I even loved the last Flambards book, although I know what you mean. My favorite of hers may possibly be the Ruth and Pennington series.
I loved “The Poisonwood Bible” but probably because I listened to it on audio. I tried later to read it and it wasn’t a good experience. I gave up. But I’ve listened to it more than once.
Used to love Stephen King but as someone mentioned above–Cujo and Pet Semetary turned me off big time. Think I did throw Pet Semetary across the room.
@garland:
I actually like Gladwell, not because he necessarily has the ‘total truth of the matter’, but rather because to me he makes people at least think about things, instead of assuming, especially people who assume things in their lives happen only because they were such great,smart people and did it all because they were such great, smart people, no luck, no help, they were just like Zaphod Beeblebrox:)
For anyone else who feels the need to google Zaphod Beeblebrox
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaphod_Beeblebrox
Most self help and especially “business made easy books”, whether it is Covey and his ‘do the right thing’ crap, or the ones who tell you you can get rich selling options (those two weirdo brothers on CNBC during the day), or the ones who in the past taught you to swim with the sharks and so forth…best business book I read on the other hand was the “Witch Doctors” which with British wit totally destroys the management gurus.
It’s been fun appreciating how “one man’s meat is another man’s poison” when it comes to books.
I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to throw a book across the room, but many times I’ve wanted to sit down with the editor and say “What were you thinking?” The worst experience is the disappointment I feel when a book that has been effusively lauded by professional reviewers turns out to be a dud, as in “The Goldfinch” and “A Little Life”. I can’t believe any editing at all went into those ridiculously long and absurdly plotted tomes. I expect little from light reading like Picoult’s and Moriarty’s oeuvres and “Gone Girl”, so don’t feel anywhere near as betrayed when they turn out to be less than hoped for.
I’ll sign on to the Ferrante hate. I barely finished the first book and there was no way I was going any further. I can’t begin to understand the appeal. But I always seem to have trouble with translated works, often finding the prose tortured or awkward. I think that accounts for my dislike of “The Elegance of the Hedgehog” and my disappointment with “Suite Francaise”. (Not at tossing levels, though.)
My current candidate for possible throwing is Caleb Carr’s “Surrender, New York”. I remembered having loved “The Alienist” ages ago, so gave it a try. It’s incredibly dumb. Carr has zero ability to place a credible story in the 21st century. The plot is cuckoo, the characters ridiculous, and the dialogue dreadful. So why am I fighting my way through its 600 pages? It’s the sunk cost fallacy, I guess. And I need to know how it ends…
My mom suggested the following formula for deciding how many pages of a book to read before giving up on it (if you don’t like it): subtract your age from 100. Lucky her: come August, she’ll only need to read to page 11.
I actually DID throw Love in the Time of Cholera across the room. And I found Lumineers completely unreadable, I gave up around pp 170. I tried.
I love Atlas Shrugged. (well, except the horrible lecture that is 40 pp there in the middle) I read it the first time in 7th grade and wanted to name my someday-daughter Dagny
Love Story. That dreadful book about the kid who’s the great dog trainer and then everyone dies in a fire five pages from the end (can’t remember the title, but described it as “a betrayal of the reader” for years) (I see someone else mentioned it: Edgar Sawtelle). Gone Girl. Dostoevesky, which I’ve tried to read many times, all of them unsuccessfully. Girl on a Train. Anything by John Grisham or Scott Turow, both of whom are just writing the same book over and over again.
Anthem by Ayn Rand. Ended up writing a scathing essay about it for the teacher that made us read it; probably the best essay I’ve wrote in the past three years. I ended by stating that Guy Montag of F451 (which our class had just finished reading) should’ve had no regrets about burning it.
" I ended by stating that Guy Montag of F451 (which our class had just finished reading) should’ve had no regrets about burning it."
I love that! Especially for the book it was referencing and the author…
I thought Fahrenheit 451 was poorly written, although I appreciated the message.
