I have just read possibly the worst book in the world

Twilight is the worst book ever.

I also remember reading some kind of dan brown/Indiana Jones type thriller. Lots of jungles and tombs and catacombs. Every "interesting" paragraph went like this:

John leaned into the open tomb...
...And out popped a monster!!!!

I always assume that the middle-aged, middle class ladies being overlooked in favour of (as they see it) undeserving bimbos are Ms Brookner.

Yes that's it,they are soothing and her protagonists make me feel that I might be poor and dragged up but at least I'm not a complete drip. (grin)

Shadowmancer by GP Taylor - hands down the worst book I have ever read

Like Glastocat, I feel I ought to hate Anita Brookner's books, but I find them quite soothing perhaps because she only seems to have one plot, about a nicely-brought up, no longer entirely young woman, who wears cashmere twinsets and can't understand why the man with whom she is silently in love prefers a mini-skirted and much younger girl. It's a very long time since I read one, though.

Ohh I bet there are a few Anita Brookner haters here. All her books are about very dull rich women who make a cataclysmic mistake of sorts which is really something quite minor. I must admit I love them, although I really have no idea why.

Ha! That's me then listmaker I was obsessed with the Lymond books when I was about 17.

Has anyone ever tried a Dorothy Dunnett book? I work with someone who is massively into her and he lent me a book but I couldn't get past the second chapter. I had no clue what was going on......

Think you need to be really clever to like her books!

OrmIran I am just too shallow for something like Ulverton. Other more intellectual types in my book club did like it!

Clan of the Cave Bear - I think I read a couple of them and also liked them at first but then they just got ridiculous! Wow that was a long time ago though!

Martin Amis is not a nice man. You can tell that just be reading his books.

In fact I should divorce DH just because of the Book Club type drivel he keeps buying me for christmas and birthdays. I swear he does a sweep of WH Smiths and buys all the one with recomendations by Punch and Judy with gushing reviews by newspapers book critics. And by and large they are something and nothing. Mostly nothing. And they make me cross.

Ah linerunner - I wondered if you meant Ulverton. I read that years ago but I seem to remember loving it. IIRC it was a beautifully written book if not exactly fast-moving!

I am reading Skippy Dies atm. Struggling a little. Don't like anyone very much. It seems a bit of a sprawler trying to deal with loads of topical issues in one book. If it doesn't pull it's socks up soon I may have to consign it to the book sheld to gather dust.

Skip to book 4 then SGM! In my defence, I was only about 20 when I started reading them.

Ah now see, I thought the first couple of Clan of the Cave Bear weren't too bad but after that they definitely took several turns for the worse. By the 4th book (yes I persevered) it was getting ridiculous and it got to a point where I could skip 4 or so pages at once, because the sex scenes were boring and formulaic and she could just as well have written "See page 59" [or whichever] rather than typing it all out again! I never even bothered to get the last one - was too put off.

I'd also like to add in Laurell K Hamilton at this point. I quite liked her vampire/werewolf detective series - farfetched fantasty fiction of course, but quite enjoyable. But her later "fairy" stuff - oh my God - absolute drivel.

I think Wilbur Smith needs a good mention here - he should be taken out and shot for dissservices rendered to Eng Lit.

Does anyone remember the godawful series 'Clan of the Cave Bear'?

I also have issues with books that have been translated into English ...

Thank goodness I'm not the only one not to get on with Kate Atkinson. I thought it was just me. I wish i could love Dickens but Bleak House just gave me a migraine. For total drivel though i really recommend The Notebook (at least it's short). The Old Man and The Sea yawn, just yawn

The Firework Maker's Daughter is good, but it is for children.

StewieGriffinsMom, very surreal I can imagine. I spent the day in tears and I don't do that. My imagined future at that point had had me somehow sitting at his feet picking up the pearls falling from his lips.

Linerunner! I saw Charles Dance in Coriolanus on the South Bank. He was appalling (though the play's not good I agree).

attica locke - black water rising (couldn't finish it)
martina cole - booooooooring

Remembered - it was Ulverton by Adam Thorpe..........don't do it!

Anyone remember Joan Collins' Prime Time from back in the mists of time.......that book was sooooo bad!

Oh and my neighbour gave me a pile of books by someone called Jill Mansell - chick lit and just ridiculously bad........how do these people get published?!