what is your 'emperor in new clothes' book?

[MuchLessTiredNow]

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

Love in the Time of Cholera - everyone loves it except me.

ANything by DBC whatsis face. Pretettious shite.
Totally agree about Perfume. Utterly boring.
Also, Anne Enright 'The Gathering'.

And f*king Jane bloody Austen.

Can't believe no one has said Catch 22 yet!!

That's becasue Catch 22 is fantastic!

The Trick Is To Keep Breathing. Janice Galloway

I hated Perfume too , I am so glad I am not the only one .

Also "The Womens Room" Apparently life changing for every woman

What a load of old tosh

I did love The Kite Runner and the Curious Incident

Also perservered with The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist

It could have been a lot shorter (by about 400 pages )

I couldn't manage catch 22 either- but hands off Jane Austin and Isabel Allende!

I forced myself to read to the end of Catch 22 then was still looking for more pages, couldn't believe that was it, thought there had to be more to it than that.

That's a week of my life I'll never get back...

"The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" wasn't supposed to be "entertaining". It was a brilliant view into Asperger's Syndrome.

Just could NOT get into Labyrinth by Kate Mosse despite hearing it raved about just about everywhere.

1000 Splendid Suns
Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Philip Pullman one. I got half way through and thought 'so what?'. Then everyone raved about, named their children after it, made a film about it,...

Oy Nicky. Step away from Jane Austen!

"Catch 22" - nope, I just couldn't do it. And "Trainspotting". And that irriating Roddy Doyle thing too. And "Ulyses". And that "Quiet Belief In Angels" tosh too.

And "Great Expectations". I kept expecting to like it or to care - but I didn't.

Agree with Wuthering Heights, but actually quite liked the Alchemist.

Agree with Cote about Curious Incident.

Erm, I know there must have been ones that I was but I can't think of any.

Memory Keeper maybe...

I have so many.

Of the older classics, I'm just couldn't get into Midnight's Children, or Perfume, or Trollope, and really (whispers in shame) I didn't totally get Wuthering Heights .

Of recent books, I couldn't bear Ian McEwan's Saturday, I also thought Shadow of the Wind was crap.

And, of recent films, Mamma Mia. Watched it last night. I just cannot believe this is the fastest selling dvd of all time. What a load of old tosh.

Don't diss Pullman!!!

Oh God yes: Ian McEwan. What is the point of Ian McEwan? Sooooooo self conscious and overly "clever" and self-satisfied. Yawn.

I agree with Nicky, I also found "the gathering" really disappointing, weird as I thought I would have loved it.
Loved WNTTAK though
I also think isabel Allende is overrated, but I have avidly read many of her novels. There is a book she wrote on her youth in Chile that is actually v. good, imo of course

I could not bear The Time Travellers Wife or The Memory Keepers Daughter.

Definately did not live up to all the hype!

Loved Kite Runner though!

I hated Catch 22. Have said before on another thread, ended up throwing it to get it asfar away from me as possible. Strangely I still own it

I loved "The Kite Runner".

Isabel Allende's book about Chile is called "My Invented Country" and it is superb - her non-fiction writing is much better than her fiction, which is all a bit samey. "Paula" is stunning.

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier was the biggest pile of boring old wordy poop that I've read in a long time. Friends gushed about it so I persevered but was sorely disappointed, not to mention bored stiff, in the end.

All books with wimpy listless heroines irritate me. Cathy from Wuthering Heights, Fanny from Mansfield Park, Rachel Cusk in A Life's Work. I just want to say, get a grip.

I loathed Catch 22 and have never managed more than 3 pages - I think it's one of thopse you only like if you were part of the Vietnam protests. Only managed first page of Sophie's World (and I pride myself on my tenacity).