I love books. I love to read. I still own the first paperback I ever bought with my own money (Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë). Books are a pathway into another life, in a way. They are my escape from my mundane life. And the stuff you learn from a casual reference is limitless.
Seriously, that’s how I learned what an aglet was. Never mind that it was in some poorly written, psychotic science fiction thriller. I still learned something. But there are some books I could never ever read, or even finish reading.
#5– Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus
How could anyone not know men and women are different from each other?
#4– The Da Vinci Code
I can’t get past the second chapter before screaming at it.
#3– What to Expect When You’re Expecting
Pregnancy is like the weather. One would be foolish to attempt to predict either one.
#2– The Great Gatsby
I realize that this book is considered a classic and has a very devoted following. But for me, it is rather pretentious and shallow.
#1– Anything and Everything Written by James Joyce
Never trust a man who never used punctuation.
There are plenty of badly written books out there, and plenty of well-written sleepers that never get the attention they deserve. The trick is to figure out which is which 😉
Sithy Things 
October 17th, 2013 at 11:51 AM
I utterly loathe The Great Gatsby. Unfortunately, my AmLit teacher in HS used that as the cornerstone of her entire course.
October 17th, 2013 at 12:26 PM
My AmLit teacher used Steinbeck and Hemingway, mostly their lesser known works. Thank goodness 😀
October 17th, 2013 at 11:57 AM
I love reading, but unfortunately have had to sell back most of the books I’ve bought for either space or finance reasons. Books I’ve had to read, but will never read again, include The Great Gatsby (dude was a pretentious douchebag who was sleeping with another guy’s wife, ended up killing her, and didnt’ feel bad at all about it. He got what he deserved.) and The Hunchback of Notre Dame (I’ll never need to visit Paris, now, since a quarter of the book goes into intricate street-by-street detail of each section of the city…and the rest of the book is as morbid as those parts are dull.). One book I’ve started reading but can never get past the first section is “The Silmarillion” by J.R.R. Tolkien. Love his other books, have read them multiple times…but I can never get into The Silmarillion. Other books that are bad enough for me to stop reading them, I’ve brain-flushed the titles/authors. Thankfully.
October 17th, 2013 at 11:58 AM
Oh, add Joel Osteen to that list of “I’ll never read another of his books”. But that’s a can of worms to be opened in another post.
October 17th, 2013 at 12:27 PM
I avoided the “inspirational” category because I was short on space/ time/ temper.
October 17th, 2013 at 12:28 PM
We should start a reading club and send books to each other!!
October 17th, 2013 at 4:18 PM
That’d be cool! My bookshelves tend heavily towards WW2 history, though, with a smattering of WW1 (current book is a biography on Eddie Rickenbacker…never knew he was a race-car driver/mechanic/engineer prior to being a pilot!), Korea, Vientam, and Iraq here and there. I’ve a few favorite series of sci-fi/fantasy, as well, but most of those I tend to not re-read (already know what’s going to happen, so there’s no magic in rereading, unless its something like Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series, which is so effing long [but good] that I invariably pick up new/forgotten details as I re-read) and end up reselling. But, yeah, a book club could be fun!
October 17th, 2013 at 5:12 PM
*cancels Romance of the Month Club* 😆
October 17th, 2013 at 7:02 PM
*renews NutterButter of the Month Club membership*
October 17th, 2013 at 1:21 PM
It took me a couple of starts to get through “The Silmarillion” and I don’t think I’ll read it again. It’s more a dry history book.
I was supposed to read “The Plague” by Albert Camus for sophomore lit at A&M but as I saved the course for my last semester and seniors could be exempted from finals and I got it, I didn’t have to finish it. So glad.
It did inspire the name for my tuxedo cat which I use for my handle. (Yes, yes, it’s spelled wrong.)
October 17th, 2013 at 2:02 PM
I never had to read Camus. Dodged that bullet 🙂
October 17th, 2013 at 1:25 PM
The Feminine Mystique by Freidan was required reading for American History part II. Gahhh!!! I’m glad she never tested us on it.
October 17th, 2013 at 2:03 PM
WHAT?? HISTORY???
That’s just sickening.
October 17th, 2013 at 5:19 PM
At A&M even! And in the late 70s! What was up with hiring that liberal wench.
