'Life-changing' books that left you cold

[welsh dragon]

The Joy of Pi

It promised more than it delivered on the gastronomic front.

The life of pi was pretty awful as well. Complete waste of money.

 

[Dave 123]

Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Not only was it dull, it is a total insult to all the brave members of the Greek resistance.

Me too. My dads favourite. Didn't do it for me.

 

[vernon]

What have you got if you have 22 pies on the top shelf and 7 pies on the bottom shelf?

A pie shortage.

 

[Firestorm]

I too said Zen as soon as I saw the thread title .
Borrowed it in the 70s gave it back after a quick flick through revealed nothing about balancing the carbs on at Suzuki 125

 

[Red17]

Anything by Joseph Heller. Tried catch 22 a couple of times and gave up. Tried Something Happened but nothing actually did in the bit I managed to get through.

 

[Dayvo]

Anything by John Irving.

 

[LarryDuff]

The Name of the Rose by Umberto Ecco. Gave up after 50 pages.

 

[nappadang]

[QUOTE 4093041, member: 259"]I love Catch-22, but never rated anything else by him.[/QUOTE]
I love Catch 22 also and really enjoyed the sequel, Closing Time.

 

[growingvegetables]

Anything by Joseph Heller. Tried catch 22 a couple of times and gave up. Tried Something Happened but nothing actually did in the bit I managed to get through.

Yup - +1 for Catch 22.

 

[Custom24]

I saw the title and was all ready to say the same book... like you, it's one of the few books I gave up on.

I finished Zen, and wished I hadn't. Life changing my ass. Maybe I'm just not bright enough to get what he was going on about. Something about "Quality", being undefinable, being also the bleeding edge of the knife of perception.

It didn't work for me on any other level either. When something goes wrong with a motorbike, a romantic will blame the whole thing, where an analyst will systematically isolate the problem. Well duh.

 

[midlife]

Tolkien...... Tried several times and failed miserably

Shaun

 

[Dave 123]

After perusing the books you've reread I remember trying to read a few different books by Stephen King. Just couldn't do it!

 

[Profpointy]

I too said Zen as soon as I saw the thread title .
Borrowed it in the 70s gave it back after a quick flick through revealed nothing about balancing the carbs on at Suzuki 125

to be fair it did tell me how to shim handlebars

 

[Drago]

Mein Kampf.

 

[Profpointy]

I finished Zen, and wished I hadn't. Life changing my ass. Maybe I'm just not bright enough to get what he was going on about. Something about "Quality", being undefinable, being also the bleeding edge of the knife of perception.

It didn't work for me on any other level either. When something goes wrong with a motorbike, a romantic will blame the whole thing, where an analyst will systematically isolate the problem. Well duh.

I got rather lost in the 2nd half - but thinking back on it, isn't the point that he'd more or less cracked up by that stage and it was more about him regaining his sanity than actually making any sence. The first part very much stayed with me, maybe not "life-changing" but certainly made me think. It was 30+ years ago I read it so I might get more out of it now, having had the odd bad patch myself, or of course I might now find it disappinting tosh - there's always that risk