Worst book you've ever read?

[Dogtrousers]

In the 80s, on the recommendation of a clever person who had studied literature (this should have been a warning), I read Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain.

I got to the end but I was none the wiser. WTF was that all about? I'm not going to say it was a bad book - the fault was mine - but it was the wrong book for me to read at the time.

 

[wiggydiggy]

It's harder than Dylan Thomas! (Well, maybe not Under Milk Wood, but pick something at random and you'll be baffled ...)

But back to Shakespeare.

On the rare occasions that I do read Shakespeare I can find it hard going, but it's not meant to be read. It's meant to be heard. In the hands of competent actors you don't have to understand the exact meaning of every last allusion and turn of phrase. In the hands of great actors it can be ... well ... great.

I'm guessing that many of us were put off Shakespeare at School. I remember we were studying Macbeth, so the teacher assigned various kids roles and, sitting at our desks, we had to read it. One lad objected to his casting. "I'm not being Banquo. He wears tights." This resulted in the playground song "Banquo and his poofy tights, doo-dah, doo-dah" that haunts me every time I see Macbeth.

I remember watching Kenneth Branagh's 'Much Ado About Nothing' at school which was far more fun than reading it, its a really good film and I probably read the play at the same time though don't remember that as much!

 

[Oldhippy]

War and Peace was excruciating. Tried to finish but failed.

 

[Alex321]

Still uncomprehensible stitte even if it's supposed to be beautiful language.

I've never found it difficult at all to comprehend Shakespeare. I don't always like it, but I do like a fair amount of it.

 

[slow horse]

I remember watching Kenneth Branagh's 'Much Ado About Nothing' at school which was far more fun than reading it

Years ago I bought one of those big books of Shakespeare, intending to dip into it from time to time to elevate myself, preferably with some classical music playing in the background. Alas it remains without dog ears.* I did, on the other hand, start reading Game of Thrones (if you google that along with Shakespeare you'll got lots of results) while watching it. Turned out to be far more fun on the screen, so I quit after a few chapters, though I don't have a problem with his writing.

*Figure of speech! I only do this to the rattiest of paperbacks.

 

[Profpointy]

War and Peace was excruciating. Tried to finish but failed.

Whilst I somehow stopped about half way through I thought it really good, especially the scenes of the naive young officer trying to make his name during the heat of battle. The hard part was keeping track of the names as many people seemed to be referred to by two different names.

I think I stopped as I was reading it on my i-pad which had to go back when I left the company and I never bothered buying my own one and it was a bit fiddly to read on the phone

 

[Alex321]

Years ago I bought one of those big books of Shakespeare, intending to dip into it from time to time to elevate myself, preferably with some classical music playing in the background. Alas it remains without dog ears.* I did, on the other hand, start reading Game of Thrones (if you google that along with Shakespeare you'll got lots of results) while watching it. Turned out to be far more fun on the screen, so I quit after a few chapters, though I don't have a problem with his writing.

*Figure of speech! I only do this to the rattiest of paperbacks.

I haven't seen any more than very short Youtube excerpts of the adaptation, but I gave up partway through the 2nd book when reading it. I just didn't find the way most characters acted/interacted to be believable.

 

[raleighnut]

I can't say I've ever been a fan. OK, yes, we read Oliver Twist and A Christmas Carol at school, but I find his writing a bit chewy and wouldn't pick up and read any of his books for entertainment purposes. Mind you, his style is pretty characteristic of the time.

A bit 'chewy', inedible I'd say a bit like microwaved Calamari.

 

[wiggydiggy]

Years ago I bought one of those big books of Shakespeare, intending to dip into it from time to time to elevate myself, preferably with some classical music playing in the background. Alas it remains without dog ears.* I did, on the other hand, start reading Game of Thrones (if you google that along with Shakespeare you'll got lots of results) while watching it. Turned out to be far more fun on the screen, so I quit after a few chapters, though I don't have a problem with his writing.

*Figure of speech! I only do this to the rattiest of paperbacks.

