There it is. The number one worst book I've ever read. I've read thousands of books and this is the current grand prize winner. I thought nothing could ever knock "It" by Steven King out of the number one spot, but this is the book that did it. "It" was like nine thousand pages long, but it might have been edited down to a three hundred page long entertainment. Nothing could save "The Laughing Corpse". I really got the impression that Laurel Hamilton didn't care if anyone actually read the thing. I don't think she cared about writing it. I've never seen a writer at such a distance from her own work and I once read a welding text book, written by an English professor who had never welded. I have read ukulele lesson books written by guitar players who made it clear that they were utterly contemptuous of their subject. I read most of some book by Mike Davis. I am a hell of a tough reader, but this book made me feel bad about reading.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
The worst book I've ever read
There it is. The number one worst book I've ever read. I've read thousands of books and this is the current grand prize winner. I thought nothing could ever knock "It" by Steven King out of the number one spot, but this is the book that did it. "It" was like nine thousand pages long, but it might have been edited down to a three hundred page long entertainment. Nothing could save "The Laughing Corpse". I really got the impression that Laurel Hamilton didn't care if anyone actually read the thing. I don't think she cared about writing it. I've never seen a writer at such a distance from her own work and I once read a welding text book, written by an English professor who had never welded. I have read ukulele lesson books written by guitar players who made it clear that they were utterly contemptuous of their subject. I read most of some book by Mike Davis. I am a hell of a tough reader, but this book made me feel bad about reading.
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3 comments:
I think you were maybe a bit harsh there, brother, in your criticism of "It" ; it is, after all, very much a children's book in a sense.
The worse book I've ever read was actually something a friend lent me from a Christian Book Sale. It purported to be a "shocking exposé" of "Satanism and Vice" by a former prostitute. It was clearly written by somebody's bedridden grandmother masquerading as an authority on Crowley and the abomination of the Black Arts (anything from sex after a large brandy to glue sniffing).
Seriously bad shit.
By the way, Jon, I promoted "Poetry Is For Assholes" to the links section higher up on my page. Just in case you wondered if I'd accidentally deleted it.
I like Stephen King, "It" was such a horrible exercise in self indulgence. He seriously needed to submit himself to the attentions of an editor. That's why I disliked it so. A good author, who seems like a good man, taken hostage by his ego and forced to write 1,400 pages of drivel. And hey, I like children's books. I've read plenty of bad books by folks from the moral uplift brigade, but it is hard to put them in the worst book category, for me, because they are in a genre that is, by definition, bad. I love vampire stories. I'm embarrassed to say that I finally read Bram Stoker's "Dracula" last year. What a great book!! Now compare it to Laurel Hamilton. endless plodding, vaguely racist blah blah blah blah. Stories about the troubled dead are almost always great fun, but she manages to make something dreadful out of a genre that is, by definition, good.
My all time most hated book is that sportswriter turned feel good writer, Jeez I can't even remember.. oh Mitch Album? 5 People You Meet in Heaven. I read it when I was kicking and hadn't really slept in 9 days. Maybe that had something to do with it, but I read a biography of Bobby Darin right afterwards and enjoyed it. Even fell asleep after I finished.
Recently my ex-girlfriend told me to put 5 People in my Netflix Queue.They actually made a movie out of it. Couldn't do it.
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