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Books Not to Read

Mycroft said:
What Anthem has going for it is it's short. So if you want an introduction to Ayn Rand, Anthem would be a good choice to read instead of larger works such as Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead.

One doesn't read Ayn Rand for the quality of her fiction.
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I recommend We the Living, her semi-autobiographical book about a girl growing up in the early days of the Soviet Union. It's much more accessible than the Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged, while not being as simplistic as Anthem.

The problem with Rand is that her philosophy of life, Objectivism, doesn't really hold together. It's just anti-communism. There's nothing wrong with that but it's hard to make a positive philosophy when your starting point is what you oppose.
 
TragicMonkey said:
Moby Dick. We had to read it in English class in eleventh grade. We spent a whole month on it. A winter month. Gloomy, ponderous tome in gloomy, ponderous climate. I just couldn't manage more than halfway through, the only time I ever failed to finish a school-assigned book. I don't think anybody made it through the whole thing.
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Definitely a book that improves quite a bit in the abridged version; I didn't need to slog through the description of every part of the ship; those parts read like the specifications on an office building--amazing attention to detail, but not exactly gripping material unless you're constructing the building yourself.
 
I bought John Ringo's "The Road to Damascus" because it was set in Keith Laumer's Bolo universe. I read Bolo stories for military action involving building-sized AI tanks, and examinations of things like what it means to be a person and whether someone is actually courageous and dedicated to a cause if they've been programmed to be courageous and dedicated to a cause.
Unfortunately, the book was written in the more recent portion of Ringo's career, so every character in the book is in one of two categories:
1. Flawless paragons who agree with all of his politics.
2. Evil, greedy, incompetent fools who disagree with all of his politics.
 
d4m10n said:
A genius author ought to be able to write women as if they have some sort of an inner life and sense of self.
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I’ll assume you’re a single-issue voter when it comes to literature. I should also say definitely don’t read Something Happened. Or maybe do read it if you like feeling outraged. Just make sure the smelling salts and fainting couch is to hand.
 
bruto said:
I agree with the above sentiments both about reading a book too early, and (often at least) getting it in school with the wrong teacher. It's always been pet peeve of mine that teachers emphasize over and over that they're not trying to elicit hidden meanings and the like from literature, and then proceed to do exactly that. What they usually mean is that they want only their own meanings. I never met a teacher who did not wreck poetry. I did have a few who taught Shakespeare and others OK, but not all.

I had to read Emma (or rather I was supposed to read it) in high school and hated it. Some years later I was persuaded to read Pride and Prejudice, and thence all of Jane Austen, and am now an unapologetic Janeite, but it was all the wrong thing the first time around.

When I was about 12 I read Oliver Twist, and thought it about the best book I'd ever read. For the next 50 years or so I coudn't seem to get past the first five pages of Dickens, but in the last few years I've read a few, and liked them again. It seems to require a certain mood.
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I’ve also heard that you should read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road by the time you are twenty or not at all.
 
I had an English teacher who sucked all of the humor from Jane Austen. She did mention the term "comedy of manners" but somehow approached, (I think is was Sense and Sensibility) in a serious manner. If that makes sense.
 
angrysoba said:
There was an interesting article written by expert on North Korea, and part-time literary critic, B.R Myers who bemoaned the growing pretentiousness of "serious" literature.

In this article, he mentions a few books, Snow Falling on Cedars, Shipping News, the horse book by Cormac McCarthy and something by Jonathon Franzen.



https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/
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He seems to be blaming the authors for the opinions of the critics. I liked some of the stuff he mentions. I like a carefully written piece of work. Is the mystery in Snow Falling on Cedars compromised by the style? I don't think so. That's not to disparage those who tend to be less "literary" in their work, much of whose stuff I also like. But I think you can look at the varieties of literature without foaming at the mouth.

angrysoba said:
I’ve also heard that you should read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road by the time you are twenty or not at all.
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Ah well, too late for me for sure.
 
CORed said:
As to Dune novels, I would expand that to any Dune novel other than Dune. At least, I liked the original, and read one or two of Frank Herbert's sequels, and didn't care for them much. That was when I was still a kid though, so maybe there was something I missed in the sequels.
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That's exactly my experience. Dune was a good read but after that, meh.
 
angrysoba said:
I’ve also heard that you should read Jack Kerouac’s On The Road by the time you are twenty or not at all.
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It's a period piece but extremely dated. It caught on in the late 1960s as everybody discovered drugs. IMHO the caution about reading it after age 20 is mostly because Kerouac is a terrible writer; before age 20 you may get into it for all the dope references. I remember a criticism of it years ago--that it wasn't writing it was typing, and I generally agree. Probably reasonably honest and astounding for what it reveals about the drug subculture of the 1950s.
 
Dave Rogers said:
I'll join the chorus against that one; I thought it was a superb book. However, even if you liked Catch-22, don't read Good as Gold.
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I liked Catch-22, then tried Closing Time - I have no opinion on Good as Gold but can believe that Closing Time would give it a run for its money. I feel no reason to read any more Heller.


zooterkin said:
Oh, yes, so much this! I also slogged through both trilogies, and vowed never to read another word Donaldson wrote, something I've had no trouble keeping to.
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I gave up after the first book. I can't remember much except that I didn't really enjoy it.

The first book that I really couldn't read, due to it being too gratuitously perverse, was Crash by JG Ballard. I think I got to about page 32.
 
jimbob said:
I liked Catch-22, then tried Closing Time - I have no opinion on Good as Gold but can believe that Closing Time would give it a run for its money. I feel no reason to read any more Heller.




I gave up after the first book. I can't remember much except that I didn't really enjoy it.

The first book that I really couldn't read, due to it being too gratuitously perverse, was Crash by JG Ballard. I think I got to about page 32.
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Many years ago I read Ballard's Crash, and felt much the same way, but somehow finished it anyway, and realized that, in an odd way it might have been successful, because reading on was a little like the grizzly compulsion that keeps you looking at an accident. But like that, it also was not really rewarding. An odd book, with a hint of literary interest, but not enough.
 
The entire collection of books by Lobsang Rampa.

I read about three of them with an open mind as to their credibility, but the fourth book was about cat legends, and that finished me.
 
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