What is the absolute worst book you've ever read?
Hamlet
the lost world
>>8198548
bunnicula
Read the whole thing in one sitting.
Surprisingly well-written but it's still about dragon cocks and I still feel ashamed to this day.
>>8198551
Go fuck yourself
I don't think I've ever read a book so profoundly bad that I would categorize it as the worst I've ever encountered.
those horrible years where I released myself from the shackles of my christian upbringing but instead swung too far in the opposite direction like an edgy faggot
>tfw you will never have those years back
>>8198925
What was your problem with the selfish gene?
It was just so bad.
The prose wasn't good enough to cover up nothing happening.
>kill turtle, too bedazzled
>I'm going to london
>halfway there
>fuck it, I'll go back home
there, entire plot
>>8198925
b-but... the selfish gene it's a very good book if you are interested in biology
it has nothing about religion too at least i don't remember anything
Kundera does nothing for me.
>>8198940
>brief history of the young man
>catalogue of everything he owns
>bedazzles the fuck out of a turtle's shell
>thiskillstheturtle.jpg
>decide to go to london
>this is lame idratherbehome.meme
>go back
>doctor: you're dying
>shit.exe
fin
I am Legend. The motif of sexuality is so horrible, I couldn't believe what I read. He literally went insane and thought about abusing a corpse, because he haven't fucked someone in two years. What a joke. Try 27 you bitch.
>>8198548
This right here.
>Tfw read it whilst drinking a glass of wine and staying at my Christian grandma's house. She was sat opposite me on the couch, crying a bit.
A time for everything by Adolf Hitler
Six Years by Harlan Coben
>>8199001
ya grammaw sounds like a fag desu
>>8198944
It's popsci, outdated, oversimplified, contains false information, etc. Read a textbook if you're interested in biology. Bloody morons. Everyone one of you on Earth deserves to die. The best scientists in the world never read a popsci book, they read textbooks. A random pleb having some trivia about biology is about as useful as... OMG IM SCREAMING! Kill myself? Never, never never ! neverzr years DTDs tzd;TD;t,dffxyFudge nrcet nrcet never masce bhs ductsxeaw. This world will die someday, you will die someday, the knowledge and inventions made today will mean nothing.
>>8199007
this, although the angel stuff in the beginning was nice
>>8199018
The selfish gene and the extended phenotype are the least popsci of Dawkins work, would you also recommend that no one read Tinbergen, Gould, Mayr etc in addition to Dawkins?
Worst I've read since I've opened a goodreads account:
>neuromancer
>of mice and men
>at the mountain of madness
>death in venice
>Davy
>perdido street station
these sucks so much
>>8198925
You're thinking of The God Delusion. The Selfish Gene is Dawkins making a useful contribution to science, as opposed to his other works.
Fitting title.
>>8198551
Weak bait
>>8198548
this shit
>>8199065
>at the mountain of madness
gr8 b8
The Da Vinci Code.
Dialogue clearly written by someone who cannot speak to girls, laden with chunks of effortless and ubiquitous research that add nothing. The make and model of a plane's engines aren't important, research shouldn't show so baldly.
Lazily lifted ideas from an interesting 80s book, the page turner takes us on a long ride to nowhere. She's the descendant of Jesus....and?
>>8199001
Bullshit. You sound like a right cunt though.
>>8199019
Yeah, like first 30 pages.
>>8199120
>>>at the mountain of madness
>gr8 b8
idk I guess the translation was all over the place, it really felt like the prose had been written with his ass (same for neuromancer)
>>8199129
I wish I was joking.
Thank God I grew out of edgy teenage anti-theism.
>>8199120
>Werther
Lol, currently trying to force my way thru it.
Reads like a spiteful parody of early 19th novels.
>>8199137
neuromancer from gibson?
>>8198548
that's easy. a dirty job by christopher moore. full of alpha male theory, racial caricatures that were just plain lazy, shit prose, incomplete plot, two page main protagonist development, and an overall idea quality that would make palanhuik balk and stifle vomit.
>>8199191
You took a wrong turn at /leftypol/ m8?
Maze Runner
>>8199194
leftypol? what are you? a pleb? racial caricatures are fucking lazy. i don't give a fuck about the race itself. fuck niggers. there. anyway go read it if that tripe sounds like a pleasant show.
>>8198940
You'd adore Beckett. Really action-packed without resorting to tropes. Waiting for Godot and Mercier and Camier would be especially up your alley.
don't give a shit about the political aspect, if your fucking russian character's main conversational habit involves the phrase "strong like bear" with every interaction with the character, it's not funny, it's not edgy or clever, it's fucking lazy and stupid.
Sounder.
Fuck that prize it won, I had to force myself everyday for a week to finish that fucking thing.
>>8199180
yes
White Noise. Why does anybody like DeLilo?