October 17th, 2013 at 5:19 PM
Feeble attempt to get street cred, I bet.
October 22nd, 2013 at 11:33 AM
Now that I think about it, you’re probably correct. It was the time of dorm building for the ladies and the increase of coeds at the campus. Which was a good thing.
October 17th, 2013 at 1:47 PM
I don’t know if you ever read any of Bill O’Reilly’s books, but if you have, you might consider adding them to your list. If not, you might consider adding them to your list.
October 17th, 2013 at 2:03 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I haven’t read any, so thanks for the heads up 😉
October 18th, 2013 at 10:46 AM
You are right on the money, Jess. O’Reilly’s books are like O’Reilly’s tv show, except no sound. O’Reilly is in love with his own voice and, not unlike the liberals he flames, thinks his ideas are the only correct ideas. At least in his books, he can’t interrupt the people who are agreeing with him on a point. O’Reilly, whether in his books or on television is as pretentious and obnoxious as the Bamster himself.
October 17th, 2013 at 4:49 PM
I wish I’d never read “A Confederacy of Dunces”. There’s not a single character in it that isn’t annoying as hell.
October 17th, 2013 at 5:12 PM
Did you stab the book, Mitchell?? You can tell us 😀
October 17th, 2013 at 6:31 PM
I did not as it was on my Kindle. I did angrily delete it though.
As I recall in high school we were never really required to read whole books. We mostly got short stories and excerpts. And plays of course. Oh, I guess we did do The Scarlet Letter. What a crashing bore that one was.
October 18th, 2013 at 7:32 AM
I bet you pushed the delete button with fervor 😀
October 22nd, 2013 at 2:23 AM
I never read The Scarlet Letter, but got an A on the exam after reading Richard Armour’s satire of it in The Classics Reclassified.
October 22nd, 2013 at 11:04 AM
That’s classic 😀
October 17th, 2013 at 6:38 PM
Read that doorstop (it was thick and heavy enough) over ten years ago. You are correct sir. Pretentious is the first word which comes to mind. Though the title is a more than apt description of the asshats in DC (both parties, all branches and agencies).
October 17th, 2013 at 5:48 PM
Thank goodness I had teachers that favored Shakespeare. Unfortunately, I got stuck with reading Gatsby. So, I traveled the 15 miles to Fitzgerald’s burial place to urinate copiously on his grave. In fact, I drank a few more beers while there and went a second time, just to make sure.
I also got saddled with A Tale of Two Cities. One day, I swear I’m gonna defecate on Dickens’ grave. Twice.
As a youth, I enjoyed Salinger’s sordid tale, Catcher in the Rye. Having re-read it as an adult, I wanted to find Holden Caulfield, beat the living tar out of him for his epic douchiness, then travel back in time and kick my 16 year old ass on principle alone.
And at risk of being denounced for not being open minded, I swear upon all that is holy that I will NEVER read the Quran. The only passages of the Quran I will use, are the passage of its pages across my rectal sphincter, if I run out of Charmin.
October 18th, 2013 at 7:33 AM
Read the quran? Does not compute.
October 17th, 2013 at 6:43 PM
Clete, I have read the Quran…lousy story…the fake pedophile prophet did it, with the pipe, in the conservatory.
Seriously, it is worth reading, only because it gives a bit of a glimpse as to what is behind all the madness. If nothing else it pays to know your enemy just a little bit better.
October 18th, 2013 at 7:35 AM
Watching Fitna would be more than enough. I had to read some of it for my World Religions class, back when it was truthfully explained.
Oh, and NEVER take the game of Clue™ in vain again 😛
October 17th, 2013 at 7:09 PM
Books I have regretted reading.. Just about anything by Vounagut. (And so it goes) Was never a fan of Steven King either. Never finished Gatsby (and thank the stars, was never required to read it). Have grown to like Steinbeck (especially Travels With Charlie) and Hemingway is fine in small doses.
Joyce, Milton, (for the classical classics) Updike, (some) Roth, and most other current clap trap passing as culture/commentary is IMHO crap. (Oprah and her bookclub be damned).
As for the Silmarillion, I always though of it as anecdotal to LOTR…filler if you will. But it did seem to be a whole lot dryer reading.
October 18th, 2013 at 7:37 AM
King lost me with Pet Semetary. GAH!!!
