Astrophysics Like Melville

[mrissa]

Quote of the evening: "And there wasn't even any nifty astrophysics like there would have been if Melville had written it." -- timprov

No, this was not a complaint at the book club discussion of Tam Lin. In the car on the way up, we were discussing the worst books we've read. So I have questions for you: what's the worst book you were ever forced to read in school? And what's the worst book you ever read on your own? (For my purposes, "on your own" includes "my best friend/grandmother/other important person wanted to discuss it.")

Comments

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

A general Thomas Covenant response... I read those. Found them too depressing to pick up again, and too sloggy (think: super-exposition-Tom Bombadil-Tolkein being willfully imitated, or, that was my perception), but I finished them. Donaldson wrote an SF series, all titles including The Gap into... in them, that I found just unreadable.

Miserably unreadable.

I take back everything I said about Oliver Twist in light of that recollection.

[(Anonymous)]

I had forgotton the Gap books, they probably win for worst book I decided to read on my own. (And I don't even have dd_b's excuse, having bought the first two new in paperback.) I made it through the first one, despite the protagonist's continual "almost" { bursting into tears | wailing | screaming | etc. }

As Marissa already knows, the worst that was forced upon me in school was _Great Expectations_.

--Mark

[merriehaskell.livejournal.com]

I'm thrilled to be validated, trust me. They were so bad, I sometimes think I imagined it...