to think this is the most over-rated book ever

[SlightlyJaded]

'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things'

I love books. From big dramatic plotlines and epic storylines to subtle and beautfifully written prose with well drawn characters. I like quirky books, classic books, modern literature, poetry - anything well written or engaging.

I almost never have to 'force' myself to finish a book but always do finish a book if I've started (why do we do that? ) but thought 'If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things' was the dullest most over-rated dross I've ever read.

Or did I miss something?

And yes, this should be in books, but I prefer AIBU

Scarab I never read Catcher in the Rye. I will have to now!

Books we love- anything by Murakami. I don't agree with Unquiet Dad's assessment that he can't write convincing female characters- I think he writes from the perspective of a man who knows he'll never understand women.

I also love Stefan Zweig, possibly the best short-story writer ever. (Also committed suicide btw .

liked Love in the time of Cholera (on my re-read list for next year) (Yes, I appreciate this is pathetic)

Loved 100 years of solitude.

Also loved the south american Louis De B - they are amazing; have read them all at least three times. Also Birds without Wings is beautiful as well.

Enjoyed Midnight's Children - but I think it might have been enough Salman Rushie for one life time. Not a criticism , I just found it a bit overwhelming and am not sure I have the brain space to repeat the process.

Hated Lovely Bones - utter shite;

I have a special place in my hate for "Special Topics in Calamity Physics" - DO NOT READ unless you want to stab this book in rage at the smuggery of the main character.

What have people got against Iain Banks? I agree the basically-a-lurid-thriller Canal Dreams was a bit "meh", especially coming after the brilliant Espedair Street, and I found A Song of Stone impenetrably turgid, but everyone's allowed one off, "experimental" novel. I've enjoyed all his others.

Anything by Primo Levi, I just cannot wade through it, too dense. I know it's heart wrenching subject matter because of the Holocaust but his books just plod. Another suicide author.

I think if Murakami was trying to show us that the protagonist of "Norwegian Wood" didn't understand women, he could have done so (a) more subtly than by making all the women interchangeable ciphers, and (b) without making the narrator a complete and utter self-absorbed dick.

Ok, I loved If This Be A Man. Primo Levi isn't just another suicide author.

McEwan is variable for me.

I liked everything up to and including "The Innocent" - his macabre short stories especially.

I liked "Enduring Love" although I don't think the opening with the balloon is "all that" and, I didn't get the utterly stupid chapter where they go and get a gun from the bloke with a rabid dog, or something.

"Atonement" took a loooooooooong time to get going but was sort of worth it once it did.

I hated "On Chesil Beach" and could not wait for it to end. A 100-odd page novelette which felt five times as long. Halfway through I was saying, "yes, we get the message."

The Corrections. Utter crap, imo.

Am mildly shocked at "another suicide author" tbh. Not too sure what it's meant to convey, but to dismiss someone's suicide in such a way leaves me a bit

I agree with UQD on Ian McEwan.

i tolerated Saturday only because it was set literally aroiund the corner from where I lived, and it captured that moment in time/space really well. I hated every second of On Chesil Beach.

The Corrections - yes - GODAWFUL. Franzen has something new out and it just renews my anger at having wasted my time previously.

I really hated The Lovely Bones.

I didn't like Tender is the night (though I loved The Great Gatsby)

I can't read Hemingway, I probably should try again.

I completely loved the Corrections and am really looking forward to his new one (on my Kindle as we speak).

What did people think of "The Beach"? Halfway through I was prepared to fling it away, saying, "Yes, Alex, mate, we get the fucking message, you are a Really Cool Person who thinks going to Thailand is Really Cool and taking lots of drugs is Really Cool." Then it started to get interesting. About 100 pages later than it should, but I cut him the slack.

The only Booker winner I have ever unequivocally enjoyed was "Moon Tiger". But then I did read it when I was about 19, and I hadn't read many narratives which played with time in that way. Trying Lively's new one at the moment and finding it irritatingly, smugly upper-middle-class in its assumptions. (Most hated sentence so far: "Cheese-board for any survivors.")

I loved the Corrections. I am aware there is some doubt as to Levi's suicide but it was the stated cause of death for a long time.

Oh yes, the girl with the dragon tattoo is hideous.

Mystic I wasn't intending to make light of his tragic death, not atall. Aplogies that it came across that way. Was just noting how many authors on this part of the thread had committed suicide. It seemed a high percentage, that's all.

Francaaaaaaaaaa!!!

Apologies even

No, Primo Levi did indeed kill himself. What was not clear was what did you mean with "another suicide writer".

I think that If this be a man is one of (if not the) best books about Holocaust.

I'd also throw in any book where the heroine is "short of money", but still manages to live in Notting Hill or equivalent and send Tarquin to prep and violin lessons. It's reminiscent of "The Railway Children" and "playing at being poor for a while."

The fact that there are so many of these books - almost always by women - suggests that a disturbingly large number of my fellow writers are insulated from the realities of recession, unemployment and budgeting.

x posted Perfumed

Mystic, I liked The corrections, a lot!

Primo Levi is the bee's knees. The fact that he ended up taking his life doesn't make him a depression writer. I always thought that Plath's output was a little too English Lit as well, but it seems you're not allowed to speak ill of authors who have really suffered. I prefer A S Byatt or Margaret Forster for a more representative view of what it was like to be a woman that time.

There is a proportion of people Unquiet who in fact are insulated from recession and unemployment. That's life, I suppose.
But books like you describe (with little Tarquin at prep school) sounds like nightmares!

War and Peace. Read while pg with dd1 thinking I'll never have so much time on my hands again.

Now I mourn all those hours spent trudging through hundreds and hundreds of pages of battles. No one is ever going to give me back that time :)

perfumed, it's ok... don't worry :)

I haven't read all of this thread but completely agree re. Brick Lane, White Teeth, The Lovely Bones and the Da Vinci Code (although I did get to the end of all of them).

I haven't read Disgrace by JM Coetzee, but I found Elizabeth Costello extremely annoying.

I love Primo Levi.

I have also enjoyed everything I have read so far by Murakami.