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.

I bring you Labyrinth, by Kate Moss. "Buy it!", they all said, "you'll love it!" they said. fecking 260 pages in and it was still shite.

I have read not only Pemberley but also the follow up (An Unequal Marriage) and ET's sequels to Emma and Sense & Sensibility.
I'm not sure what came over me, it was an irrational phase of some sort, because I do agree that they are appalling tripe.

Labyrinth total rubbish. So too was The Da Vinci Code. And those Steig Larsson books. The Twilight series dreadful. In fact, just about everything that gets a general raving usually turns out to be tripe.

Oh okay, I take it back. Twilight has to be worse.

See, I'm happy reading fanfic of crap books coughTwilightcough but leave the classics alone! And ET's 'sequels' are surely just fanfic that is allowed to be published because it is based on books that are out of copyright.

Actually I tried to read a fanfic of pride and prejudice once, and I gave up at the line 'she pulled down her zipper'.

the hare with the amber eyes.

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGG.

i kept waiting for somethg,anything to happen. and it just didn't. never finished it.

Confessions of a shopaholic made me incandescent with rage. I just couldn't finish it and instead torn it in half and used it to prop up the wobbly wardrobe!

Elephants I couldn't agree more. I bloody loathe D H Lawrence.

I bring you 'The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake' (or whatever it was called) and also The Quickening Maze. It's not often I can't finish a book but these two? Pah!

Some truely rubbish books mentioned so far, but I think you'll find that the worst book ever published is Tommy's Tale by Alan Cumming. Biggest steaming pile of poo Ever.

Mind you, I think it came out around the same time as his fragrance for men, 'Cumming', so it may have been an elaborate practical joke.

I didn't realise there'd been a previous sequel to "Pride & Prejudice" before PD James did "Death Comes to Pemberley" - sounds like they are equally as dire...

Two words. Kate Mosse.

My dad once saw me looking at his copy of Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker. "Try it," he said, with a mad look in his eye. "It's unreadable."

So I borrowed it. He was right. It isn't just Not Very Good, it's actually Not Possible To Read. I have a policy of finishing anything, but Lair of the White Worm beat me.

If you've seen Ken Russell's film of it and thought, "Christ, that was a bag of shite" - well, that's because you haven't read the book he was working from to start with. That's how bad the book is.

Agreed duchesse - my DSis loved it so I borrowed it. I tried to read it about five times and failed, my god it was dull.

Sorry but PS I love you by Cecilia Aherne is the worst book ever. Or Conrad's Heart of Darkness,I can't decide. I have a long running game with my mum where we try to find the worst book ever then see how far it takes the other person to realise they are reading utter shite. She is much better at catching me out,so any suggestions here much appreciated. I was about to start Hare with the amber eyes, so thanks for the heads up on that one!

"she thinks like a McEwan protagonist" - OMG bran, how do you cope?

McEwan can FTFO as far as I'm concerned. I loathe him and all his supposedly fabulous writer bloke mates. Rushdie and Amis etc. I tried but nothing they have to say is of any interest to me at all.

Oh I'd had Kate Mosse and Cecilia Aherne professionally wiped from my memory. Will no one think of my nerves!!!

Remus, I hate Emma Tennant, but I think the worst one is that "sequel" to Sense and Sensibility where it was obvious she had not read the book.

Disclaimer: have not read yet rest of thread, and have not in fact read Pemberley.

Oh god On Chesil beach was utter shite, WHY not just talk to each other,FFS!

The girl with the dragon tattoo is the actual worst book ever written. True fact.

Closely followed by digital fortress.

i can't remember most of the crap books i have read. i have blocked them from my mind. life is too too short to keep ploughing through pages of shite.

Robinson Crusoe is memorably unreadable shite though.

I have to admit, love the "girl with a dragon tattoo" trilogy and didn't physically vomit at Pemberly.

The slap was a load of olde shite but the great pretender is by far the worst book I have ever picked up.

BelleDameSansMerci you just brought back bad memories about that lemon cake one - didn't her brother turn into a chair or something

"Tony and Susan" was a free ebook on my kindle, it certainly taught me to be more discerning.