GoT (or A Song of Fire and Ice as the full series title is) is a bit of an odd one, on the one hand its one of the best modern fantasy series out there and goes into incredible detail. That they were able adapt any of it is amazing. But the book series is not finished, and likely never will be, so the entire time you are reading it you know it will not conclude. The final two books published so far actually take place at the same time, but with events at some locations in one book and everything else in the second. The story ends around the time of Series 5/6 of the show so its a bit of letdown for some, though still excellent until that point.

One redeeming thing they have going for them though is that they absolutely explain all the television nonsense with Dorne (the southern kingdom) as there is a huge great big plot excluded from the TV show that caused a lot of frustration for fans of the books (as it was excluded) and for viewers of the show (as most of the Dorne stuff was cool, but nonsense).

I think his book "Fire and Blood" is far more accessible for fans of the show as though it covers events 100s of years before the original GOT show, its a single book written in the style of a historical record of those events. The TV series "House of the Dragon" is adapting parts of this book (though I'll save my criticism of that show for another time!).

 

[Ming the Merciless]

It’s hard to remember the worst books because I’d usually stop within a few pages if they were bad. Nowadays I try and read a few pages before buying if poss, to see if it’s something I’ll like. Haven’t had a bad one for a long while.

 

[MontyVeda]

I read somewhere that a vast majority of movies regardless of genre are based on a Shakespeare story in one way or another.

Probably a claim from a Shakespeare fanatic... if it's a comedy, it's Shakespeare. If it's a tragedy, it's Shakespeare. If its neither yet contains a joke or a death, it's both and therefore... Shakespeare

 

[Dogtrousers]

Probably a claim from a Shakespeare fanatic... if it's a comedy, it's Shakespeare. If it's a tragedy, it's Shakespeare. If its neither yet contains a joke or a death, it's both and therefore... Shakespeare

I think it's a variant on the idea that there are only 7 basic stories. Or eight. Or something, and all stories are variants of one or another of these.

You can then have much fun pigeonholing particular stories into one of these 7, (or 8, or 23 ...) or failing to do so and inventing a new category.

I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be a load of cobblers.

 

[Badger_Boom]

50 Shades of Grey.

All my cat show friends were waxing lyrical about it. I looked at a copy while mooching around a book shop and only lasted a couple of paragraphs. It's not the subject matter that's the issue, it was just poorly written. And theoretically, as it's set in a universe belonging to someone else (Twilight), it should never have gotten past the editors. Unless you've express permission (e.g. writing novels for Star trek or Star Wars and the like), fan fiction is technically plagiarism and is strictly not-for-profit.

Having said that, I like to spend time on fanfiction.net - some stuff on there is professional quality, but a lot of it is so bad it makes one's brain hurt.

There is some amazingly well written, or simply very creative fan fiction to be found amongst all the quite frankly odd smut.

Two that stood out for me were:

• A story that took the final scene of The Force Awakens as a start point and imagined what might unfold on the island between Luke, Rey and Kylo from the point of view of the Porgs. In my opinion it was a much better story than Disney managed to cobble together.
• An imagined conversation between various musical instruments in Kraftwerk's Kling Klang studio in Dusseldorf.

 

[matticus]

Life of Pi. The most hard going and boring book on the planet. They even made it Into a film

Loved it!!! One of the few big award-winners I've finished, and probably my favourite :-)

(although I'm not certain that every section works perfectly ...)

 

[vickster]

The Hobbit is a children’s book. LOTR are far too dense for me.
The films are classics. They are over 20 years old and still hold up well.

I dragged myself through the first two LOTR, Never started Return of the King (or certainly never finished). Have seen the films, but never felt the need to watch again in their entirety although I probably did waste money on the DVDs or even Blu-Rays (a bit like Skyfall, I've probably seen the second half 10 times on ITV2 )

I can't remember if I read The Hobbit, probably did as it was short (unlike the appalling films, wtaf, 3 full length films from a book with about 200 pages).

Never tried to read any other fantasy or sci-fi books, just not my thing at all.

Another awful book I was forced to read at university was Madame Bovary in the first year of my French degree, slightly less painful just going straight to the translation (sadly I couldn't find an English film adaptation ). Put in the same bucket of period drama dullness as the Brontes and Austin