I've had nothing worth writing about lately. For those of you interested in the extra-superficial details of a blogger's life...I've eaten enough Easter candy in the last three days to pretty much ensure I'll be wearing elastic waist shorts the entire summer.
You're welcome.
This morning I did something that I've never done before. I tossed a book in the garbage. I could not even bring myself to recycle it. I don't think I've ever enjoyed a book less. Well, let me qualify that. I had some assigned reading in college that would have preceded this novel into the bin, but this was the first book I was under no obligation to read (or finish) and I did so. And I regret it.
I picked up The Sunday Philosophy Club because I had read The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by the same author (Alexander McCall Smith) and enjoyed it as a quick, pleasant book to pass an afternoon. I figured this novel had to be more of the same. Wrong.
I had a lengthy fisking of the book started, but I just deleted it. I think this review quoted on the back of the novel pretty much captures it all. From The New York Times:
"The literary equivalent of herbal tea and a cozy fire...McCall Smith's Scotland [is] well worth future visits."In other words, it will put you to sleep, and the next novel can't get any worse.
What book would you have tossed out rather than see anyone else pick it up? Are you reading anything good right now?
Posted by Cathy at April 19, 2006 09:29 AMI've only tossed one as well.....Coldheart Canyon by Clive Barker. Pure evil. I actually burned it after reading three chapters. That guy is creepy.
Posted by: Gary at April 19, 2006 11:06 AMI just chucked one a couple of weeks ago called "Passage". It was the most repetitive and pointless 900 pages I've ever read. Please!
Don't make the same mistake I did!
One book I should have tossed was Dostoevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov", followed closely by Umberto Eco's "The Island of the Day Before". Both were among the most tedious wastes of time I've ever subjected myself to.
At the moment, I'm re-reading Neil Gaiman's "Anansi Boys", a sort of sequel to his "American Gods".
Posted by: aelfheld at April 19, 2006 07:50 PM"Wicked." I know, everyone loves it and it's a hit play. I hated every creepy, disgusting, revolting, unpleasant moment of it. Nasty stuff. Really ruined The Wizard of Oz for me . . .
Posted by: Jayne at April 20, 2006 04:55 AMI've never thrown out a book - given many away, but never actually trashed one. Yet. I've got one on the kitchen counter waiting to go in the trash because it would be cruel and unusual punishment to make someone else read it. The title's "Better Than Chocolate" and it sucks. It's what I've discovered is called chick lit and it's crap. I picked it up at Cub Foods because I needed something to pass an afternoon - Minnesota author and the setting was Lake Minnetonka so I thought it'd be ok. I was wrong. Would you like me to send it to you? You could throw it away for me.
Posted by: CrazyRideLady at April 20, 2006 03:27 PM"For Us the Living" by Robert Heinlein. All I can say is ugh.
Posted by: Chris H at April 21, 2006 10:36 AMI don't read a lot of fiction, but I received a set of Stephen King paperbacks years ago, and I wound up tossing them all.
Non-fiction, only one: "Decade of Decision" by the late Michael Harrington, a testament to tortured, circular logic based on nothing.
You brought to mind Joe Soucheray's old "Books for the Swamp" bit, where he'd read the jackets from all the freebie but idiotic books he'd received, tossing them into the swamp with a whistling sound effect.
Worst ever was "The Satanic Verses" which seemed to have no plot line. Next was "Wicked" which was too horrid to describe.
Rev. N
Posted by: Rev. N at April 23, 2006 09:49 PMAnything after "Patty Jane's House of Curl" by Lorna Landvik goes on my list. I couldn't get through that "Tall Pine Polka" book - just horrible. How she continues to get published is beyond me.
Oh wait. She's a "progressive" Minnesotan. That answers it.
Posted by: Dawn at April 26, 2006 08:21 AM