The Unbearable Lightness of Being, or No Longer Human.
>>8199151
Please tell me she lived long enough to see it.
I fucking hate Jane Eyre.
>>8199082
isn't it also where the word meme comes from? or was that the extended phenotype?
>>8199415
>Selfish gene
>>8198548
Pamuk's Snow. How this guy got his Nobel's is completely beyond me.
>>8199088
We know trash
>>8199465
>Delilo is the most underrated humorist in America.
terrorist maybe.
An anon here rec'd this. I don't know about the worst I've ever read, but, this is the worst I can remember.
>>8199485
Lovecraft himself I don't think has become more popular in the populace. Cthulhu itself has become much more popular with pop culture but at the mountains of madness most people agree that's probably his best work
>>8199502
>Lovecraft himself I don't think has become more popular in the populace.
>this is your typical lovecraft reader
>>8198548
The Sympatheizer
>>8199513
Has he ? A friend of mine could only find the one collection of stories at Barnes and Noble but I'm sort of out of touch with most people lol I don't get get into most people I tend to ignore them. I play call of cthulhu though so have always been a fan definitely am biased
>>8199065
>Perdido
>>8198548
Atlas Shrugged wins by volume; if it was 200-500 pages it wouldn't even be that bad but 1200 pages of a something kind of bad all adds up to horrible.
>>8199502
>>8199531
It's true that most of the people who are "fans" of Cthulhu and stuff have never read Lovecraft, but you have to remember that he was essentially unknown before his reputation was revitalized in the '60s and '70s. The fact that you and I have both read him itself demonstrates how much more popular he is today.
>>8198548
Took me a second to think of it. It's actually a series, not sure how many of these """books"""I read before I couldn't take it anymore.
There was no coherent plot, it was just all over the fucking place. The random twists he threw in made no sense, the story went nowhere at all, it was filled with overdone and unoriginal tropes, the main characters were edgy and he kept giving them more and more (ridiculous) powers. Most of them didnt even ever come into play. I think one of them had the power to fart gas clouds at enemies. No seriously.
He threw in a talking dog at one point because why the fuck not? Oh and it had the power to jump really high because that's cool I guess.
I don't know if he was getting paid for it or if he really thought he was making the story more relatable by adding sentences like, " I grabbed a can of coca cola™ off the table to quench my thirst" or "I put on my Nike® shoes on and headed down to McDonald's to fight the bad guys."
And who can forget "Now that the coast was clear, we needed to find some food to refuel after all that running. We walked into the nearby Burger King and ordered the new Flame Broiled Whopper™, made with no artificial flavoring and featuring a zesty taste that will make your mouth water. Add fries and a medium drink for only $5.99 at participating locations only. Have it your way."
Definitely the worst thing I've ever read.
their eyes were watching god
might not be the worst ever, but when i think about books that were torture to get through, this is always the first thing to come to mind.
>>8199586
This, goddamn. In particular, I couldn't get over the sheer improbability of living in Florida your whole life and not knowing what a hurricane is. Even for an uneducated woman in the early twentieth century, that seems unlikely.
>>8198995
HAAAAAAAA!
A better title for this book would be The Metaphysics of Goodpussy.
The book is not about how to get sex, goodpussy (one word) can be anything that makes you happy. It is the underlineing good feeling of all things in life. Chapters range from stuff like "when is it okay to hit your girlfriend", "stay in school", and "why it is morally wrong when black women date white men." Spear's also fills his book which his view of history and psychology. The entire book is nonsense and Spears is a bad writer. Everysingle page tho has the word "goodpussy" multiple times. I laughed a lot reading it.
>>8199582
Read this shit in Middle school, was pretty shit I agree, couldn't get past the second book
From the last year this and Taipei. I dont know why I always get persuaded but Im not touching modern american lit anytime soon
>>8199737
Imagine you are a lot smarter than you are. Read your post and laugh at how stupid you sound.
This piece of shit.
The prose is ridiculously pretentious and longwinded, and it all reads like a bunch of posh monocled brits wanking each other off.
Pointless.
>>8199737
>got memed into reading a reddit book and a twitter book
>"this is representative of modern american lit"
wew
>>8199763
>it all reads like a bunch of posh monocled brits wanking each other off.
If you knew anything about the author, you'd know that was probably what he was going for.
>>8199772
I've heard if you stick with Dorian Gray it pays off. I got bored after a few chapters. Is it really that good?
>>8199737
My dad gave me this book recently, is it really that bad? He loved it, he said it reminded him of 80's arcade games and the culture around it.
>>8199808
I loved it.
>>8199854
it's just a bunch of references made into a book
>>8199065
Second on Neuromancer. Great descriptive writing but needed another trip to the editor before publication. Narrative is so jumbled.
