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.

LIlbreeze

I bought the 'Peculiar sadness of lemon cake' . It could have been an extraordinary book as the central idea is great but unfortunately it didn't seem to go anywhere. I shan't buy her new book which features a character with a quirky mathematical ability.

I have 'The Weird Sisters', 'Under The Same Stars' by Tim Lott, 'The Beauty Of Humanity Movement' by Camilla Gibb, 'Harlem is Nowhere' by Sharifa Rhodes Pitt, 'The Leftovers' by Tom Perotta and 'Good Food Writing 2011' in a pile next to the bed, awaiting my attention.

Has anyone read and got an opinion on any of these?

I didn't mind the Weird sisters, although I did want to slap them a few times, and it is all a bit poncey.

Thanks Glastocat.

You might like to try 'The Love Goddess Cooking School' by Melissa Senate. I enjoyed that. It's not High Literature but it's not dumb pager filler either. and it has food.

Ohh I like a good book with lots of food in it eyes toppling pile of cookbooks by the bedside.

I know this isn't really the thread for it but have you read The Cookie Club, glastocat? if you like cookies and recipes, especially American ones, then this book is worth it just for the recipes. It's an ok story - bit schmaltzy - but you get full cookie recipes at the start of each chapter. :)

The worst book ever is Cecilia Aherne's booking called something about lost things (can't remember the title - have blocked it.) It's about a land where everyone's lost things go to. It reminded me of Enid Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree, except it was for adults.

I seriously think she was on drugs when she wrote that. Absolutely awful.

Will look them up Thumwitch,like the sound of the recipes!

I have a special loathing of Cecilia aherne. There is a rumour that I spread as much as possible that she got her book deal in return for her dad giving Rupert Murdoch the Sky contract for Ireland and that she probably doesn't write the books herself.

I loathe Cecilia Aherne, Louise and Tilly Bagshawe and their ilk. Formulaic, lazy writing sweeping bookstores like a polluted tidal wave. How many really original writers get knocked back because of complacent, cowardly publishers who stick to what they know rather than developing newly fledged authors over the long term?

And I thought Waterstones was planning to freshen up its promotion and display policy? Getting rid of the 'Buy two, get three' promotion with all the attendant press fanfare only to replace it rows of the same old, same old 'Bestsellers' and 'Buy one, get one half price' island displays.

The difference, anybody?

AnneofCleavers I really disliked The Slap (it was on the first page of this thread and still here!) but I did finish it. No great miraculous change/ revelation towards the end so I wouldn't bother if I were you. It's one of the few books that I have actually binned rather than pass on the charity shop as I thought there was just a lot of unpleasant, misogynistic, unsympathetic characters and attidtudes in it. Not brilliantly written either. Which was a shame because the original idea was good. Try "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver instead!

I read a couple of books which had lots of recipes in them along the way. Can't remember either author, but the titles were Like Water for Chocolate and The Cure for Death by Lightning. I read them so long ago that I can't remember the plots, but I think the prose was OK or I'd not remember them at all except with horror!

Cecilia Aherne can't string a sensible sentence together, let alone a a plot, and I shall take heed of your opinion on the others too, Atreegrows.

Jux I loved 'Like Water For Chocolate' and the film of the book also.

I haven't read 'The Cure For Death By Lightning' so will look out for it.

'Consuming Passions' by Michael Lee West is a funny non fiction book all about the authors crazy, eccentric deep Southern family. As for a little magical realism, you can't beat the backlist of Joanne Harris- 'Five quarters of the orange', 'Blackberry wine', 'Chocolat' and 'lollipop shoes', all with food in!

Those all sound good. I have a birthday coming up, so will ask for book tokens. It used to be I got those as a matter of course, but hasn't happened for a few years

Worst books ever:
Jemima J by Jane Green-really poor message- if you're fat you're unhappy if you're thin you're not - utter tripe
Atonement by Ian McEwan - totally wasted hours
1st shopoholic book- made me want to slap somebody...hard
My sister's keeper-jodi picoult- total cop out ending in my opinion
The people next door - I can't remember who by- totally convoluted & forgettable
Lightening-Dean Koontz- just pointless

I could go on & on!

MrsHels - Jemima J was even worse in its message

if you're fat you are unhappy and you won't get any career recognition
when you're skinny you will be miserable and men will only want you as arm candy

when you finally fall in love that man will make you complete and then you will become a healthy slim size. God help the single woman!

Everybodys...terrible isn't it? And that's not including all the first/second/third person narration.

I haven't read it for years but I can still remember the horror!

Sometimes I think about reading it again just to see if it's as bad as I remember!

No one will have read this, that's how bad it is: "The deed of Paksenarrion". It's so bad it kind of gets good by the end, through it's own badness that is, not because of any kind of improvement.

Oh I've read lots of Paksenarrion!!!! They were dreadful, weren't they? My bro enjoyed them (normally expect better of him, but maybe he was having a brain aberration or something) so I read the first; he then lent me the second, at which I gulped but then read, and so it went on seemingly endlessly.

I think they're still in my house somewhere.....

I love MN! Finally someone I can discuss the awfulness of D of P with!!

Somehow I got addicted to it (have a massive three in one volume of the whole thing). I used it as a door stop in the toilet (after OH had attempted it and warned me off it), then picked it up when I run out of reading materials one day and kept going a few pages at a time for about a year!

I think I got into a zen state with it and just kept going, a bit like reading the Tale of Genji!

at zen state over P! I am happy to say that I was v ill at the time I was reading them and they are lost in a haze; I can remember tiny bits, and the fact that I did read them and they were shite, but very little else. I am spared shuddering for the rest of my life!

Check out the Facebook Book Club if you love reading loads of comments there too

yy to Atonement. Note to Ian McKewan - this book has already been written and it's called "The Go-Between" by JP Hartley. Please write out a cheque to JP Hartley for all the royalties you nicked from him. And his book is much better.

Ian McEwan and Martin Amis are pompous old pricks, and their books is proper orful

(Child in Time was great, but that was many, many years ago)