Aibu to ask what books you love, that others hate!

[Ilovewineandcrisps]

Inspired by another thread, are there any books that you have really enjoyed but that others hate?

I saw We need to talk about Kevin mentioned several times relating to people who can't stand it, whereas it's one of my favourite books of all time!

I loved all the Jackie Collins. And Jilly Cooper. And Jeffrey Archer. Then again, i will read the back of a shampoo bottle so don't think im a literary oracle. I just like a good yarn.

I loved A Little Life.

I liked 'We need to talk about Kevin'. Found it disturbing, but very readable.

'Life after life' is my all time favourite book. It's my desert island book, without a doubt. Every time I read it, I find something different. I've recommended it to people who have loved it too. I enjoyed 'God in Ruins' but it wasn't a patch on life after life....

Well I loved the Wheel of Time series of books with a passion. I have read all the books about five times. Anyone who has read the books probably guessed that from my name.

Everyone I know hated them!

I loved The DaVinci Code but others seem to be all snootsy about it :-( yes, snootsy is a real word I'm sure

It was an interesting story, it was just really poorly written.

I devoured the DA Vinci code but yes, it was badly written!

I also adored the Twilight books, and was mortified to read on line that they were 'suitable for a stupid thirteen year old girl" ! I am a great grandmother!

If you liked the twilight books do read "the host" by the same author

TH White's version of The Morte d'Arthur better known as The Sword in the Stone. Read it when I was 9 and can't remember how often I've read it since

Fifty Shades of Grey

I don't model my life or relationships on it it's just sheer escapism.

Kit30 That is an awesome book!

I liked Harriet Lanes "Her", I really enjoyed it. I thought the flimsy "reason" for all the venom and vengefulness was the whole point of the book.

on other book threads ive read here , so many people here loved 'A Fine Balance' by Rohinton Mistry... I hated it..
As for Girl on a Train I thought it was total and utter twaddle and the ending just totally inchoherent.. (just mad)

Loved Wolf Hall.and Bring Up the bodies .
I liked The Slap also..

was bored rigid by Colm Toibin's Nora webster
Brookiln was pretty good.

Oh and the '100 year old man that climbed out of a window' and the Man called Ove.. Both Ghastly (well i gave up on Ove .. ) ..

The Pilgrmage of Harold Fry .. started off good , but got terrribly tedious after about a third through

The best 2 books I've read recently (on Hols) were 'The Little Red Chairs' by Edna O'brien and 'At Hawthorn Time' by Melissa Harrison

LOVED We Need To Talk About Kevin, thought it was an extraordinary read. In fact a lady who had already read it before me described it as 'gut wrenching' and, once I'd read it, I remember thinking that that was a very apt description. I read it when my daughter was a newborn 10 years ago and my son was only 17 months old but I just couldn't put it down and read it in a couple of days. It was actually a book club choice of the group I was then part of and I was positively fizzing to meet up again and discuss it profusely. However, when we finally did (an age later to me as I'd read it so quickly) it turned out there was only me who had liked/'got' it and actually completed it so I ended up feeling really flat and borderline freakshow due to the subject matter. One woman even said I sounded like I thought what Kevin had done was a 'good idea' Erm ok then... .

Philip Roth - Portnoy's Complaint though I love everything he's written that I've read apart from I Married a Communist.

Harold Jacobsen - the Finkler Question.

All my book club loathed both of these. I absolutely loved both and laughed my socks off. I am chastened by their dislike and it's a shame as I love the Big Macho Americans.

On the same note, Time's Arrow by Martin Amis. I thought it was inexplicably underrated, I loved it, it's one of the few books I've read that put me into an altered reality. Haven't read it for 20 years though so maybe I would feel differently now.

Nineteen Eighty Four is my all time top book. It would be my desert island book and I've read it at least 100 times... yes it is depressing but it's not a book I've ever come across being slated.... I mean it's Nineteen Eighty Four

I bought and read all the True Blook books long before it was a TV series.

I also loved Harry Potter and Phil Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.

Also loved 'The girl with the dragon tattoo" books.

On balance I've also read Chaucer and Shakespeare!! And enjoyed them too but we're not on a thread about that!

• True Blood

Omg!
How could I forget John Irving!?
The cider house rules and a prayer for Owen especially

Yes the dragon tattoo books were great

*Howard Jacobson
And I know he's not American

crunchy - try "We" / мы by Zamyatin. It was apparently Orwell's inspiration for 1984 and is very powerful IMO. Also short. It's a shame it's not more widely read outside Russia.

I really liked We Need To Talk About Kevin too, and another of Lionel's books - Big Brother.

I also thought The Girl On The Train was a jolly good wheeze. Cleverly done and a page turner. What's not to like?

My guilty secret is that I love Martin Amis. I just think he is a master craftsman and I love his writing, love his sentences, his use of unusual words. When you read some of his paragraphs you just know that he has spent days or even weeks getting them just so. Doesn't mean I love everything about him as a person of course.

But overall my favourite fiction authors of all time are female - Fay Weldon, Iris Murdoch, Helen Dumore, Muriel Spark, Kate Atkinson, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine etc etc. So perhaps that balances out my Amis blindspot.

I would urge all of you to read p G Wodehouse and Nancy Mitford