Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

I have just read possibly the worst book in the world

570 replies

Mrsrobertduvall · 13/04/2012 17:50

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.

OP posts:
MamaMary · 13/04/2012 21:47

Hate DH Lawrence and I've had the misfortune of reading Women in Love twice (for college). I even think my lecturer hated it.

Also thought The Last Waltz by Anne Enright was the biggest pile of drivel I have ever read and was astonished to see a positive (well, not negative) review of it in last week's Saturday Guardian.

duchesse · 13/04/2012 21:47

My new rule of the thumb is not to read anything, but anything that's less than 10 years old. I figure if it's still in print after 10 years it may be worth considering.

duchesse · 13/04/2012 21:49

And yy to spelling mistakes. Labyrinth was my first Kindle purchase ( on my phone) and I began to wonder if there was some problem with the processing software. Haven't had the inclination to pick up a paper copy for comparison's sake.

MamaMary · 13/04/2012 21:49

Sorry, I meant The Forgotten Waltz. Title had nothing to do with content as far as I could make out...

LineRunner · 13/04/2012 21:49

I am strangely in thrall to Harlen Coben and the dreadful character Win.

duchesse · 13/04/2012 21:51

Aarrgh, no, Harlen Coben. My friend gave me "Caught" saying I'd love it, which I dutifully read, and hated. I hated it so much that it's actually left the house, along with We need to talk about Kev, recycled to a charity bookshop in France. The expats might be desperate enough...

Original poster
Mrsrobertduvall · 13/04/2012 21:52

I fell out with my book group over The Ukranian Tractor book.
Loathed it.
It is funny in charity shops when you see rows of the same book...I always think "book group bad choice"
One Day was appalling.

OP posts:
Greythorne · 13/04/2012 21:53

OP, you obviously have not read "Eat, Pray, Love"

StewieGriffinsMom · 13/04/2012 21:54

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

LineRunner · 13/04/2012 21:56

duchesse, My excuse is that I am convinced that Harlen Coben's Win is but a crappy ninja version of Niles Crane, but only I have recognised this.

rockinastocking · 13/04/2012 21:56

I nominate the last India Knight one, about Christmas. There was a working class mother in law in it that she treats as some sort of freak, clutching at the middle class hem of the main protagonist ( a thinly disguised India ) and being all suspicious of olives.

FFS. Really pissed me off. To the extent I can't remember the title and can't be arsed to look it up

Original poster
Mrsrobertduvall · 13/04/2012 21:57

No Eat Pray Love looked shite.

OP posts:
rockinastocking · 13/04/2012 22:00

Eat Pray Love?

Slap Kick Punch more like.

duchesse · 13/04/2012 22:13

Stewie- everyone goes on about what a romance Wuthering Heights is. I read it at 17 and frankly it's one of the books that started me on the path to feminism. I thought it was a book about domestic abuse and uncontrolled rage. Really can still not see anything redeeming in any of the characters in the book (except the maybe the father who rescues the urchin Heathcliff in the first place).

CoteDAzur · 13/04/2012 22:16

If you think Eat Pray Love is the worst book in the world, you can't have read 1000 Splendid Suns.

Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is not even a bad book, let alone the world's worst.

You people have led a sheltered life. Get into a (women's) book club to read some truly awful books.

strawberrypenguin · 13/04/2012 22:21

The invention of Dr Cake was a pile of pretentious rubbish. Agree Twilight is terrible, Edward is just a creepy stalker and Bella's wet. Didn't understand all the hype over Dragon Tattoo either never read the next ones.

EverybodysSleepyEyed · 13/04/2012 22:27

I guess none of you have read 'Jemima J'

So bad i had to keep reading because I couldn't believe it could possibly stay that bad. It did

HerrenatheHHHarridan · 13/04/2012 22:30

Thumbwitch - you're right about 'witty'.

I also hate zany, wacky, quirky.... the early Pratchett books were described that way and he ended up stating categorically in a v.short preface that they were NONE of those things!! I do love Terry.

Someone jibbed at Mansfield Park earlier - we had to do it at school and everyone thought Fanny was crap, me included. The rest of the book had 2 or 3 interesting bits but it was not vintage Austen by a long shot.

I was in a charity shop the other day where they had arranged 3 of the same book next to each other. Now how does that encourage me, the consumer, to buy it? 'Ooh, it must be good, they've got loads of copies!' Silly shop staff - books weren't even alphabetical so can't blame it on that...

FraterculaArctica · 13/04/2012 22:31

Has anyone mentioned Kazuo Ishiguro's 'The Unconsoled' yet? I waded through all 600 pages of it, waiting for the resolution in which this strange nightmare would all be explained. It never was.

marshmallowpies · 13/04/2012 22:32

mrsrobert the funny thing is, if we put The Slap or One Day out on the shelves they will sell, so for all the people getting rid of them, just as many are keen to buy. (No-one buys Tony Parsons though).

The Hare with the Amber Eyes is v popular in our shop, people ask for it by name on quite a regular basis!

1950sHousewife · 13/04/2012 22:36

God I loved One Day. And We Need to Talk About Kevin.

But..Room - meh.
And The Help just Shock SCREAMED Shock WOMEN'S BOOK CLUB!!!! that I felt a little queasy reading it.

lepetitchoufleur · 13/04/2012 22:38

Oh lordy NKF I was also about to say Labyrinth (HOW is that woman judging literary awards? HOW?)( and Da Vinci Code. Awful! sadly the worst book I ever read was written by someone I know (only reason I read it). But they've just self published and its loosely based around the Titanic so with the anniversary its getting huge coverage but its the most poorly written crap in the world. And they've given themselves possibly the most pompous pen name and god awful author pic. Its cringe worthy.

HerrenatheHHHarridan · 13/04/2012 22:39

Actually I have, everybodyssleepyeyed!

I was 17ish and had just lost a shedload of weight, so felt attractive for the first time ever. I thought that Jemima J was a piece of mind-reading genius.

Admittedly I re-read it 5 years later (having regained some of the weight and, more importantly, having realised it didn't matter) and thought it was mind-numbing twaddle.

I guess sometimes you have to be in the right frame of mind for a book to 'work'! Not saying she's a great author by any stretch of the imagination though :)

rockinastocking · 13/04/2012 22:40

I LOVED Vernon God Little and A Thousand Splendid Suns.

But I LOATHE any of the Kate Atkinson Jackson Brodie bullshit. Utterly unlikeable character.

And that weird, weird book by Lionel Shriver about the snooker player. Screamed 'research' all the way through.

JollySergeantJackrum · 13/04/2012 22:44

At school I hated Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies. I honestly don't think I could read Lord of the Flies again if you paid me.

I got a Kindle last month, and one of the free books I downloaded (and read) was Nipped in the Bud by Susan Sleeman, where there are regular plant jokes and the protagonist clears her name by giving up fighting and instead letting God take charge. If Amazon had explained to me in advance that this was a Christian novel with a main character called Paige Turner then I might not keep getting flashbacks.