Comments on: What Not To Read

By: Rob Franck

Rob Franck — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:36:54 +0000

Is there going to be a bunch of last-minute comments?

I think the hard thing about listing books I read but didn’t like or wouldn’t recommend is that, like someone said above, if I find I’m not liking a book, I just put it down and stop reading it, so can I really list those as books I’ve read but don’t recommend? I don’t know. Probably not, since I know there are books I THOUGHT I wouldn’t like, stopped reading them, and later returned to them only to find that reading them through was beneficial. (Maybe that could be ANOTHER blog post–books you gave up on only to return to them later and now heartily recommend them.)

I suppose there books I had to read as class assignments, and afterward would not recommend them. I usually try to put those out of my mind, and the only one I can think of at the moment is the Metamorphoses of Lucius Apuleius, usually going by the name “The Golden Ass.” I just found the whole thing kind of stupid, as well as pornographic at times.

I know there are a whole lot of MOVIES that I have watched that I would heartily not recommend. Maybe THAT could be a blog post, though I’m usually happier getting recommendations for movies that are good.

By: Savannah

Savannah — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:18:14 +0000

Oh, and I’m pretty sure that I read “the Haj” for a World Civ class (as extra credit or something) but since my mind tries to block out painful experiences I’m not sure…

Ha!

By: Savannah

Savannah — Mon, 11 May 2009 16:13:33 +0000

Ok… so this book was SO bad that I can’t remember the title or the author. Let me first say that one of my favorite books is ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. I also enjoyed the book, ‘Geisha, A Life’. So my choice of “What Not to Read” is a book in that similar genre/whatever and is the story of a young Japanese girl who falls in love with a stranger. In the usual novel conflict, her father has arranged a marriage for her and refuses to tell her who the man is. Here’s the kicker… she starves herself to death over her grief that she can’t be with her true love, and the day she dies she finds out her secret lover was the man her father had chosen. This all happens in the first two chapters. So the rest of the book she is a ghost who watches over her lover’s life, like when he gets married and has kids. It was SO disappointing. I stopped after just a couple chapters.

I know we aren’t supposed to share our favorites, but I have to quickly tell this story. My former roomie and I, on the days when Civ 102 was cancelled, would go and sit in the university bookstore and read children’s books for hours. Our favorite was “Mars Needs Moms!”. It’s message is a little bit deep for little ones, but hey, the moms are REALLY the ones that enjoy the kid’s books anyways…right?

By: Carolyn

Carolyn — Fri, 08 May 2009 12:26:38 +0000

‘The Lovely Bones’—BLECH!

I don’t have many on this list because if I am not enjoying a book I usually feel no obligation to finish it.