post your unpopular literature opinions?

The Goldfinch was really two or three good books all crammed into one book that went on too long.

Lol so true! I think that this is the only time the film was better than the book!!!
ETA: or maybe because of the insane level of detail in the book the set makers for the film just did a colour by numbers job. Lol

I haven’t read any John Saul in years @SerafinasGoose . From what I remember they satisfied a gloomy teenage interest in the dark and nasty. James Herbert was interesting. Always a shower sex scene, freely admitted his marketing/ad background led him to provide what the public wanted, which in those days was gore, horror and shower sex. When he tried milder stuff it wasn’t the same. Rats devouring people fine, traditional ghost stories not so good.

The first book group meeting I went to was discussing a Jodie Picoult book. They were going through a set of suggested book group questions about it, and without having read the book I could answer them all, it was just so formulaic .

American literature is better than English.

I LOVE the Lord of the Rings. There is something so medidative and calm, yet also grand about it. It's homey yet heroic, slow yet epic, all at once. And the descriptions! You gotta embrace them. Go on Tolkein, tell me more about the rocks surrounding Mordor! What colour were they, exactly what colour? How did they feel underfoot? How did they feel underfoot to all of the different characters, given all their different types of feet and quality of shoes, which you must now also describe to me in excellent detail? Tell me again Tolkein, please, please explain, were the rocks surrounding Mordor the same or different to the rocks just a little further outside of Mordor? How about the rocks INSIDE of Mordor, yes Tolkein, now we're talking.

@hwaclanhdead thank you! I've ordered Defiant Courage.

Austen is just Mills and Boon for midwits

Too late now, obviously, but you can just skip all the Jewish mysticism stuff in Daniel Deronda, without losing anything from the main story. Ditto the battle scenes in War & Peace.

Haven't been able to read it. Page after page of tedious narrative about what colour belt/trousers/shirt each dwarf was wearing, how he had his beard, etc. GET ON WITH THE STORY!!

Why so with Ian McEwen?

A Little Life was just misery porn.

Silas Marner, however, is perfect, and not just because she managed to restrain herself in that respect.

I was defeated by the introduction to Daniel Deronda in the Penguin Classics. It languished on my shelves for years until the clearout where I told myself 'You're not going to read it. Own that. Give it the chance to find someone who will.' 😄

I love GE, but will admit this is true of Romola.

(And that every time Mordecai starts proselytising in Daniel Deronda, I skip to the next bit where Gwendolyn Harley hits the roulette tables.😁)

You can read a page of George Eliot over and over again and think 'nope, still no idea WTF you are on about or trying to get at there, George.'

Agree with this.

Oooh, yes, I agree about Kate Mosse's Labyrinth. It's the book I always call the "Look" I speak French! Look at me, speaking French! I speak French, you know!" book.

@Whiskyinajar, I really like Chaucer but in the much-derided Penguin modern translation. The Prologue is so clever and resonates as much today as it ever did. The Franklin’s Prologue and Tale was set for A level when l took it and it was one of my favourite works we studied. I can’t be bothered with Middle English nowadays, though, hence my preference for the translation.

Yes - I never particularly enjoyed reading dickens, though I liked lots of others from similar era, but I really really like listening to dickens in audiobook format. It just comes across better - designed to be listened to rather than read I guess. I was really quite surprised.

I agree with so many of these comments. I cannot understand why Lord of the Rings is so popular - teenage boys seem to be the main readers of it. Little elves do nothing for me. Most Booker prize winners are unreadable, pretentious drivel. Catcher in the Rye was one of my O level set texts and I enjoyed it as a fifteen year old as I was a similar age to the protagonist and could relate to all the teenage angst. I think I would find myself cringing if I read it now. I have enjoyed some of the classics but mostly in film versions. Henry James is the most overrated of all nineteenth century authors in my opinion. Portrait of a Lady still sends me into paroxysms of rage forty years after having the misfortune of studying it for A level. I enjoy poetry but I like traditional poetry that rhymes. John Betjeman is one of my favourite poets. Reading should be for pleasure and I have always been a bookworm but I would rather read a good thriller than anything worthy.

Having read a lot of YA books during lockdown. A lot of it verges on soft porn and is all much of a muchness.

The Hobbit was OK but The Lord of the Rings was long and boring.

Alexander McCall Smith is always reliable for a comfort read, but he is getting rather preachy and formulaic.

Harry Potter series of books were really enjoyable.

JKR's bank manager doesn't care that you think they are shit. 😁

Chaucer is illegible nonsense.

And I never got the raving about that book The Labyrinth and was pissed off as I wanted to love it.

Shakespeare is pointless and repetitious.

😂

So good to say that.

Now to read back and see what travesty has been uttered about stuff I enjoy.