Which authors' success is a complete mystery to you?

[emkana]

Tony Parsons

Jodi Picoult

I did like Jane Eyre !

Margaret Atwood too 'worthy' for me...

Wuthering Heights - couldn't stand it. Hysterical nonsense.

Funnily enough was having a debate with stepson about this last week - he thinks WH is wonderful and I was going on about how crap it was. I think he was a bit shocked that anyone could be so critical about a classic (oh well he is only 20, has time to learn!)

I have heard people say that you need to read WH as a teenager to get it properly. I must have been too jaded when I read it.

Poalo Coelho- I thought the Alchamist was rubbish.

Wuthering Heights was OK. But it took 6 run-ups before I could finally read it all the way through. Would have been v. early 20s.

Michael Ondaate - vaguely repeating the same line several times really doesn't make things more poignant for me.

would I be very bad if I threw in the towel with WH -? seems to me that life is too short to be dismally plodding through a book I don't care for - I only get to read at bedtime and then for a short time and usually look forward to those precious minutes - would much rather be reading something else. If it wasn't for book group I'd have abandonned it at first few pages - in fact,I wouldn't have bothered with it full stop.

ms - well it does improve the further you get. But the opening few chapters are hard work - certainly not light bedtime reading. The question is, how judgemental and intellectually-snobby is your book group?

can I say Martin Amis again? Because he really is very rubbish and deserves several mentions...

oh yes Wuthering Heights is bollocks too. Rarely give up on a book but lost the will to live during WH

oh,they aren't intellectual or snobby in the least ! I just feel I'm being difficult in not wanting to carry on...

Dean Koontz. He just writes the same book over and over and over again.

would fight to the death defending Jane Eyre though...

Dean Koontz books give me the creeps - not in a nice way.

On an aside - I used to work with James Patterson.

Kewcumber. Have you tried his autobiography? (Amis). I love his writing but not always the sentiment behind it, but was 100% won over by the autobiography.

Mind you, not quite sure what's going on with his current dealings with Islam - haven't really been following it though.

not wanting to be confrontational but I'd rather poke hot needles in my eyes than read martin Amis's autobiography...

Agree that you have to read "Wuthering Heights" and "Jane Eyre" when a teenager - reading them as a cynical adult just doesn't have the same effect. And WH has serious structural issues!

Same is true of Tolkien - ideal age to read "The Hobbit" is pretty much as soon as you can read stuff without too many pictures, and "Lord of the Rings" maybe 11-14. That way they stay as cherished books all your life and you don't have to cope with them as a cynical adult, after people have banged on about them enough to put you off for life.

I thought Lord of the rings was only read by pre-pubescent boys!

I read the Hobbit and the Trilogy when I was 14 and I loved it. I will certainly be recommending it to my dd. I don't know if I would enjoy it as much now though. I think you do need to read it young

I'm having Hobbit (the computer game) nostalgia on Facebook right now!

Unquiet - a male friend recently read WH (in his mid thirties) - he said it was intense and vivid and surprisingly twisted but couldn't see what all the fuss was about really.
Can you elaborate on the structural bits so that I could lob that in at book group to make up for not finishing the damn thing ?

pmsl at the idea of using Mumsnet to cheat at your book club!

arf ! I will confess ! but I will have to say something sensible

Just stumbled across this...

Dan Brown
Daisy Meadows
Jk Rowling

re. Dan Brown..I did a cartoon a while back that someone else did the caption for that I thought was funny (see my profile)