My mind, mercifully, had blanked out who wrote them, in an effort to prevent me from accidentally picking any more up. I just finished listening to _Abducted_, which I’d downloaded from the library. Wow, was that bad. Wow. The thing is that the basic premise is really good, if not a little outlandish and overdone. But it was as if the book were written by a 2nd grader. Literally. I only finished it beacuse it was the only book I had on my Ipod for the duration of my trip. The audiobook performer should get a Grammy for not bursting out into laughter every other sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Raygun99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Raygun99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raygun99)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/83 "2009-11-13T21:35:26Z")
I left my copy of Timeline in hotel halfway around the world. I still don’t feel like I’m far enough away from it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/84 "2009-11-13T21:37:03Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > I was about 15 or so when I loved it, and then I loved _Illusions: Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah_ a few years later and loved it. Then I read a couple of his next books- _One_ and _Bridge Across Forever_ and realized “this guy is full of shit”. > > What was more amazing was when I read about the man himself. He was married and had six kids when he left his wife to “find himself” and was a deadbeat dad for several years. He had essentially no contact with his family for many years and when his daughter was killed in a car wreck he wrote a “sympathy” card to his other kids saying something New Agey like ‘I know it is hard for you but it is a choice her soul made before she was born so she could advance’ or some other such nonsense. Also, _Illusions_ was a novel- he referred to it as a novel in the book itself and in his next book- and then he began referring to it as non-fiction. Woah, sounds like a complete wanker. ---
**Author:** ![bucketybuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@bucketybuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bucketybuck)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/85 "2009-11-13T21:46:00Z")
**Terry Goodkind would like a word with you all!** _“Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken’s head rose. Kahlan pulled back. Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway. “Shoo,” Kahlan heard herself whisper. There wasn’t enough light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn’t tell if it had the dark spot, But she didn’t need to see it. “Dear spirits, help me,” she prayed under her breath. The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People’s chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest.”-- Soul of the Fire_ ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/86 "2009-11-13T21:49:56Z")
> [@bucketybuck](#): > > **Terry Goodkind would like a word with you all!** > _“Hissing, hackles lifting, the chicken’s head rose. Kahlan pulled back. Its claws digging into stiff dead flesh, the chicken slowly turned to face her. It cocked its head, making its comb flop, its wattles sway. “Shoo,” Kahlan heard herself whisper. There wasn’t enough light, and besides, the side of its beak was covered with gore, so she couldn’t tell if it had the dark spot, But she didn’t need to see it. “Dear spirits, help me,” she prayed under her breath. The bird let out a slow chicken cackle. It sounded like a chicken, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t. In that instant, she completely understood the concept of a chicken that was not a chicken. This looked like a chicken, like most of the Mud People’s chickens. But this was no chicken. This was evil manifest.”-- Soul of the Fire_ I hope his libertarian sensibilities make him realize that he now owes me 30 seconds of my life back. ---
**Author:** ![hd\_thoreau](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9adbd/32.png) [@hd\_thoreau](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hd_thoreau)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/87 "2009-11-13T21:56:37Z")
The Bible. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/88 "2009-11-13T22:08:37Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I am a huge fan of Salman Rushdie, but I will say that _The Satanic Verses_ is one of my least favorite of his books. (I also didn’t like _The Ground Beneath Her Feet_ too much.) I seriously have no fucking idea what he was trying to say a lot of the time. He has been known to say its not his favorite - and not because of the fatwa, just because he doesn’t think its very good. I heard him speak and he addressed the whole fatwa thing. I think it was something like “if they were going to kill me, it would have been nice had they picked one of my good books.” ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/89 "2009-11-13T22:10:41Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > Oh GOD how could I have forgotten? _Message in a Bottle_ is the WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER READ. I think I was trying to repress the memory. > > I hated it so much that I don’t think I could be friends with someone who liked it. **Letter to Nicholas** or some such for me. And yeah, it does take my estimation of a person down a peg. Like my co-workers saying how much they are looking forward to seeing **The Blind Side**. Oh god, a thousand times no. ---
**Author:** ![Poysyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Poysyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poysyn)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/90 "2009-11-13T22:36:34Z")
I can’t remember the title, but it doesn’t matter because his later books are all the same **Dean Koontz**. I read Watchers and Midnight and Lightning and enjoyed them all. I should’ve stopped there… ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/91 "2009-11-13T23:42:08Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > **Letter to Nicholas** or some such for me. And yeah, it does take my estimation of a person down a peg. Like my co-workers saying how much they are looking forward to seeing **The Blind Side**. Oh god, a thousand times no. Maybe the movie will turn out better than the book, although with sappy books, that hardly ever happens; they just come out sappier. The Godfather was a pretty bad book that was a far better movie, of course. With no sap. ---
