To me, hands down, 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. I think I could come up with the top 100 worst, and this book could legitimately hold down places 1-10 at the same time.
I read a lot of books during the years that I was part of a bookclub. I still remember feeling very annoyed and manipulated by the ending of the Jodi Picoult novel "My Sisters Keeper". A very disappointing waste of time.
Tropic of Cancer? I read it when I was in my misspent youth, because it seemed cool. It was not.
I don't have a lot of books that come to mind. Not that I agree with Father, but I don't generally read much into books that are trashy or otherwise rotten.
gherkin wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 3:46 pm
Tropic of Cancer? I read it when I was in my misspent youth, because it seemed cool. It was not.
I don't have a lot of books that come to mind. Not that I agree with Father, but I don't generally read much into books that are trashy or otherwise rotten.
I remember the one introduction to philosophy subject I did at University I thought would be really interesting. But the texts were a yawn by a bunch of dead guys with too much time on their hands.
Can you take a photo of your head spinning and post it here?
Doom wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:53 pm
Wait what? One of my favorite books!
Didn't have you down as a Jodi Picoult person, but you never do know, I guess.
Oh, wait...you meant Tropic of Cancer??????????????????????????2
Smart ass. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a book I first read in high school and half a dozen times since, it's a classic, although the other four books in the “trilogy of five books” are of uneven quality.
If you ever feel like Captain Picard yelling about how many lights there are, it is probably time to leave the thread.
Doom wrote: ↑Mon Jan 15, 2024 4:53 pm
Wait what? One of my favorite books!
Didn't have you down as a Jodi Picoult person, but you never do know, I guess.
Oh, wait...you meant Tropic of Cancer??????????????????????????2
Smart ass. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy a book I first read in high school and half a dozen times since, it's a classic, although the other four books in the “trilogy of five books” are of uneven quality.
I never read it. Maybe someday. It's science-fictiony, yes? I never did the science fiction thing much. My older brother was a big sci-fi person, with a shelf full of Asimov and Clarke and others. Never grabbed me.
Science fiction? Not really. It's an absurdist comedy similar to the BBC series Red Dwarf or the animated series Futurama.
It uses the pretense of “science fiction” to tell an absurd tale made up of pseudoscientific gibberish. For example, the “universal translator” is a fish (called the Babel Fish, a popular language app is named after it) which you put in your ear which then translates everything for you. In the first chapter, the Earth is destroyed by an alien construction crew that is building a highway and so got rid of the thing in its way like a human would cut down a tree for the same purpose. One human is led off the Earth before it is destroyed by an alien disguised as a human named Ford Prefect(a popular car in the UK in the late 70s) because he misjudged the identity of the dominant species on Earth.
Sound like a science fiction novel?
If you ever feel like Captain Picard yelling about how many lights there are, it is probably time to leave the thread.
I have a nominee, though probably not a winner: Angela's Ashes. My wife had started this and persuaded me to join her. It was her idea of something we could do together, like jigsaw puzzles or painting a room. She bailed halfway through. Me, I slogged on. I was morbidly fascinated to find out how much worse this loser of a father could sink before dragging the whole family down with him.
My "favorite" part was when the father lugs the tiny white coffin with the deceased baby to the cemetery, and stops at a bar and uses this coffin to set his pint on. I didn't read anything else by the writer.
Why would anyone ever smoke weed when they could just mow a lawn? - Hank Hill