what is your 'emperor in new clothes' book?

[MuchLessTiredNow]

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

Ulysses
Perfume (never finished it)
we need to talk about kevin, and that other one of hers about tennis
My sister's keeper

I love love love 'Love in the time of Cholera' though, how can you not?

Recently asked friends for recommendation for a juicy novel for these cold evenings and they all said shadow of the wind, so i duly went out and bought a copy, not looking forward to it so much now...!

Also upset that anyone didn't love 'Curious Incident...' - it's fab!

O yes, hated Catch 22.
And it shames me to say I found the Princess Bride really hard going. I wanted to love it as much as the film but it just not that good

Can't believe Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen are so unpopular

I thought Cholera was insipid nonsense but not as bad as 100 Years...

Absolutely anything by Samuel Beckett.

I've sat through several versions on stage, and have even read them in French but they are pants. Big Pants.

"Tender is the night" is another I didn't get and found quite irritating, while I loved the great gatsby.

Janeite, yes that's it!! Thanks. Actually I read it in Italian and still can't remember the Italian title.

Am canvassing dh now for his contribution.
So far we ahve drawn up a shortlist of 5, 000, but for the purposes of this thread I will keep it too:

The English Patient
Life Of Pi

I loved the Life of Pi so there

Also anything by Elmore Leonard. Run away as fast as you can, it's nonsensical rubbish.

100 years of solitude, I loved it (but I was 18).

oh so many!
vernon god little
1000 years of solitude
da vinci code
tolkein- any of it!

I have got another one

The Crimson Petal and the White by Michael Faber

Everyone raved about it and I just could not be bothered with it at all

Catch 22 is worth every minute spent reading it.
Quite frustrating to start with, but when you reach the end, EVERYTHING falls into place, it's BRILLIANT.

LOTR, however is completely rubbish.

As is Pratchett

I liked "Love In The Time Of Cholera" and "The Curious Incident....".
And I love Samuel Beckett.

I've said it before and got told off for it but hey ho: I hated "Middlemarch".

Janeite, we can just never be friends.

Zen & and Art of Motorcyle Maintenance - yawn.

Agree with Lolita, and Curious Incident - I know its value as an insight into AS but had no value for me as a book.

But btw Wuthering Heights' Cathy wimpy and listless?! No wayyyy!

Janeite, I'll be your friend instead!

100 years of solitude is a lovely book and not emperors new clothesish at all.

I haven't read "A Hundred Years....." - will add it to my list.

So many

White Teeth
Time traveller's Wife
Lovely Bones

Will defend Samuel Beckett against all-comers though. He is a magnificent writer. And I like Gabriel G M too.

can't be doing with blardy jane Austen though.

Yes Janeite read 100 years of solitude. You'll find that the house of Spirits has been deeply inspired by it.

Really? That was one of the better Allende novels I thought.