Oprah just looks at the NYT List and picks the underdog. Seriously.
October 18th, 2013 at 1:57 PM
I read “The Green Mile”. Not bad, except Tom Hanks puss of a face kept creeping into mah brain.
The only King book I have read or will ever read.
October 18th, 2013 at 6:53 PM
“The Stand” was palatable, if long. The TV miniseries/movie wasn’t bad, either. That said….I read it, and watched the VHS version, and that’s that. If I want to read a horror story…well…I’ll buy a newspaper.
October 22nd, 2013 at 2:28 AM
Not a Vonnegut fan, but enjoy Harrison Bergeron. Diana Moon Glampers makes me think of the Hildabeast.
October 22nd, 2013 at 11:04 AM
Duly noted 😉
October 17th, 2013 at 8:22 PM
Dear sweet Cathy tried to get us all to read a book together, and she picked “A Confederacy of Dunces”. I couldn’t finish it, it was so awful.
Rocketboy had to read “The Great Gatsby” and “A Separate Peace” for English. I finished them, but man, they sucked.
October 18th, 2013 at 7:40 AM
It’s like FSF took all morality out of the plot and substituted it with glitter.
October 17th, 2013 at 9:55 PM
Can’t find any fault with your “Never List”, but Wuthering Heights would top my “books I despise” list. Reading it for HS English class was like being put to the rack, burned at the stake, and beheaded. 😛
October 18th, 2013 at 7:48 AM
I like it because it shows the tragedy of intransigence. And that they die apart. And even in death, they still have Edgar, the poor sap she married, there with them.
I admit, I like love stories that end tragically 😀
October 18th, 2013 at 7:00 PM
We had a choice in Humanities class my senior year, “Wuthering Heights” or “Frankenstein” (Mary Shelley’s version). Of course, I chose Franks. (hehehe) Slow to start, but that apparently was the way books were written back in the day, and it was a LOT easier to wade through the early chapters than “Hunchback”. I was actually surprised to find myself enjoying the book, and it was my first introduction to “Hollywood loves to make movies based on book titles and covers without ever reading more than the back of the book”. The fact that I have actually done book reports based on what was printed on the dust jacket, and got good grades, is immaterial and nothing more than coincidence.
October 19th, 2013 at 3:36 PM
I enjoyed Shelley’s work. But I could never get Young Frankenstein out of my head 😀
October 18th, 2013 at 9:06 AM
I read a lot of history and biography, with a fair amount of Greek and other classical stuff on the burner right now. As for fiction I tend toward David Drake and David Weber, tho Weber has began pissing me off recently (Out Of The Dark). Deus ex machina should be used sparingly.
What won’t I read again? Most of the science fiction I read in my youth. Pretentious, juvenile trash, most of it. I’ll keep Asimov and Heinlein (the stuff before his personal sexual kinks started creeping in) and Laumer (he was a diplomat so his Retief stories are very well done) but the rest went to the second hand book store years ago.
The Silmarilloin is history, plain enough and I don’t blame anyone who can’t get through it. It’s pretty dry and a little confusing (all of the elf ancestor’s names start with F) but it leads to a deeper understanding of Tolkien’s world and leads into the wonderful Book of Lost Tales and the Unfinished Tales, which are ‘stories’, not history, and so read easier.
I really think the Fitzgerald got a lot right in Gatsby. He wanted to portray the Greatest Douche in the Age of Douchebaggery and he largely got it right. As a cautionary tale it’s pretty good.
Wuthering Heights. What can I say? I think I’d rather take a beating than be required to read that one again. After 11th grade Lit was over I took my copy out to the local slate quarry and shot holes in it with the trusty .22.
October 18th, 2013 at 1:59 PM
22 holes with a .22
That has to be a title to an unwritten song I’d bet.
October 18th, 2013 at 2:56 PM
There is enough douchebaggery around to make me believe FSF failed at the cautionary tale. Most people took it as a guide, instead.
October 18th, 2013 at 6:55 PM
Napalm. You can never go wrong with napalm. Just sayin’.
October 19th, 2013 at 3:36 PM
And white phosphorus. So I hear…
October 18th, 2013 at 6:16 PM
I didn’t say everyone payed attention. :p
October 18th, 2013 at 6:35 PM
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!