i am beginning to seriously resent books that i read and then they are shit

I did read, and finish, 'The Slap'. Not overly gripped by it, though, and the characters were uniformly appalling. Wasn't remotely tempted to read anything else by Christos Tsiolkas.

I'm amazed at the badness of some books that are on the verge of being 'respectable' literature, if I can put it like that - ie not obvious schlock like Jodi Picoult. For example, I heard someone on the radio lavishly praising Marina Lewycka's 'We Are All Made of Glue' and saying how hilariously funny it is. I picked up a copy in a charity shop, am some way through it, and a) haven't laughed, or even smiled, once and b) can't see what the fuss is about. The writing's pretty average imho. Although I suppose it's all to do with her having had a hit previously - that gives you a profile and some leverage. Similarly, 'One Day' (not literary, I grant you) was also tosh.

YANBU

This is why, like sieglinde I avoid hyped up books/authors and most of those 2 for 3 front-of-bookshop promos.

Yes, me too, and yanbu.

And yet there are constant howls about the awful way readers are treating poor luckless publishers, the great guardians of Quality. Oh really? I think A Discovery of Witches is possibly the worst book I've ever read, ever ever. Yet commissioning editors were queueing for it at Frankfurt. Boak. And I agree about Labyrinth, which is actually less dreadful than Discowitch, but only just, and I too hated One Day and the Jodi Picoult emporium for people too embarrassed to read redtops but willing to soak up their content.

I've made myself a new rule, which is never to even begin something being heavily hyped, something from the front shelves at Waterstones.

This is why I read sci-fi/fantasy.

Since having DC1 4 months ago I obviously have much lesss time for reading so resent crap (or even just disappointing) books more as they are wasting precious time. Worryingly, I have The Slap on my pile of books to read. Maybe I shouldn't even bother starting it as nobody seems to have enjoyed it.

I have just finished reading The Donor

awful book

I too feel so disappointed by crap books - what an almighty waste of time they are. Lately felt cross about The Winter Ghosts by Kate Mosse, a quarter baked idea barely filling the description 'novel'/Not that sort of girl by Mary Wesley, not at all tempted by any more of hers - more like a list of plot lines by the end, she clearly got bored/Deception Point by Dan Brown - why did i bother?

but loved All he ever Wanted by Anita Shreve, going to look for more by her.

have to confess I totally love Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell and anything by Sarah Waters is truly fantastic.

Ive just finished 'The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks'

OMG!! Brilliant - read it in a week.

What am I going to read now!

So agree about When God was A Rabbit.
It started of so well and then just died a death in the middle, nothing really happened.
Jenny penny also just vanished into oblivion and she was the only character I was inerested in.

Basic synopsis of The Slap so far:
Small annoying boy gets slapped by a man who isn't his father
Small boy's father gets very angry
Lots of people have sex
Some people masturbate
Some people have sex with people they shouldn't
Small boy gets breastfed quite a lot (which seems to be more about the mother getting a boob out than actual feeding)

I think I am going to give up and take it back to Oxfam where it came from.

The Slap was written by a man obsessed with big dicks. All the characters seemed to go on about them - I hated it so much I think I took to counting how often this was mentioned.

Also thought th Interpretation of Murder was utter bollocks. Don't think the writer was a fan of Carl Jung!

I haven't read The Slap but I read something a while back which began with a mother getting angry with her son and killing his pet snake. It was rubbish but I can't for the life of me remember what it was!

The Stand is. so. good.

What does happen in the Slap? He slaps the kid, there's a big hullabaloo, then what?

I don't slap children and don't smack my son, but from the synopsis of the book I was kind of glad that guy did it. The kid sounded terrible.

Sorry, I lost the 'c' from your name there.

Thumbwith - I feel the same about The Grapes Of Wrath: it was magnificent but so, so awful in its relentless misery that I just can't face the idea of ever putting myself through it again.

BigUn - The Stand is the one where most of the population are wiped out by Super Flu: it's bloomin' brilliant.

Oh I don't ever want to read LOrd of The Flies again. I still have too much recollection of it from when I read it 30 years ago to ever want to go there again. Good book, well written - but it's in the same never-to-be-opened-again box as Animal Farm for me.

The stand....whats that about, think i may have attempted that one once...

Two more - Of Mice And Men and Lord Of The Flies - both pretty much perfect novels, although for different reasons.

The Stand would be one of my top two! And I love Bill Bryson but I think he'd be in my top twenty, rather than top 4.

If I'm working on the assumption that these are going to be the five books I can have on a desert island, I'd probably go for -

The Stand
The complete works of Austen (is that cheating?)
The Lord Of The Rings (not the best book I've ever read, true - but I like to go back to it and there's enough in there to keep me going!)
Erm....probably a huge history book, although that might be cheating too.

Mocking bird is my number 4, love that book.

Angelas ashes by Frank Mc Court..i read this over and over and over again.

small Island by Bill Bryson, makes me laugh out loud every time i read it.

The shining....Obv

Any factual books, i have a strange love for the BNF which is a drug book Any medical book.

dribble drivel, woman, drivel!

I hated Labyrinth - awful stupid book with completely moronic plot "twists". Can't imagine how I finished it.

I did, however, like The Forgotten Garden - sorry.

Would like to throw in that appalling one about Ukraine Tractors - shite.

And (sorry again) The Famished Road, by Ben Okri. Tried it once, years and years ago - liked the first couple of chapters, then got stuck. Had borrowed it, it had to go back so I never finished it. This grated so much, I had to buy it when I saw it in a charity shop - made the effort (grinding) to finish it and was UTTERLY pissed off that it never lifted itself up to the (to my mind) level of the first two chapters.

Georgette Heyer's Penhallow - godawful book with not a single sympathetic character in it. I didn't care who murdered whom; I didn't care if they all died. But I discovered that it was contract-breaking book - she wrote a bad one deliberately to get out of the contract with her publishers (and did a DAMN fine job of it being bad!)

Bigun - what are your four? Wanders off to think what they might be... :)