# 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:** 6
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/101 "2009-11-14T04:02:08Z")
> [@rowrrbazzle](#): > > “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) > > _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. She’s that popular here. Same difference. Same mentality. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/102 "2009-11-14T04:08:51Z")
> [@thirdwarning](#): > > 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! No…they don’t go as far downhill as the Clan of the Cave Bear books…but they have a head start so they reach bottom just as fast. ---
**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, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/103 "2009-11-14T04:10:14Z")
> [@MagicEyes](#): > > Harry Potter books aren’t really that long. They have lots of pages because the margins are huge and the lines are far apart. This is the case with most children’s books. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/104 "2009-11-14T08:12:11Z")
Anything that Oprah has recommended, like: \*The Bridges of Madison County Eat, Pray, Love Twilight \* ---
**Author:** ![maplekiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@maplekiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maplekiwi)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/105 "2009-11-14T09:27:37Z")
Love Story - can’t remember the author, but hugely popular in the 70s. Another vote for Jonathan Livingston Seagull & the Flowers in the Attic books. & anything by Barbara Cartland. Romance is a genre full of terrible writers. But she was beyond dreadful. ---
**Author:** ![Helen\_Jewett](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/bcef8e/32.png) [@Helen\_Jewett](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Helen_Jewett)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/106 "2009-11-14T11:07:48Z")
Most of mine have been listed, but I’m going to go ahead and add anything by Kathy Reichs. And I _wanted_ to like her books, I _expected_ to like them, but every time I try to read one I can only manage to stagger through the first ten pages or so before her writing style completely does me in. ---
**Author:** ![Apollyon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/apollyon/32/4238_2.png) [@Apollyon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apollyon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/107 "2009-11-14T14:09:30Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Not HP7… It _sucked_ as badly as the first few were charming and well-written. Yep. I reckon you could draw a pretty accurate graph showing three lines: Rowlings rising fame and fortune, ever Increaing book length, and ever decreasing book coherency and readability. [IMO] HP peaked at Prisoner of Azkhaban and went into steady decline from then on. (I really like the first 3 books, I really dislike the last 4). ---
**Author:** ![Fair\_Rarity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fair_rarity/32/153_2.png) [@Fair\_Rarity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fair_Rarity)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/108 "2009-11-14T14:40:44Z")
I think the book I hated the most that was very popular was _The Horse Whisperer_. I don’t remember much about it now, but at the time it made me crazy angry in its horrible characters and plot. ---
**Author:** ![jali](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ecae2f/32.png) [@jali](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jali)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/109 "2009-11-14T15:13:16Z")
I can’t remember the author or the title, but I HATED this novel. It was the long and boring story of a relationship that was - then wasn’t - then was, for hundreds of pages. Nothing endeared me to either of the characters. At the end we learn that the hundreds of pages were all dreamt the moment before she dies in a car crash. I think I literally threw the book across the room. I hated _Running With Scissors_ too. The mean world and good me. Ugh. _Empire of the Ants_ was stiff and annoying to me. It may have been the translation, but I didn’t care about any characters; ant or human. My French isn’t good enough for me to read a novel. Oh well. I love the Harry Potter books. Boo to you who don’t like them.😛 ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/110 "2009-11-14T15:54:51Z")
This will probably mark me as being beyond Philistine to the point of Carthaginian, but I gave up on **Blood Meridian** when I was only twenty pages from the end, which may say something worse about either me or the book than if I’d done so only twenty pages in. I appreciated a story similar to Moby Dick, but with Ishmael (the Kid) having no moral center, and no redeeming Starbuck character whatsoever; and the Judge’s scientific curiosity based on his belief _“that which exists without my knowledge exists without my consent,”_ raises him above the average psycho killer. But like Moby Dick, I lost interest when it became an endless exercise in describing how hot & nasty the Southwest can be. Just lifting the same weight over and over, using different adjectives. I grasp the idea of “the landscape becomes a character in itself.” But the landscape already has a perfectly respectable job: to be the _setting_. Leaving the actual characters go undeveloped because they’re morally vacant anyway seems kind of facile, as does discarding plot so as to point out the meaninglessness of violence. ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/111 "2009-11-14T17:06:27Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This is reaching way back, but **Jonathan Livingston Seagull**. How that book got onto, and remained on, the Best Seller List astonishes me. Some people just like their philosophy and mysticism in pre-digested form, I guess > > [Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_livingstone_seagull) Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/112 "2009-11-14T17:36:42Z")
