what is your 'emperor in new clothes' book?

[MuchLessTiredNow]

what have you NEVER got, although you keep being told it is a classic, etc?

Well, don't know if it qualifies as a classic but I just didn't get the Time Travellers Wife at all.

PERFUME by Patrick Suskind. Utter utter shoite.

Lion, Witch & Wardrobe
Lord of the Rings

So, so boring

The Alchemist
Wuthering Heights

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oh god i hated perfume too. made worse by everyone i knew gushing over it. you start to think, who are these weirdoes i call my friends?

ditto lord of the rings. snore.

oh and you know what? lolita. makes my skin crawl.

Jonathan Strange - why the hell was that book so damn long?

Agree on The Alchemist - I tried to toss it in the charity box pile the other day, absolutely horrified that I still had a copy. Turned out to be DP's and he grabbed it from the pile and protectively cradled it in his arms!

Also, My Sister's Keeper. Jodi Piccoult. I honestly do not understand why people think that's such a fantastic book.

Ulysses by James Joyce. I've started it so many times and just cannot see what the hell everyone raves about. And I'm an English teacher so should be an avid lover of all the classics

Not really classics but

Captain Corelli's Mandolin
The Lovely Bones...

Agree on The Alchimist too. In fact, all Paolo Cohello (sp?).

Yes, I didn't like the lovely bones at all.
I also struggle with Hemingway.
And got bored with LOTR at page 30.

The Kite Runner.
I mean it was ok, just not all that.

Notdoing, all I remember (it was 20 yrs ago!!!) is that I kept consulting the map. I had become obsessed with the map. So I gave up

I also agree with the kite runner. I read it compulsively, but the second half was really

We Need To Talk About Kevin - erm, no we don't actually, because it's crap.

Jonathon Strange and Mr Norrell - I didn't get beyond about 30 pages; unbearable.

Wuthering Heights - yes, it was groundbreaking and astonishing that, living as she did, she could write it at all - but it's actually quite irritating.

I love "Perfume", LOTR and "Lolita" though.

the Lovely Bones. and Shadow of the Window. Sodding overblown gothic silliness.

Shadow of the Wind even

Oh dittany, I totally agree about the Curious Incident

but

you are so WRONG about Martin Amis... imvho

We Need to Talk about Kevin - oh God I try every so often but I just can't get into it.

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - a genre I usually love but all those footnotes, it is actually the book that has been sat on my bedsite table for two years and I reckon I haven't got past page 30.

Any magic realism but particularly Isabelle Allende.