I actually did throw Pet Sematary across the room. But the next morning in the light of day I fished it out from behind the chair and finished it. I have two reasons for not liking a book. One is that the subject matter is disturbing or boring. The other is if I don’t forget I’m reading; if I don’t get caught up in the narrative and go into what I think of as the reading zone. I don’t require great writing in fiction, I just require that it works to the extent that it becomes invisible.
I really hated Henry James’ “Turn of the Screw” when I had to read it for HS English lit class.
If I wasn’t concerned about incurring a hefty fine of $25 (lot of money for HS me) for damaging school books, I probably would have tossed it against a wall.
Most of the time, the worst I’d rate a book is “meh” and stop reading after a few hundred pages.
Tom Clancy’s writing for an audience who aren’t likely to care about finer points of character development. As long as there’s military tech, action, and the good guys win in the end in some way…it works.
I enjoyed Red Storm Rising over 3 days during 7th grade partially as relief from reading Romeo and Juliet* and Midsummer’s Night Dream* for English class.
- Only started to appreciate them several years later.
Also, has anyone mentioned Danielle Steel? I’ve read a few of her books, when desperate at the airport, and find them exasperating in their triteness.
Danielle Steel’s novels make no pretense of being literature. With that said, I have read them when there was nothing else around and then immediately forgotten them.
I went through a period of time when I enjoyed Tom Clancy books. My kids were young, I was working full time and was exhausted. I didn’t have time for serious, in depth reading and the Clancy books were entertaining and the plots were intriguing, with just enough credibility that you could think it might happen (e.g, Ebola in aerosol cans, a plane flying into the capitol - before 9/11!). The books were great for a commute or when I was just sitting around in court because I could pick it up, read any number of pages and then pick it up again a week later and not be lost. Ditto for James Patterson.
Someone above mentioned An American Tragedy by Dreiser. I didn’t like it,but it didn’t compare to how much I detested another of his books - Sister Carrie! OMG! Horrible, even when taking into account the time period during which it was written.
If we go back to books read in HS, oy! Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. My only lasting memory of it is that when my class was taking a test (the morning after the episode of Mash where Colonel Blake dies), a guy in my class, who was about 6’8" got a nose bleed. My teacher, who was about 4’10", was running around like a loosey goosey and finally told another kid, go get the nurse, X has earned his own red badge of courage!" Maggie, a Girl of the Streets, was another horror story by Crane. I remember being really happy when I learned he had died at 28 because I could only imagine having to read another book by him and being grateful that he hadn’t had the time to write that many!
A certain prolific commenter of this site may not like to hear this, but the Song of Ice and Fire, or Fire and Ice, or whatever the books are that the HBO show Game of Thrones is based on is called. Now, I love (LOVE!) the HBO series, and in fact started to read all those books because of the show. The first one is pretty great but the author wayyyy loses his way after the third book – they are sorely in need of an editor. Too long, much fluff, introduction of possibly game-changing character in the currrently last book, and now the last two books in the series are still unpublished. I won’t be finishing the series in book form, only on television, because the TV fellas are just better at pacing and story editing than the guy who actually did the world-building is!
While true, the OP did ask about best-selling authors, not high-quality, literary writers.
But that did remind me of a crappy book that has yet to be mentioned - Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Blech!!
For all the Jodi Piccoult fans–non-fans too: I went to a book festival this weekend, which is in the place where we’ve have a vacation home. I go every year and invite 2 girl friends (who are book lovers) to visit for the weekend.
Piccoult was one of the keynote authors and we debated whether to go and listen to her. Vote was to go and listen; I have to say that she’s a great speaker–she’s articulate, enthusiastic, smart, and knows how to sell her books. I enjoyed listening to her as discussed her most recent book and the reasons she chose the topic (racism) and how she went about putting the work together. I ended up buying the book, which she autographed.
@skieurope Sometimes I question whether you are really a college student. Why anyone your age would even know about the schlock that is Jonathan Livingston Seagull is beyond me. I read it when I was about 9 (I read a lot of things not intended for kids back then) and thought it was stupid. Could have been because I was 9 but nah, it was just bad. In contrast, I read Papillon around the same age and really found that fascinating.