![85386[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/rrSu7vb.jpg "85386[1].jpg")
Author is a pussy and not cool like Kerouac.
>>8199886
What's Updike?
>>8199018
>scientists read textbooks
lmao senpai
>>8199065
you have shit taste
American psycho
>>8199922
I think that it's because of translations.
Of mice and men is ok but overrated, same for Davy.
I LOVED The Shadow over Innsmouth.
The ones I actually hated are Perdido Street Station and neuromancer.
death in venice is ok, but like the second chapter is literally pulled out his ass
ultimate memebook. I'm ashamed I actually wasted my time finishing this shit
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
book of disquiet, notes from the underground
>>8199001
Prety edgy m8
The Goldfinch. Main character is a guy in his twenties who sounds like a middle-aged woman. Maybe not the worst I've ever read, but definitely the most overrated.
>>8200449
felt forced as fuck. I read it after the book of the new sun and it was terrible compared to that
Between The World And Me, not even trolling
Atlas shrugged
>>8200473
wtf I didn't get that at all and don't know anyone that did
the bean trees
i had to read it for ninth grade and it was one of the most blatant, lazy, and poorly written works i've ever read
>>8199426
we know clean don't last never last when we load trash we upload trash face down trash begets trash
>>8199120
>doesn't know German
>but declares a novel written by Germany's Shakespeare is shit
>in the the same post where he gets upset about criticism of Lovecraft
pseud
>>8199854
Sounds like your dad is a fucking cuck nu male that browses reddit.
>>8200639
Shut your mouth, my dad could beat up your dad.
>>8200816
More like he'd beat off my dad, fucking family of faggots you lot.
Terrible book about how the author is super good at everything (he wins a karate tournament with broken ribs), invents a perpetual motion machine, has a girlfriend who is a space shuttle pilot, and saves the world from non-Americans. It reads like a 16 year old wrote it, which I guess makes sense because the author is a STEM PHD and Baen is a vanity publisher.
The author's goodreads page quotes himself with "I love my haters."
>>8200839
So it's '/lit/ becomes an author'-tier?
>>8199125
>Lazily lifted ideas from an interesting 80s book
Which one?
>>8199808
It's excellent. My favorite novel for sure
>>8203057
Maaaybe that anon means The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holy_Blood_and_the_Holy_Grail
We by Zamyatin.
It was so unbelievably boring, even for dystopia.
>>8198548
Brexit
>>8198955
Surely that can't be the worst book you've ever read
>>8199120
That translation is ridiculous and completely destroys everything that made it great and special. It's a wonderful book.
>>8198548
Something I read VERY recently. BIGHEAD by Edward Lee. All the cliched ingredients of the worst horror movies, plus top heavy in plot during the big climax. Totally worthless.
>>8198548
Felt I needed to post the cover art to make sure you stay away from it. Again, something I thought would be scary and funny turned out to be complete shit. The author takes himself too seriously.
Brexit
>>8203444
Man, that monster got some major gains.
>>8198555
So bad it gave one of its writers cancer
>>8198548
Rainbow Six
>>8200541
Yes
>>8198548
American Psycho. It should have been a short story.
>>8199687
Are you a woman or a beta male?
The third part of the divergent saga. it really is something incredible that someone can write something so hideous.
>>8198940
This is essential NEETcore, you lout.
To the very end?
Sincerely Infinite Jest. Not only was the writing irritating, the fact that it was as long as it is and I read the entire thing despite disliking it from the beginning makes it even worse for me. Just purely unpleasant in every way.
>>8198548
The entire dictionary.
>>8203238
I just recently started it. It's alright.
>>8199763
yeah dude this book is gay a f
Catch-22
The same 'joke' repeated 400 times. Like an endless Vaudevillian standup routine hell.
I literally bought this only because it was a hardcover in the dollar bin.
I never thought bad books existed until I grabbed this piece of shit.
Fuck AICE Lit.
A Separate Peace.
Was force to read it in High School. Terrible Book.
>>8198548
gravity's rainbow
>>8205601
Oh yeah, fuck that book
>>8199763
>pretentious
opinion incinerated
>>8204490
Eco is humoring Dan not the other way around, even if Foucault's Pendulum was written 20 years earlier
>« Sono stato costretto a leggerlo, perché tutti mi facevano domande in proposito. Le rispondo che Dan Brown è uno dei personaggi del mio romanzo Il pendolo di Foucault, in cui si parla di gente che incomincia a credere nel ciarpame occultista.
>(intervistatore) Ma sembra che lei stesso sia interessato alla cabala, all'alchimia e ad altre pratiche occulte di cui parla nel suo libro.
>No, nel pendolo di Foucault ho rappresentato quel tipo di persone in maniera grottesca. Ecco perché Dan Brown è una delle mie creature. »
Literally have you read the books?
