Really bad books you've read

[Mrs Pingu]

I had to wade through kes at school. I found it tugid and depressing 

Ditto, but swap Kes for Sunset Song.
Local, turgid and depressing.

[Mr Larrington]

The saving grace was, "The Pardoner's tale", but just barely and then only because it had the sort of humour that a 14/15 YO schoolboy understands.  I.e. fart jokes.  As any fule kno you can't beat a peom* with fart jokes in it.

The Miller's tale is even better - it has hairy twat jokes.

*It wasn't much cop as a peom.  How can it be a peom if it do not rime eh? I ask you.

My recollection is that it does rhyme - but maybe that's only if you read it in authentic period style, which my English teacher used to take great delight in doing. Surprisingly, this didn't put me off Chaucer.

As one of Professor Larrington’s tutors once said:
Donne
Is fun
But Chaucer
Is coarser

[fd3]

Not sure what the point of Austen is.  I had a tutor group once where we had a page-o-meter to track how far they'd read through Emma (those foolish enough to take English Lit at A-level) - as they all hated it.  Over half the English Lit group hadn't read the book by the time the exam came.  (Yes, you do need to question why the Head of English decided to go with Emma over Gatsby, but you'd lost me at "English" to be fair).

Surely that's true of any book you have to study at school? Certainly I hated every writer whose books I had to study.

I did notice that when we read "Stig of the Dump" in year 5 it went downhill rapidly due to being read for school, in much the same way as "The Hobbit" in year 7.  I did get exposed to a bunch of books I would never have read otherwise and, importantly, learned from it - but our system was very different (we would read about a dozen books through the year, IIRC we did 2-3 Shakespeares in year 7 or 8, including MacBeth).   We also read lots of books for French which I would totes not have read otherwise and they were generally enjoyable to be fair.  The really bad books were the ones that you can't relate to at all as a kid or that are designed to be unreadable - e.g. "Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man", "Pride and Prejudice" and "The Kraken Wakes" (I remember a section about "communing with nature" and then some more oblique shit which was the author's attempt at saying "went to their second home and build a wall down the garden").
Mostly our teachers did not explain, that was up to the Cole's Notes to do that, so that by years 11-13 we had to read the book and the notes.
Very quickly I would never have read:
The Jungle
Z for Zaccharias
Goodnight Mr Tom
Down and Out in Paris and London
If they weren't on the School Syllabus.  There are more but some of them I remember the story but not the name.

[CommuteTooFar]

William Golding's "Lord of The Flies" was inflicted on us. Cannot remember much. Vaguely remember the popular blond kid took control and everything went wrong, or is that real life.

[PeteB99]

Have we had Spycatcher by Peter Wright yet?

A turgid and disconnected read which just left you with the impression that the security services are madder than a box of frogs and should under no circumstances be allowed near anything important.

When it was banned in the UK my then girlfriends brother smuggled half a dozen copies back from a works trip to the USA* thinking he'd be able to get a good price for them - no such luck he ended up giving them away.

* Quite a dodgy thing to have done really, he worked in missile manufacturing and his security clearance would have taken quite a hit if he'd been caught.

[Kim]

William Golding's "Lord of The Flies" was inflicted on us. Cannot remember much. Vaguely remember the popular blond kid took control and everything went wrong, or is that real life.

As I got into trouble for arguing in English class: Lord of the Flies was Jurassic Park without any of the good bits.

The important points to remember are that it was pretty much written with the intention of being inflicted on school kids who could tell, but not yet articulate, that the whole premise was bollocks.  And that - as we'd have learned in year 9 physics if the SCIENCE timetable wasn't compromised to make room for all that English Literature - Piggy's glasses would have had concave lenses, which can't be used to start a fire.

[SteveC]

William Golding's "Lord of The Flies" was inflicted on us. Cannot remember much. Vaguely remember the popular blond kid took control and everything went wrong, or is that real life.

