What books have you had high hopes for, only to have them cruelly dashed by abysmal writing? Is there anything you feel was a good concept, but that you or anyone else could have written it better? Is there something that, like capitalism, works in theory but is a bit shit in practice?
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance ... I'd always heard it was a good book, thought it would be really philosophical but at the same time entertaining, and I just couldn't get into it. Tried a few different occasions to read it but would get a few chapters in and just gave up.
my dad was reading to kill a mocking bird and he said it was so long winded and the descriptions are so long and boring, totally put me off reading it
Aw man. I loved that book. The damn Da Vinci Code! Maybe it's just not my thing. I've tried to read it a few times, and I just can't get into it. On the Road by Jack Kerouac - A friend recommended it to me telling me it was incredible, to say the least I didn't finish it..
Aye, small letters may be nessisary! 'On The Road' has been my biggest let down too. It was just kinda dull :whip:
David Eddings really let me down after he finished The Sapphire Rose. All his later books (The Elder Gods, The Treasured One etc) were utter crap. Didn't seem like the same author at all.
Just finished Stephen Lawhead's Avalon. It was an extermely well-written page turner and I got through the 484 pages on the day I bought it. But ... The scenario is that in the near future, the British government in on the point of abolishing the monarchy. A young Scot encounters a weird old man in the hills who turns out to be Merlin, and the young man eventually comes to accept that he himself is the reincarnation of Arthur, come to save England in its hour of direst need. Much of the book is taken up with political machinations as our hero struggles to prove his claim to the throne and defeat the final referendum which will abolish the crown. Meanwhile, the reader waits with increasing puzzlement to find out what is the dire threat to the realm which Arthur is to combat once his reign is assured. Eventually we realise that, um, it's the abolition of the monarchy itself. We are supposed to accept that the king really does rule by divine right and that England can't survive without the sacred institutions of church and monarchy. Hmmm ...
hmm ... find that interesting about Lawhead. I used to LOVE him obsessively when I was younger. I read through the whole Merlin/Arthur/Talisman series when I was about 14-15 yrs old. I did find though, some of his references/allusions could be a bit out there, but overall he's a great storyteller in my opinion.
oh, tis also good to note he's considered a "Christian" author so would explain why he thinks England can't live without the church.
As it happens I just picked up Taliesin in a second-hand shop. It's a gripping read but I think his chronology's a bot dodgy: 1. He has the fall of Atlantis occurring during the early CE, which is a bit odd seeing that Plato actually referred to it didn't he? Also as far as I can tell he seems to be identifying Atlantis with Minoan Crete (bull dancers, place names etc) which would put it around the 15th century BCE. 2. Far more important, he has his Dark Age Brits eating potatoes...
There were some things that I questioned as well. Overall though, it was a good read, at least I thought so. Also, should note I was about 13 when I read it, so well, wouldn't be privy to all that extra knowledge about the chronology of things. I only knew it in comparison to the Arthur Conan Doyle version of King Arthur and Camelot. I did fall in love with the story, but must say it took me awhile to really feel like I was in an Authurian world. I did really like the idea of Taliesin being the father of Merlin and the grandfather of Arthur. He didn't write the final two books until MANY years afterwards. Pendragon and Grail came at least 5 years after. I can't seem to find an accurate dated bibliography for Lawhead, but I remember the first time I saw both books at a bookstore was about 1998 and I know I read the other three in the late 80's early 90's.
"Mr Nice" was pretty disappointing. Great from the anecdotal perspective, but for an Oxford student, it was poorly written.