> [@Munch](#): > > I’m going to go with _Catcher in the Rye_. We get it - he’s a whiny brat with an over-developed sense of entitlement. > [@Emeria](#): > > **Catcher in the Rye**. Holden is an asshole. In my undergrad English class, I was the only one who spoke up to say they hated it. Everyone else just went on about how they identified with him. I have to defend it, since the book singlehandedly pushed me into developing my own voice as an author. I was 15. It resonated deeply with me and still does. I try to read it as least once a year. The way I see it, Holden is a little whiny and a little entitled because of the culture he’d been raised in, sure. But the whole point is that this elitest culture was killing him. He lost his little brother to leukemia and everyone insists on pretending things are fine. He was the victim of attempted or actual sexual assault by his teacher and he is expected to go on pretending things are fine. His room-mates regularly take advantage of women without consequence, including the one woman he genuinely loves, and again, he is powerless to do anything about it and his attempted intervention only ends with him getting his ass kicked. Holden sees the hidden depravity of other humans and is disgusted by the way everyone chooses to look the other way. He is living in a massively fucked up world and from his perspective is the only one who seems to be willing to acknowledge it. His proclamation of everything as ‘‘phony’’ isn’t arrogance, it’s anger. And because he is a child the only way he can find to cope with it is to behave self-destructively, which is exactly what children do when they feel powerless. When he identifies himself as a ‘‘terrific liar’’ the irony is that everyone is a terrific liar. He’s the only one with the balls to admit it. > [@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. When I was staying in Mexico one summer I was stuck with only a handful of books to read, and ‘‘Mensaje en una botella’’ was one of them. It’s pretty bad when you can tell a book is awful and it’s not even in your own language. As I read it (with no prior knowledge of the plot), I thought, ''I might as well skip to the part where… he finds out she’s a journalist and feels betrayed, thus establishing some pseudo-conflict before they spend the rest of their lives together I turned to about 20 pages before the ending, and sure enough! I stopped reading that and started reading a self-help book about overcoming infidelity to save your marriage. Much more entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![kapri](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4491bb/32.png) [@kapri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kapri)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/113 "2009-11-14T20:39:04Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > This is reaching way back, but **Jonathan Livingston Seagull**. How that book got onto, and remained on, the Best Seller List astonishes me. Some people just like their philosophy and mysticism in pre-digested form, I guess > > [Jonathan Livingston Seagull - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_livingstone_seagull) I’m agreeing with most of these and adding _The Celestine Prophecy._ Whew that was bad. (Sorry, should have read further–couple people beat me to it. Pure and idiotic dreck, wasn’t it?) ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Violaceous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2bfe46/32.png) [@Miss\_Violaceous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Violaceous)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/114 "2009-11-14T20:51:29Z")
I loved the story of _Three Cups of Tea_ but it badly needed better editing. There were a lot of missed typos and awkward phrasing that really could’ve been smoothed out. Something was jumping out at me and pulling me out of the narrative regularly. I passed my copy on to a friend, but warned her ahead of time that she might be unable to finish it because of the poor editing. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/115 "2009-11-14T22:12:58Z")