<snip>
Piggy's glasses would have had concave lenses, which can't be used to start a fire.

This bit annoyed me intensely. It's more important in the film (which they showed at school before we read the book), but it's still a major plot point. When I'd first got glasses I was most upset to discover that I couldn't set fire to things with them.

[fd3]

William Golding's "Lord of The Flies" was inflicted on us. Cannot remember much. Vaguely remember the popular blond kid took control and everything went wrong, or is that real life.

As I got into trouble for arguing in English class: Lord of the Flies was Jurassic Park without any of the good bits.

I can't tell whether:
Jurassic Park was a book first
You read Lord of the Flies really late in your school career
I am just older than you

[Kim]

I think I read Jurassic Park in 1992 (certainly before the film came out), at around the same time we were having Lord of the Flies inflicted on us.  I'd have been what was then known as a 'second year', or 'year 8' in modern parlance.

The book has approximately the same plot as the film, but a lot more waffle about chaotic systems seeking a stable (for chaotic values of stable) state.  Lord of the Flies does broadly similar, without the interesting mathematics, or the important business lesson that if you're going to "spare no expense" that policy really should extend to your IT department.

(A while ago I read an article about group of schoolboys who got stranded on an island in real life, and as you might expect, they cooperated to do a splendid job of survival, rather than forming cults and murdering each other.)

[Efrogwr]

I read one by Dennis Wbeatley. I can't remember the title; only that it was shite... with a capital f.

[T42]

I think I read Jurassic Park in 1992 (certainly before the film came out), at around the same time we were having Lord of the Flies inflicted on us.  I'd have been what was then known as a 'second year', or 'year 8' in modern parlance.

The book has approximately the same plot as the film, but a lot more waffle about chaotic systems seeking a stable (for chaotic values of stable) state.  Lord of the Flies does broadly similar, without the interesting mathematics, or the important business lesson that if you're going to "spare no expense" that policy really should extend to your IT department.

(A while ago I read an article about group of schoolboys who got stranded on an island in real life, and as you might expect, they cooperated to do a splendid job of survival, rather than forming cults and murdering each other.)

I always took LotF to be an allegory, since forming cults and murdering each other is mostly an adult thing. Then the intelligent aliens arrive in white shorts to bring peace and understanding.

We had LotF in Second Form, I think, 1960ish.  Jurassic Pork was a marinated roast from the Jura that we used to get.

[fd3]

the important business lesson that if you're going to "spare no expense" that policy really should extend to your IT department.

That will be why you didn’t get along with your English lessons:
“So what was Jurassic park about Kim?”
“It’s the tragic tale of what happens when you cut corners on IT support”

[Cudzoziemiec]

I think I read Jurassic Park in 1992 (certainly before the film came out), at around the same time we were having Lord of the Flies inflicted on us.  I'd have been what was then known as a 'second year', or 'year 8' in modern parlance.

The book has approximately the same plot as the film, but a lot more waffle about chaotic systems seeking a stable (for chaotic values of stable) state.  Lord of the Flies does broadly similar, without the interesting mathematics, or the important business lesson that if you're going to "spare no expense" that policy really should extend to your IT department.

(A while ago I read an article about group of schoolboys who got stranded on an island in real life, and as you might expect, they cooperated to do a splendid job of survival, rather than forming cults and murdering each other.)

They were Polynesians. Superior culture.

[MattH]

I'm an avid reader, and in pre-easy internet days would devour paperbacks as a way of passing time when travelling for work. I'd read just about anything, and finish them because there was nothing else to do.

One of the few I failed to finish, on probably four attempts now since buying a copy in Berkeley in 1991, is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It starts out OK and quite interesting - both the tale of the trip and the philosophical musings, but ends up unreadable by about half way in. I keep going back to it wondering if an older viewpoint on life will make it any better, but no.

