Books of Shame

[Quincunx]

Sometimes our standards change. Sometimes maturity makes fools of our younger selves. Sometimes we just don't care if writing has the literary merit of a plateful of mashed potatoes. Love is blind.

 

Youthful Folly:

 

I read everything I could get my hands on. No discrimination whatsoever. A sense of shame did not develop until I had plowed through The Babysitters' Club One through Sixty-Something inclusive. . .although I recognized the formula before I had hit Ten.

 

So What, I Still Like It!:

 

In seventh grade, I had the option of reading one of two "classic books" about the French Revolution, and chose The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy. It's awful. The plot is as thin and hole-filled as pantyhose after it's gone through a briar patch. The characters are cut-outs. It's a soppy mystery/love-story/dashing adventure novel that makes Burroughs appear deep. I wince when I read it nowadays. . .but I still read it.

 

Contact Embarrassment:

 

Walking past the "A" section in Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Ye gods, Piers Anthony uppercuts me in one eye while Robert Asprin blackens the other! Don't leave that many puns lying around where they might hurt someone, namely me!

[Zadown]

I tend to have sort of teflon surface when it comes to things like feeling ashamed about the stuff I read or watch, but there's certainly been a lot of books I've read I wouldn't recommend to anybody. Sometimes that sort of recognition of suckyness has come later, especially since I was voracious reader as a kid as well (got some strange looks from my dad when I read Bambi, I remember that), but sometimes I just love to hate the book I'm reading.

 

Take David Gemmel (may he rest in peace, didn't realize he is dead until just now) for example - I knew his books were filled with macho bullshit and a repetitive structure, and I still bought more. It was like junk food for me, sometimes you just have to have some even though you know it is bad for you. Hope there's no real Gemmel fans reading this.

 

I've also read stuff that has rabid fans but that isn't really quality writing from my perspective, like Salvatore's books and Death Gate cycle. Makes it easier to understand some geek jokes, sometimes, so I guess it wasn't totally wasted time and money. I used the same excuse to go see Star Wars II and III after episode I showed how low Lucas had fallen.

 

Most of what I read these days has some quality, though. My guilty pleasures, if I'd feel guilty about them, would be on the anime front...

[reverie]

Actually, I used to love David and Leigh Eddings. Now their plot-lines seem hollow and cliche. At one time I had read everything they'd published, but dang does he and his wife write fast. Not so much of a fan anymore. I should have known better when I read that interview that where he said didn't read any other fantasy in the field save stuff in the canon of old english literature or Tolkien. Elitist.

 

I'm growing weary of Robert Jordan as well, but that's probably just fatigue. Is he ever going to finish that Wheel of Time Series?

 

I also tried reading L. Ron Hubbards' "Mission Earth" saga. 10 Volumes! I never made it past the second one. I actually felt like a worse person for having read them. Creative, but disgusting.

 

I still love Douglas Adams, and Anne McCaffrey's still okay in my book. She doesn't know the meaning open-ended though.

 

Piers Anthony is very good at what he'd does, but he is a dirty, dirty old man.

 

 

Chronicles of an Age of Darkness by Hugh Cook. Turns out Wikipedia, claims that this series was supposed to part of a three Saga set totaling 64 books. Appears it never got past book 10. I only made to book three. It was creative, I'll give him that. what with the talking rocks, walking mountains, multiple dimensions of reality, pirates, dragons, wizards, sages, hill tribes, bottle worlds within bottle world...like you pull the cork of a bottle in you're in a new world withing that bottle--neat huh?, complicated and opposing schemes of magics/sorcery/alchemy etc. But wasn't much on character development. Very, very flat characters. But great scenery. I bet the could have made a great MMORPG based on it. In fact they still should.

 

Tolstoy still rocks.

 

Still haven't worked up the nerve to tackle Joyce's Ulysses, but if I ever do, that means I'll probably have to read his masterpiece "Finnegan's Wake." And I don't know if I'll ever live long enough to learn to appreciate either. Stream of conscious is tough ppl. I remember, one of my soldiers in Korea tried to read it, trying to impress me. He couldn't even get off the first page. Then he made fun of me from being from the south. So I told him try doing something else other than playing single-person shooter video games all the time, ya know 'cause he did have a wife... We didn't get a long.

Edited February 25, 2007 by reverie

[The Portrait of Zool]

I loved the Xanth series, up until pretty much the end, where it began to sound like even Piers Anthony was tired of them.

 

I have a distinct love of 'speculative non-fiction', and Dr. Seuss Books. For a real treat, try reading them while listening to Enya CDs.

 

My tastes have always been towards the road less traveled. Having grown up in the 80's I was intrigued one day to find Boy George's autobiography 'Take it Like a Man' in the bargain bin. As you can imagine, I'm careful who I reveal that to. I found it to actually be a fairly interesting book.

 

I actually own one of Leonard Nimoy's books of poetry. I was a great fan of Richard Bach in the 80's, and Robert Heinlein, and Ray Bradbury, though Ray is the only one I find to still stand up to the same respect I had then.