> [@olivesmarch4th](#): > > When I was staying in Mexico one summer I was stuck with only a handful of books to read, and ‘‘Mensaje en una botella’’ was one of them. It’s pretty bad when you can tell a book is awful and it’s not even in your own language. HA. The only reason I read it in the first place was also that I was living abroad and was desperate for books. I was doing my junior year of college abroad in Israel and my roommate’s aunt (who was, I think, Israeli, so English wasn’t her first language) occasionally lent her books to read, and then she’d lend them to me. They were always total dreck, but I would inevitably read them anyway. I read at least three Danielle Steel books as a result, and although they were supremely shitty, fucking _Message in a Bottle_ was worse. By a lot. This is reminding me of a conversation I overheard while browsing the slim pickings of English-language books in a bookstore in Sofia last year. The movie of _Atonement_ had recently come out, and I guess the American (or possibly Canadian, I guess) couple standing a few feet away from me had just seen it. Woman: Oooh, look, _Atonement_ is a book! Man: Oh, do you want to get it? Woman: Hmmmm…no, I don’t think so. OH LOOK A NICHOLAS SPARKS BOOK I HAVEN’T READ! Man: I suppose you’re going to get _that_. Woman: Well, I _have_ to, I’ve read everything else he’s written! On several occasions, I struck up conversations with English-speaking people in bookstores in Sofia (usually they were there for odd and interesting reasons and on one occasion I managed to help out a really confused British woman), but I elected to ignore these particular people. P.S. I didn’t particularly like _Atonement_ either. I found the literary device it uses to be kind of irritating. P.P.S. I’m a bit of an elitist, apparently. But anyone who speaks in capslock praise for Nicholas Sparks deserves shunning. ---
**Author:** ![GoodOmens](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@GoodOmens](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GoodOmens)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/116 "2009-11-14T22:28:09Z")
> [@detop](#): > > A > The _Left Behind_ books. Yep. I made myself slog through the first one; I was working in a bookstore at the time and felt it was important to keep up with popular items. Disregarding the horrific theology, barely-veiled racism and Antisemitism, and conspiracy BS, it’s just terribly written. I haven’t touched the others, but I’m assuming they’re the same. ---
**Author:** ![Estilicon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/848f3c/32.png) [@Estilicon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Estilicon)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2009, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/117 "2009-11-14T22:53:10Z")
> [@hd\_thoreau](#): > > The Bible. You think so? This is the most widely quote book ever. Its also a book that inspired thousands of major works of arts from lots of different genres: music, painting, operas, etc. Even if you don’t believe God inspired it, even if you are an atheist it has a powerful message and most of it works as a work of art: > [@](#): > > To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: > a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; > a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; > a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; > a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; > a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; > a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; > a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace… ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/118 "2009-11-15T00:08:12Z")
> [@Estilicon](#): > > You think so? This is the most widely quote book ever. Its also a book that inspired thousands of major works of arts from lots of different genres: music, painting, operas, etc. > Even if you don’t believe God inspired it, even if you are an atheist it has a powerful message and most of it works as a work of art: Eh, I don’t think it’s very good either; I came into the thread to mention the Bible too. Yes, some of it reads nice; a lot of it doesn’t. Ultimately, it is what it is, a book effectively written by a committee and run through multiple translations. Calling it uneven is an understatement. Then again, it could be considered more a collection of stories than a single long work, for the same reason. ---
**Author:** ![Athena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@Athena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Athena)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/119 "2009-11-15T02:23:31Z")
3 pages and nobody’s mentioned James Joyce yet? I’m astounded. > [@panache45](#): > > Anything that Oprah has recommended, like: > > \*The Bridges of Madison County > Eat, Pray, Love > Twilight > \* Oprah may have shilled those books, but if you actually look at her [Book Club](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oprah%27s_Book_Club), her picks are really pretty good. Sure, not every one is great (“A Million Little Pieces”), but on the whole, anyone who tries to get people to read Tolstoy and Steinbeck is OK by me. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2009, 3:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445/120 "2009-11-15T03:01:31Z")
I’d have to nominate **Eragon**. I don’t care how young the author was when it first came out, it’s cliche, badly-written crap. He borrowed elements from every single fantasy story ever, and while this can be done well, with him it just reads like plagiarism. J.K. Rowling did it first (well, before Chris Paolini, anyway) and did it better. Also, Terry Pratchett was published at SIXTEEN, and I’ll bet you anything his book could kick **Eragon** ’s ass. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/worst-popular-books/517445.md?page=7)