Gave to my dad as a present only because it was famous at the time. I saw that he couldn't finish it so I gave it a try. Couldn't only bring myself to read two read three chapters. What a piece o crap.
I mean we are not atheist edgy lords, but this book is so retarded that expects too much from the reader.
>>8199763
it's a less gay version of Fight Club
>>8198548
Pride and Prejudice
>>8205716
Mfw eco ha anticipato tutta la moda attuale dei vegani/complottari/animalari/spiritualisti/grillini
>sapevamo e non abbiamo fatto nulla per impedirlo
Wuthering Heights.
Though Kant's Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and Sublime was the first to pop to mind.
>>8199001
Madman
>>8199582
That sounds like a good read to me.
Good question.
I'll go with Malazan, First Law, Candide, Name of the Wind and Old Man's War.
The Da Vinci Code comes to mind.
>>8200839
Just remember that he loves you.
>>8205850
what about candide did you not like? i set it down after the princess gangrape.
>>8205858
Cheap ideology basically.
It's hur dur Catholics and Leibniz r stupid
>>8199018
the top scientists actually just read papers. textbooks are for the people who don't know stuff. literally
A book called "Qué verguenza"
>>8206449
>So many people hate Wuthering Heights...I think it's bc many are assigned it and they're at an age where they can't stand characters who aren't likable/like them...true/false for you?
Not exactly, but I can't deny it completely either.
I'm fine with unlikeable characters. Hell, all things considered, I kinda like Heathcliff. But the thing is, I was very well read from a young age, as a hobby, so by the time I was made to read Wuthering Heights in highschool in the early 2ks, I'd already gone through the greeks, most of the big classics, some Shakespeare, Tolkien, some of the cyberpunk flagships like Gibson, some of the new fantasy masters like Gaiman, a bunch of horror like Barker, and was at the time going through a big Latin American magical realism phase (Asturias' Mulata is still my favorite book, and boy is his shit full of unlikeable characters while still being extremely strong).
Wuthering Heights is just... boring. After having read spanish costumbrism and the way Garcia Marquez had shifted it into awe, the british costumbrism with melodramatic POV of Wuthering Heights was just... if I hadn't loved reading so much, I would've stopped reading then and there.
And I say this while liking Jane Austen (specially Mansfield Park) and Anne Bronte. And Charlotte's Shirley a bit.
>>8199465
My ex gave me Delilo's "White Noise" when I was in rehab. The writing was good but the story crapped out at the end. I enjoyed the Airborne Toxic Event part of it, though...
Worst book I ever wasted my time on was "Shadows of the Empire" by Timothy Zahn. Read it mostly in a diner while a buddy of mine was reading Dharma Bums by Kerouac. I read it mostly because I wanted to know the plot between the Star Wars movies at the time. Wish we switched books. It was, "he did this, then they did this, then they did that, then this happened." Feeble.
Ah well, I kinda knew what I was getting into with that stuff so it's on me for wasting my own time.
Rambling on, bull sources, lack of cohesive narrative.
Bummed because I live in OR and wanted to learn. Thought this would be the poor mans Undaunted Courage ...turns out is was like a poor mans college essay
>>8198548
Infinite Jest, not baiting, it was shit.
>>8199120
This is a masterpiece. Just because you didn't understand it or can't relate to loving someone doesn't mean it's shit. It means you need to educate yourself and be less stupid
>>8205851
>>8199125
this is true. I skimmed through it at a book store once and was appalled. How anyone could enjoy that garbage is beyond me.
>>8199854
it's good for children and teenagers who have catfished people before
>>8204496
look who didn't understand the book
>>8198551
TRIGGERED
>>8206506
>"Shadows of the Empire" by Timothy Zahn
My 90's teenage past self is triggered.
Timothy Zahn wrote the Thrawn trilogy.
Shadows of the Empire was Steve Perry.
>>8205066
Auster's not bad but his post-2000s stuff isn't very ambitious. At his best he gives you Dubliners sort of vignettes of Brooklyn daily life peppered with some excellent parables and interesting histories of important literary figures, he's quite in touch with the educated American middle class and their woes.
The New York Trilogy, pic related especially, is his best work. It deserves more praise here.
Travels in the Scriptorium was written during a very prolific period.
Best Jew writer since Kafka.
>>8199001
Funny story/10
The Giver. What an awful, shitty book.
>>8200839
Looks like a meme book desu
You didn't pay more than one Yuropoors for this right?
>>8207545
I read that in a hospital. I hated it and I don't even have that much of a taste in books,
>>8198925
topkek, i remember worshipping dawkins and (even worse) hitchens, literally edgelord faggot.
>>8198548
The Catcher in the Rye
Nicholas Nickleby, and I'm only 300 pages in.
Also the crossing
Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun :^)