**Author:** ![Sateryn76](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Sateryn76](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sateryn76)\ **Post date:** [November 13, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/92 "2009-11-13T23:42:43Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > We trashed it at bookclub for the same reasons, then decided that since we’d all read Flowers in the Attic at the Twilight age that perhaps we shouldn’t throw stones at glass houses. Oooo…excellent point. I loved Twilight, even though I knew it was a pretty crappy story. But it just flew by, and I got the whole series. I can’t say I didn’t like it. But I also reread the VC Andrews books a few times a year, so take my opinion for what it’s worth 😉 I nominate \*Dreamcatcher \*by Stephen King. Not only is it the only King book I never reread, but the only one I’ve never been able to finish. I also agree on Dean Koontz, but I strongly disagree on Grisham and Crichton. I loved _Timeline_. Never could finish _Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil_. And _The Deep End of the Ocean_…yechhhhh…totally unlikeable characters in that one. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/93 "2009-11-14T00:19:45Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Pick up _Hannibal Rising_ sometime. First book I ever gave one star to on Amazon and that because no-stars was not an option. I’ve never read any of Thomas Harris’s books, but I remember seeing this one in a bookstore and picking it up to look at. I learned from the dust jacket that it features a Japanese character named Lady Murasaki Shikibu, which is enough to make me want to continue never reading any of Harris’s books. For those of you unfamiliar with Japanese history or literature, naming a 20th century Japanese character “Murasaki Shikibu” is like naming a 20th century Englishman “William Shakespeare”. Actually it’s even worse than that, because the historic Murasaki Shikibu (also known in English as Lady Murasaki) wasn’t even really named Murasaki Shikibu. Her real name is lost to history. “Murasaki” was a nickname. “Shikibu” isn’t a family name, it’s a title taken from her father’s position at court. So on top of everything else, naming a character Lady Murasaki Shikibu is basically naming her Lady Murasaki Lady. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/94 "2009-11-14T02:49:04Z")
“A Walk To Remember” - by one Nicholas Sparks. A relative handed it to me, said “You must read this book. You MUST!!!” I did. WTF? Is it just me? A movie was made. It’s right up there on [Amazon.com](http://Amazon.com)’s popular list. It is inexplicably popular with my relative, and women in general, I guess. Why??? What a stupid, sappy, dopey waste of time! Alice Hoffman’s output has been going steadily downhill for years now, and that’s a shame, “Practical Magic” was supremely entertaining. I quit after “The River King”, which was so offensively bad as to defy description. It was just VILE. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/95 "2009-11-14T02:53:53Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > For non-fiction, I would cite _The Secret_, although there’s a laundry list of other popular “spiritual,” type garbage that’s just as bad. How do you figure that’s **non-fiction**?! ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/96 "2009-11-14T03:14:21Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > **Letter to Nicholas** or some such for me. And yeah, it does take my estimation of a person down a peg. Like my co-workers saying how much they are looking forward to seeing **The Blind Side**. Oh god, a thousand times no. That wouldn’t be _Suzanne’s Diary for Nicholas_, would it? Where the dying mother leaves a diary for her baby, a diary that includes fairly detailed descriptions of how and when she and baby’s father made love for the first time? Stupid book. ---
**Author:** ![thirdwarning](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@thirdwarning](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdwarning)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/97 "2009-11-14T03:17:05Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > What was more amazing was when I read about the man himself. He was married and had six kids when he left his wife to “find himself” and was a deadbeat dad for several years. He had essentially no contact with his family for many years and when his daughter was killed in a car wreck he wrote a “sympathy” card to his other kids saying something New Agey like ‘I know it is hard for you but it is a choice her soul made before she was born so she could advance’ or some other such nonsense. Maybe he should have been centered for shame. Also, the one of the Flowers in the Attic series that I finally read. i have to believe the rest of them weren’t any better. Bllrrrrgh! ---
**Author:** ![MagicEyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@MagicEyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MagicEyes)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/98 "2009-11-14T03:22:14Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > They aren’t for everyone, true - they are looooong and complex and stuffed with the HP mythology… Harry Potter books aren’t really that long. They have lots of pages because the margins are huge and the lines are far apart. Kind of like when some student writes a school paper and makes the text really big with extra-large margins so it will fill up more pages. It doesn’t take very long to actually read one of those books–they just look long. I like this thread. Now I know what not to read. I don’t see how a book with an evil chicken could be bad, but apparently it is possible. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/99 "2009-11-14T03:26:48Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > _Mein Kampf_ was never really popular. It’s well known, but not often read, and it’s never been well-liked. > > \ > > I suppose Ann Coulter’s books deserve a mention too. > [@jayjay](#): > > You’re being redundant now. “Plenty of editions” of _Mein Kampf_ at Cairo book fair. [Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera](http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2007/02/2008525122811762957.html) > [@](#): > > “It makes up a big part of our success, especially among the 18 to 25 crowd,” said Mahmud Abdallah of the Syrian-Egyptian Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi publishing house. _Mein Kampf_ a #4 bestseller in Turkey in 2005. [BBC NEWS | Europe | Hitler book bestseller in Turkey](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4361733.stm) I kinda doubt Coulter is that popular there. ---
**Author:** ![HazelNutCoffee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@HazelNutCoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HazelNutCoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/100 "2009-11-14T03:58:09Z")
**The Alchemist**. What a load of sappy self-important rubbish. I felt like it was desperately trying to be simple yet profound in the way of **The Little Prince** yet only succeeded in being utterly twee. When someone at the academy I work at put in in the “Modern Classics” syllabus I was disgusted. The first thing I did when I was promoted was to get rid of that silly book. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445.md?page=6)