 

Lately, for empty fiction I find the style of Steven Brust to be fulfilling, along the same style as Harry Harrison or Keith Laumer in years past.

[Valdar and Astralis]

I enjoy Edding's work for mindless entertainment - and it 'The Book Which Started It All' for me.

 

Besides that, I used to read Enid Blyton's Mallory Towers and her St. Clare's series when I was 7 or so.

 

Man what? They belonged to my sister

 

 

PS: Lord yes. Good olde Robert Jordan. Thank goodness we're up to the last book (supposedly)

Edited February 25, 2007 by Valdar and Astralis

[reverie]

Oh I forgot, I used to read the "Hardy boys" and the "The Bobbsey Twins," some. It was life pre-internet. Stop judging me.

 

rev...

[The Portrait of Zool]

OH, when I was a kid Tom Swift was it!

 

http://tomswift.bobfinnan.com/ts2.htm

[Whisky in Babylon]

I read the entire set of the dragonlance books... I still own everyone and I would likely read them all over again, even though I know the ending made me furious and the books really were not good at all, I cant help but enjoy them.

 

That and i cant recall what the book was called but it was really bad, had a terrible plot and lewd dragon things in it... but I still lent it to a friend... Im a bad bad friend!!

[Morgane]

mmmhhh odd

is this about being ashamed that one read this or that book?

if so sorry

grin

i am not ashamed of ever having read a book yes even the soppy regency romance stuff

 

but there just are some one grows out off

and some one never grows out off

 

agatha christie dorothy l sayers god i love them!!!!

katherine Kerr never ending devery series YUMMERS

shrry s tepper bit feminist but still fun hehe

ahhh there are so many

 

*dives into a pile of books*

myyy precioussssesssssss

[GeldrinHor]

Wow....I must admit, My FIRST true novel I read was an old Robert Silverberg book....not even sure which number in the Lucky Starr series, but it got me INTO the Sci-Fi world whole hog...Lucky Starr and the Red Sun Mercury!

 

After him, I started devouring books (and authors) including some rather bizarre and wondrous books be Fred Saberhagen, Isaac Asimov (The Robot series is a major classic), Spider Robinson and Harry Harrison.

 

Over the years, I was hooked by such wonderful authors as Heinlein, RL Asprin (Especially Thieve's World series w/ Lynn Abbey), and Piers Anthony.

 

My preferences from Anthony leaned more towards his Phaze series (Apprentice Adept, et al) and his MOST triumphant (in my eyes), The Incarnations of Immortality.

 

Then I found the world(s) of Valdemar, by a fabulous Fantasy/Sci-Fi writer....Mercedes Lackey.

 

 

 

Over the last few years, I have discovered quite a few decent authors, and even a few Wonderul ones (Sara Douglass, .C. Dale Britain, Terry Pratchett and even Tanith Lee).

 

 

 

Now, I have even extended my readings to include mystery/spy/murder suspense novels by such writers as Lawrence Sanders, J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts...who'd a-thunk it?), and I even read titans like James Joyce and Robert Ludlum.

 

 

 

In fact....lately, I have been reading entirely too much....hehehe...NOT!

[Mynx]

As a child I used to read the Goosebumps series religously...until they got high enough in number that R.L Stine stopped thinking of new stories and just started writing sequels to previous ones...

I do remember though re-reading them so many times, and continuing to get them even when I could predict the story within the first chapter.

 

Then I found K.A Applegate's Animorphs series. I loved those with a rabid passion. Only reason I stopped reading them was the bookshops in NZ stopped stocking them a few books before the series ended, and the TV series they created overrided my squick factor.

 

But that was years ago. These days, if I like a book I will re-read it, but if I hate it I will scream at the book until I finish it (I don't know why, I always finish them).

 

Recently (as in about last year), I came across author Richard Laymond in the form of a book of short stories. The first story was fantastic. The rest....dear gods this man has a twisted obsession. Every story in the book involved girls getting into trouble, and often having to do something sexual to get free. It was just so, so weird. And so, so wrong.

Thinking that maybe it was just a themed book or something, I bought a couple more of his books - actual novels this time. Not only were the same threads prevailant, but gods the spelling errors in this book!

It's like the man who had no editor!

 

And yet...I still read his books. I haven't re-read any yet, but I've gone through about 5 of his novels now. Maybe it's just cos they are so dumb and mindlessly violent that it's like a B horror film in written form.

 

The amusing thing about this was that I discovered - much to my mortification - that after I'd moved out of home my dad found the book of short stories and, seeing as we have similar tastes in books, read it.

I could tell when I spoke to him that he was worried I had a rape fetish or something.

This summer, I found him reading another of the guy's books. When I asked why, he said "I don't know. It's like a twisted train wreck really."

It's so true.

I still buy this guy's work and read them and cringe at the bad writing (magic beans that make you invisible?! Rape victim trusting a total stranger mere hours after her assault?? Oh! I know! Let's kidnap tourists and tie them to trees for our pet in-bred cannibals!)...

But I still read them...