I have just read possibly the worst book in the world

Ah!!! Thanks for that - now I know what the HV was rambling on about.
I must say it was a bit of an uncomfortable moment!!

Celestine Proph is about the fact that every chance encounter in your life is not 'chance' at all, but designed to help you on your path, if you recognise its potential. I do agree in that there are often opportunities that can be missed if we don't keep our eyes open or think of possible ways in which meeting someone/something happening could benefit us, (phew, still with me?)
BUT
the book makes something of significance out of Every Little Thing (Look! There's someone walking towards me! What does this mean for me?) that it gets a tad tedious.

Linerunner Glad it's not just me! Life is too short for bad fiction. There's so much good stuff out there.

Can I recommend that no-one ever bothers with The Last Templar by can't remember Omar somebody I think. Also, surprisingly a Phillippa Gregory set in the modern day called Perfectly Correct. Awful. I loved The Little House, Boleyn Girl, but this was dire. Tedious, dated and distasteful.

Re The Celestine Prophesy

Years ago when DS2 was a new born and you had to go and see the HV I went into the room and the HV was upset about something. She went through checks but started crying. I asked her what was up and she cried more ( something about restructure/bullying bosses) and she told me the Celestine Prohesy was getting her through her troubles - I have to say it didn't look like it was helping!
She told me to read this fantastic book.

I got it and I couldn't get past a few pages. i thought it was total shite but put it down to me having a three week old baby. I tried again when I found the book about 2 months ago and same result.
Serious question What is it about? I haven't a clue. HV was going on an=bout enlightment!

I read an awful book about cycling in the Tour De France I think it was.

It was just ride a bike a bit, have sex, ride a bike a bit, fall off, have sex, win, end

Awful

So awful I can't remember the title!

Miranda, I've got the unread Kate Atkinson Museum one too. I once got to page 4. I just can't get the thought, 'What a load of old shit' out of my head as I'm trudging through the sentences.

• NB Xmas Carol is fiction.

Now there's a challenge! It's in my 'to read' pile. I bought it recently (on sspecial for WHS) because of all the rave reviews & the cover says it's good Sorry for being stupid

I would like to second Victoria Hislop but for The Return. So, so tedious that when the characters die you are relieved, not saddened. Story doesn't add up. And getting through it was a real trial.

Also Kate Atkinson. I was given the Museum one & have tried twice to read it but gave up as too much effort too remember who was who.

Can I put in a good word for Dickens? I came across some of his non-fiction writing a few years ago, essays. They were very good, very funny & well-observed. Try A Christmas Carol. Read just the first few pages and I guarantee you will be drawn in. It's very creepy and perfect for winter late-night reading.

stubbornstains, I bought it (the Celestine Prophesy) in a charity shop. I was that poor unwary soul.

tribpot, I am saving, 'As bad as the Celestine Prophesy' for Monday morning now.

A weasel in rehab is going into my list of phrases to try and work into meetings.

Yes yes to whoever mentioned Dean Koontz. I read one of his books recently and it was AWFUL. There was a smilie that went along the lines of, "He felt like a weasel but like a weasel in rehab." I woke up DP just so I could read it to him and laugh. Not even to mention his habbit of using a word and then defining it in the next sentance.

Kate Mosse is also awful. I read Labyrinth then went and read Winter Ghosts which is even worse than Labyrinth.

Ian McEwan is rubbish as well. I am never EVER going to read another one of his novels. Studying Atonement and Enduring Love in Literature was more than enough for me.

Don't even pollute the charity shop with it, Line Runner Think of the poor unwary soul who might pick it up. In the absence of the Mediterranean, could I suggest the recycling box/ using it to light the barbeque?

I have the Celestine Prophesy in a pile of unreads books for desperate times. Straight to the charity shop, then?

The Celestine Prophecy. Appalling, sloppy woo bollocks dressed up as some kind of crap adventure story. I threw it off a Greek ferry.

Agree with "The Island"- I think we know who has the brains in the Hislop household, and it ain't Victoria...

I actually really liked "Kevin", but agree that "The Post Birthday World" is a crock of shite....the love interest is a snooker player, ffs.

Some truly great books have ended up on this thread. Jane Eyre? Far from The Madding Crowd? Middlemarch? All wonderful.

Nora I think I decided it just wasn't for me, that prose style isn't what I like to read. (Lucky Break I mean.) I'm reading or have read books mentioned on this thread and I totally love them and am moved by the descriptions and transported to other lives etc etc. Maybe I like a bit of floweriness
Esther Freud was on a doco about her dad and she seemed so lovely, I cried actually
And I'm sorry to have put that book next to Labyrinth, which was absolute crud.

Another one here who wouldn't reread Lord of the Flies even if I was paid!

I hate "Her Fearful Symmetry" with a passion, even though I've never read it, but the poncey title makes me want to smack the author.

I've been lurking on this thread :o. I completely agree with you Anxious about the Esther Freud novel - Lucky Break. I read it and, like you, thought it was a nothing book. I felt bad about not liking it because Esther Freud came across as such a lovely person when she was on MN for her chat last month.

I tried reading The Da Vinci Code and got about 200 pages into it and flung it away in disgust - awful book. Can't think why it took me 200 pages to discover that :o.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake - well that was a weird one. Characters turning into furniture huh? Not one I'd want to read again. Nor will I want to read One Day again, which I bought just to see what all the fuss was about (wish I hadn't bothered).

I've decided life's too short to struggle through to the end of books I'm not enjoying, so the charity shop will be getting a big donation from me soon :o.

I loved Nick Hornby's earlier books, but absolutely hated "How to be Good", he can't write from a woman's point of view to save his life and I struggled to get to the end.
The Da Vinci Code, read about six pages and flung it back to the charity shop from whence it came.
All the three inch thick books my mum passes on to me, about mad, rich, very rude aristocrats, who think everyone else in the world is beneath them and all float around being irrationally bonkers. I usually just read the resume on the cover before discarding them. Nothing ever really happens, and I can never work out why they insist on staying rattling around in their crumbling mansions that they can't afford to keep up, when they'd be much better off in a nice normal sized house!

(Sorry that was to duchesse)

Agreed. In my defence I list the piss poor undeveloped characters of all the women in Coriolanus. Now I might just shut up about it.

Labyrinth. Kate Mosse. Truly, truly tragic.
I read that one that Esther Freud did a chat on here about - I read it when it came out. It's about actors and employs 'spare prose', ie normal things happen, hair is described, or not, he might have an affair, or not. That sort of thing. It was all I could do to not warn people beforehand. Just such a nothing book. But she seems like a lovely lady.

I do think on this thread that we need to distinguish bad books (piss poor writing, ridiculous or far-fetched plot, undeveloped characters) from books that we just don't like.