[Mr Larrington]

I'm an avid reader, and in pre-easy internet days would devour paperbacks as a way of passing time when travelling for work. I'd read just about anything, and finish them because there was nothing else to do.

One of the few I failed to finish, on probably four attempts now since buying a copy in Berkeley in 1991, is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It starts out OK and quite interesting - both the tale of the trip and the philosophical musings, but ends up unreadable by about half way in. I keep going back to it wondering if an older viewpoint on life will make it any better, but no.

One of my favourite books evvah.  I'm such a horrendous fanboi that in 2009 I actually retraced the route taken by the protagonists, give or take the odd bits that have disappeared under I-90.

[L CC]

I read it. I can't remember much about it, so it can't have been that good..

[Cudzoziemiec]

I started to read it aged about 20 and gave up around page 22. I read the whole thing maybe ten years ago. Or perhaps longer ago than that. All I remember is making shims out of a coke can.

[L CC]

I started to read it aged about 20 and gave up around page 22. I read the whole thing maybe ten years ago. Or perhaps longer ago than that. All I remember is making shims out of a coke can.

That's all I remember too!

[MattH]

Just checked - my current bookmark is about page 251 (just over half way). It's a boarding card from a flight in March 2009 (I think, year wasn't on the card so give or take a year it's right). Might give it another go, just because it's beaten me - and I've battled my way through the Survivalist series mentioned above, and some of John Norman's Gor books.

[fd3]

One of the few I failed to finish, on probably four attempts now since buying a copy in Berkeley in 1991, is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

I remember a friend of mine saying, in a very understated manner, that it was the best book he had ever read.
I had a copy that I never got in to.

and I've battled my way through the Survivalist series mentioned above, and some of John Norman's Gor books.

Egads!  But the why?

[MattH]

Desperation. Find a second hand book shop, buy a few that seem interesting, repeat at the next town. So sometimes I'd buy a series cheap, then it was all I had on the next leg of the journey. Read some very interesting stuff I'd never have otherwise chosen, and some not so good.

[fd3]

^TBF I did the same when greyhounding - we would pick up some books based on the price per weight, to ensure we had something to read.

[MattH]

I only remember that I bought Zen in Berkeley because I bought it at the same time as Clifford Stoll's excellent The Cuckoo's Egg. I'd not heard of that book either, but reading it whilst spending a few weeks working in various labs at Berkeley and living in the roughly the same area that it was set in really brought it to life. I'd never read anything quite like it before.

[ian]

I may as well mention The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Perhaps it's not a bad book per se, but I never got on with it. OK, it's clever in places and there are some very good, pithy one-liners, but it's most a death march of nerdy jokes and enforced quirkiness. It gets tiresome quickly. By about page 4. The plot is basically random wacky events wrapped like I do Christmas presents. It was sort of the book equivalent of a laughter track left on play. I never tried the sequels. The perhaps worse thing is that it's the sort of book that haunts because people won't shut about it. Ha ha, zorgonic pffazlefaz or somesuch. I say people, but it's always men. Oh, I'm sure there's a rule-proving female exception, but it's a book that channels a peculiar form of nerdy masculinity. It's the book equivalent of the workplace posters that declare 'you don't have to mad to work here but it helps.' The only solution to those requires a flame thrower.

I can't do Pratchett either for similar reasons. And dullness, the couple I've read went on forever. Like the people who read them.

Oh, and Dune. Fucking Dune. It made Tolkein's prose seem zippy. All I remember is a long, long slog through marshy prose, every paragraph tries to suck you down, full of dull italicised monologues that stumbled through dozens of pages and then somehow get up and keep going. The entire book is driven by a homeopathically thin plot, derivative of everything from the Bible onwards. The movie features Sting and is somehow far better without being even close to good.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I'd say THHGTTG didn't transfer well to book form. It needed to be kept in the slightly lighter audio form. In fact I'd reckon that's probably true of most things that start off as some sort of performance.