post your unpopular literature opinions?

I enjoyed the first few of Jodie Picoult's books with the interesting dilemmas. But at some point, I think when she had become a hit, perhaps there was a lot of pressure from the publishing house to churn out books and somehow they seemed to take a downturn and I got sick of them.
The one about the bloody elephants finished me off. It was so preachy. I can't remember what it was called.

Agree Stephen King's earlier stuff was his best. His output is massive and the individual volumes very hit and miss: some brilliant and insightful narratives which tap into very American-specific anxieties, balanced off with some horrible, clunky writing and dubious social attitudes.

You've got to love The Simpsons and their total mockery of the 'Indian' (ugh!) burial ground as a tired old trope. They did a great number on Edgar Allan Poe - King's favourite source of inspiration - with Bart as the raven, too.

Talking of authors who should have their hard drives checked - step forward that other American horror writer, John Saul! He's like a King equivalent for a YA audience (the age at which I read him), with an unsophisticated writing style to match. But he's fixated on teenagers, and his plotlines are some of most twisted, disturbing shit I've ever read. That goes beyond the likes of Pet Sematary - which even King himself thought might have gone too far - into some really gratuitously dubious stuff. Some of his books made me want to scrub myself.

I haven't read much Dean Koonz. I quite enjoyed The Eyes of Darkness, but it was very obviously modelled on King's Firestarter.

Anyone read any Shirley Jackson? She's one US psychological/horror/Gothic writer whose work seems to be making a big comeback lately. We have always lived in the Castle is quite an entertaining read, but Merricat is a psychopathic protagonist to rival anyone in Saul. She's horrendous!

Ian McEwan wants his hard drive checking.

Georgette Heyer, Marian Keyes and Maeve Binchy are all geniuses.

A Little Life was absolute shite and I'm still shocked I managed to get through it.

🤞

@MyBoysHaveDogsNames

Yes of course

Skis against the Atom Knut Haukelid
Underwater Saboteur Max Manus
We die alone David Howarth (not an first hand account but well worth
reading. Tells the incredible story of Jan Baalsrud OR
Defiant Courage Astrid Karlsen Scott (also about Jan Baalsrud but written
more recently)
Report from #24 Gunnar Sonsteby
Another Man's Shoes Sven Svomme

You cannot judge a book by its film adaptation!

The last King I read was Under The Dome. I can persevere with most books but I made an exception for this one. Utter steaming pile of refuse.

Cannot bring myself to read any of his later work. He so needs to get back on the coke.

That would be so popular, every primary school in the country studies Macbeth.

Muppet Macbeth. Bloody genius! 😂

Miss Piggy was born (sewn?) to play Lady Macbeth.

Julian Barnes books are unreadable

Martin Amis started disappearing up his own orifice after London Fields

Personally I adore the muppets Christmas carol and think there should be muppet versions of all great literature.

I bet the muppet Macbeth would interest gcse students...

Or watch the Alastair Sim film. Best film version ever of that book.

Ian Rankin should have killed Rebus off at least six books ago, and PD James should have quietly sidelined Dalgleish after Devices and Desires.

It's getting more and more ridiculous the way this bloke is supposed to have retired yet walks into major investigations and instead of being thrown out gets to pretty much run them.

Not keen on Jodie Piccoult either That one about the sisters kidney donation was dreadful. I didnt read it but saw the film. So depressing.

The relationship in the Time Travellers Wife is creepy. It’s not a love story, it’s grooming.

Emma and Mr Knightley have a similar age gap which is grosser in some ways (e.g. that he's known her since she was a baby!) but the power dynamic thing is much more even

This totally threw me when I read Emma for the first time as a teenager. Could not believe Austen would let Emma wind up with such an old man! (Mr Knightley is what, mid-30s? So basically, you know, a grandfather)

Recently I had the same feeling on rereading Northanger Abbey. The power dynamic is so bad - the male love interest, Henry, is constantly patronising Catherine in the most pompously superior way. I was dying for her to dump his ass.

I agree with nearly everything mentioned so far. I quite like a bit of Shakespeare...although I prefer pantomime. HE Bates is better than Thomas Hardy.
And Mark Twain wasn't a great choice for English O level.

I can never make my mind up. I don't enjoy them when I read them and some of them are borderline offensive in their potrayal of minorities and neurodivernt characters. But the ethical dilemmas and the way she inhabits characters to make the most outrageous chocies seem like things you might plausibly do given a set of circumsances, is quite impressive, especially given how prolific she is. I find myself thinking about her books years after reading them.

I don't like Jodie Picout books either

Far from being literature but Marian Keyes books are the biggest load of boring inane waffly drivel ever.

Dickens decryers, if you get a chance listen to Hugh Grant reading A Christmas Carol on audible. It's absolutely bloody brilliant.

He was, actually. I think he was a good casting choice, because while he’s conventionally soulful looking, there’s also something slightly canny or calculating-looking about his upper lip?

I quite like that adaptation, though it really alters Austen’s ‘moral’, that sense trumps sensibility, and Marianne needed to learn to be more Elinor.

The Ang Lee version, while it does suggest that, also suggests Elinor is a little too buttoned up — she bursts into loud, hysterical sobs the moment she discovers Edward (sorry, I’ve kept calling him Edmund on this thread in error because I was talking about Mansfield Park on another thread) hasn’t married Lucy Steele.

Emma Thompson, while too old for the part (but I gather had to be cast for the funding), is good at conveying intense emotion under a stiff upper lip, but I think we’re meant to think the emotional cost is too high in this film, whereas I think Austen just thinks Elinor is right, and that people should be more like her…?

Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes deserved one another and should have been fired into darkest obscurity together along with all the pretentious contorted claptrap they wrote.

Ian Rankin should have killed Rebus off at least six books ago, and PD James should have quietly sidelined Dalgleish after Devices and Desires.

I loathed All The Light We Cannot See too. I had a strong feeling before I started reading it that I wasn't going to like it. I did finish it, but was so irritated by the characters by the end.

It's felt almost like sacrilege to admit I hated it, given how popular it's been. Pleased I'm not alone in this opinion.