I have just read possibly the worst book in the world

[Mrsrobertduvall]

A Cold Season by Alison Littlewood.
Disclaimer...I bought it in Smith's on a buy one get one half price, and grabbed it as the cover looked good.
It's about a mother and son marooned in a small Lancashire village with unfriendly locals...a bit Wicker Man-ish. And of course there are witch/devil undertones.
It is utter tripe.
It is now in the charity shop for some poor sod to buy.

Ok, I know this thread is a few weeks old but I've just found it. I was looking for reviews for Cold Season. I am really really struggling to read it, and not sure if I can be arsed to finish it. Someone tell me if it gets any better in the 2nd half.

Failing that, just tell me what happens and put me out of my misery!

Oh I like Kathy Reichs - it's very interesting reading about forensic pathology (to me).

Can't abide Karin Slaughter though - although she's not a bad writer, just a sick woman - sick in the head. She must be a good writer - she really sucks you into her books - and then you can't get the mental imagery out again, ever. I don't need to read any more of her twisted stuff.

I implore you all to try Karen Russells 'Swamplandia'. It was one of the Pullitzer nominated books of this year and what a shame she did not win.

This is such an unusual book in an unusual setting (Everglades) with a haunting sense of place.

I am afraid I love Karin Slaughter, Tess Gerritsen, Alex Kava, MJ Kerley, Chris Carter and all that sicko thriller/killer/police procedural stuff, Thumbwitch. Not sure what that says about me, .

Quite good to see I was not the only one who didn't like the tractor book.

Worst books ever - for me that's a closely contested fight between Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Man and Boy (if that's what it's called) by Tony Parsons. Both really dire. Probably Zen wins because it had pretensions to grandeur.

Atree - maybe it says that you have good internal bleaching processes in your brain?
I don't and remain haunted by certain events in certain books, years later even - therefore can't be doing with reading anything like that again because my poor brain can't deal with any more! I used to love all horror/blood'n'guts stuff in my teens but now - no. So if those other authors you mention are all like Karin Slaughter then thanks for the heads up, I shall avoid them!

I love all that nasty vicious crime stuff too! I am the nicest gentlest person imaginable ..honest.

Not so much Geritsend and SLaughter though. I love Kay Scarpetta and the one who;s an archaeologist - can't remember who writes them though.

at thumbswitch-

I can read these quite happily but if I see anything killed in real life (cats with birds, David Attenborough programmes) it haunts me for an age...

I find it increasingly hard to read newspapers and watch TV news as I cannot shake off certain stories. If I read about a case of bullying I have a total meltdown and it haunts me for months.

You'd probably laugh ironically if you knew some of the places I have worked in as an RMN (very famous forensic prison hospitals!).

Then again, that may well explain the perversity buried shallowly within my soul....

I used to read all the Patricia Cornwells but got sort of bored by the relentless horror.

Now Kathy Reichs is my guilty pleasure, and at least she has a sense of humour and a very cool leading man!

I am trying the Inspector Montalbano series. Currently suspending judgement until I've read the first one.

Also reading M Glenn Taylor's 'The Ballad Of TrenchMouth Taggart' which I adore already and re-reading 'The Barbarian Nurseries' by Hector Tobar.

The Alchemist, surely? There has never been nor will there ever be a worse book. And think of all the nonsense it spawned, like the Celestine Prophecy, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, all that type of shyte.

As for the title of worst book in the world after The Alchemist, yy to The Red Tent and The Island. I also hated The Accidental by Ali Smith, but maybe it was because I'm too thick to understand it. Oh and Shantaram. The prose was so purple I saw spots.

Sorry, just realised that Zen was written before The Alchemist, so I can't lay that at Coelho's door. It's still the worst book ever written though.

sayanything yep I hated the Accidental. Ali Smith gets SO fawned over & I can't see why.

Shantaram is on my shelf but not sure I can be bothered to read it!

marshmalowpies here's a random sample from Shantaram:

"We kissed. Our lips made thoughts, somehow, without words: the kind of thoughts that feelings have. Our tongues writhed and slithered in their caves of pleasure. Tongues proclaiming what we were. Human. Lovers."

I'm not making it up.

Oh yes, forgot the Accidental, didn't even make it halfway through. Awful characters Straight to the charity shop.

thumbwitch i love karin slaughter! mind you, very little stays in my brain for long....

i was surprised that i loved the red tent but the last days of dogtown by her i couldn't be bothered to finish and that is unusual for me...

Didn't make it past page 5 of The Accidental.

Also agree that The Island was a load of tosh. I feel faintly guilty about saying this as so many people seem to love it but though it was quite interesting from an historical pov, the characterisation and story-telling were very crude.

Say anything, I know better than to read the Alchemist, having dragged myself through Veronika deserves decides to die, which I mentioned up thread. Who buys that shit,he has written loads and they are all best sellers! It beggars belief,it really does.

Otoh I liked the red tent,and we need to talk about kevin, and while The island was really badly written I quite enjoyed the historical bits.

I think the Island was written by two different people. The Prologue, as far as I can remember, was rather beautifully done. The rest was a potentially wonderful story ruined by the scrawling of an untalented 7 year old. Which bit was written by Victoria I wonder? (hint: not the prologue).

Nadir of all things literary is some crap about building a cathedral by some Tory arse . Follet I think ken. So crap I wrote my only ever amazon review about it. Be warned

There are some truly terrible books mentioned on this thread (I'm looking at you, The Island, Pillars of the Earth and Labrynth). However surely the worst book ever written must be Pamela?

Tis the price English students have to pay for only having 5 hours of lectures a week and for the fact that work involves lying in bed reading.

I was pisseds off by the Kate Mosse books.the first ok,the second a re hash of the first.they were set up as franchises,as of the areas etc.trying to be like the da Vinci code.

I didn't think Pillars of the Earth was that bad but hadn't much choice: took it as an emergency back-up paperback on holiday with my shiny new Kindle....Kindle broke, so I had to read it! (I was in Montreal in French Canada so couldn't even find an English language bookshop...)

I actually really enjoyed some of the books mentioned here -The Room, Chesil Beach...

The Particular Sadness Of Lemon Cake however has been on my bedside half read ever since buying it in September. Thinking now I should just give up...

My own worst list would include Catch 22, Ulysses, Midnight's Children, On The Road. Finished all of them except Catch 22 but wished I hadn't bothered.

I've been reading The Slap and I am really disliking it. I don't know if I should try to finish it or to give it up now.