Worst Bestsellers Ever

[Amanda]

Mmm..

I shamefully confess to reading the whole 'Fifty Shades' trilogy last year, but in my defence I was a) waiting for my possessions to arrive from Shanghai and b) offered the books by a friend & was too polite to decline.

I can hand on heart say that it's a bit of titillating fun for bored housewives. No idea how it ever got considered to be made into a movie but can totally understand how the books have sold millions. There are a lot of frustrated ladies out there...
Amanda

P.S. I'm not one of those frustrated ladies!!

[Azarna]

I agree with "The Celestine Prophecy". A friend gave me a copy, telling me it was brilliant and would change my life etc.

It really didn't.

I read the Kindle sample of 50 Shades. That was more than enough. So clumsy and full of clichés.

I personally suspect the title has been a major cause of its success, as the title is indeed catchy and makes for great headlines and play-on-words for the media.

[jmenges]

Here are some best selling and wildly famous fiction authors I've tried very hard to find interesting : Mario Puzo, Anne Rice, James Michener, Tom Clancy, Tom Wolfe, Larry McMurtry...and most of Stephen King.

JM

[Ausgirl]

Celestine Prophecy...worst thing ever. Worse than the Koran.

Mike

Oooh I'd forgotten about that!

.. on purpose, mind you.

Can't believe I paid money for it. Worst book ever!

I refuse to acknowledge the existence of anything concerned with 50 Shades of Rubbish. Sadly, I did not do so with the Da Vinci Code.

I love Tolkien, though.

[kensei]

Here are some best selling and wildly famous fiction authors I've tried very hard to find interesting : Mario Puzo, Anne Rice, James Michener, Tom Clancy, Tom Wolfe, Larry McMurtry...and most of Stephen King.

JM

I enjoy Anne Rice's stories in movie form for the most part, but in writing it's been my experience that though she's not a terrible writer she will begin a scene by describing the setting with obsessive meticulousness- what kind of carpet, wallpaper, drapes, light fixtures, antiques, and on and on- until I page ahead and go "Um, does anything actually happen in this scene?"

[Mayerling]

I enjoy Anne Rice's stories in movie form for the most part, but in writing it's been my experience that though she's not a terrible writer she will begin a scene by describing the setting with obsessive meticulousness- what kind of carpet, wallpaper, drapes, light fixtures, antiques, and on and on- until I page ahead and go "Um, does anything actually happen in this scene?"

Years ago one of my job supervisors tried to push me into reading more twentieth century writers, and some (Joyce, Kafka) were good. But he really liked this French writer, Robbe-Grillet, who did the same crap in his writing that you just described as a flaw in Rice's. Except he out meticulous-ized Rice. Apparently the French writer specifically wanted to create the verbal equivalent of photographs or film of an entire story - and the result was deadly dull, except to pretentious types like my former supervisor.

Jeff

[Ausgirl]

Years ago one of my job supervisors tried to push me into reading more twentieth century writers, and some (Joyce, Kafka) were good. But he really liked this French writer, Robbe-Grillet, who did the same crap in his writing that you just described as a flaw in Rice's. Except he out meticulous-ized Rice. Apparently the French writer specifically wanted to create the verbal equivalent of photographs or film of an entire story - and the result was deadly dull, except to pretentious types like my former supervisor.

Jeff

Robert Bloody Jordan and his endless, endless descriptions of minutiae I could not care less about while waiting for something, anything at all, to actually happen.

[johns]

Don't know if it's a best seller or not, but Dune by Frank Herbert... well... I bought it hoping for an epic space opera that would be up there with Asimov or even E E Smith but was bitterly disappointed with it.

I got about a 1/3 way through it and hoiked it in a bin. Drivel I thought.

[Pcdunn]

"Dune" has its fans

Don't know if it's a best seller or not, but Dune by Frank Herbert... well... I bought it hoping for an epic space opera that would be up there with Asimov or even E E Smith but was bitterly disappointed with it.

I got about a 1/3 way through it and hoiked it in a bin. Drivel I thought.

Herbert's "Dune" was a new type of science-fiction novel when it appeared, and may be the grand-daddy of all the series SF books set on far away planets. Even George Lucas included a cameo tribute to the book in the first "Star Wars" film, when we see the droids pass a skeleton of a sand-worm.

"Dune" is one of the few science fiction novels to win both the Hugo Award (voted on by fans) and the Nebula Award (voted on by authors), and I believe it is reasonably popular. Herbert wrote several sequels, and his son has continued the series. I liked "Dune", but haven't gotten into reading the sequels yet. It is a bit sad when a concept is spun out continuously, mostly for money...

My nominee for worst best-seller? Well, I haven't managed to finish "Moby Dick", "Anna Karenina", and don't really get all the excitement over Agatha Christie mysteries.

[Mayerling]

Herbert's "Dune" was a new type of science-fiction novel when it appeared, and may be the grand-daddy of all the series SF books set on far away planets. Even George Lucas included a cameo tribute to the book in the first "Star Wars" film, when we see the droids pass a skeleton of a sand-worm.

"Dune" is one of the few science fiction novels to win both the Hugo Award (voted on by fans) and the Nebula Award (voted on by authors), and I believe it is reasonably popular. Herbert wrote several sequels, and his son has continued the series. I liked "Dune", but haven't gotten into reading the sequels yet. It is a bit sad when a concept is spun out continuously, mostly for money...

My nominee for worst best-seller? Well, I haven't managed to finish "Moby Dick", "Anna Karenina", and don't really get all the excitement over Agatha Christie mysteries.

I have a copy of "Dune" somewhere that a friend (who loves it) gave me. Haven't read it, nor "Moby Dick" nor "Anna Karenina". I have read "Les Miserables" and "Madame Bovary", both of which I liked.

Christie is best with her characterizations. Her plots are impossible clock-like mechanisms that just would not function in the real world. Put it this way: had "Jack" tried to commit his/her murders like a Christie plot, he would have been caught the first or second time trying to fit his plans into the fabric of life around it.

Jeff

[Ausgirl]

I loved Agatha Christie when I was a child of about 10, and collected all her books. Now, they just seem a bit silly. It's sad. I feel I've lost something.

Was a huge fan of Dune, but the sequels progressively suck.

I studied Anna Karenina in class, and ended up enjoying it. I enjoyed the ballet version more, though.

Oh, here's a biggie --- I waited *ten years* for Thomas Harris to *finally* produce another Hannibal Lecter book. The anticipation among the local horror buffs was intense. And it was utter guff. I hated it. Hated the movie version more. So disappointing.

[Robert]

I started 'Jane Eyre,' but I think I lost interest half way through. 'Wuthering Heights,' on the other hand, I could not put down.

'A Brief History of Time' was good. Didn't understand it, but it was good.

[Robert]

Talking of Hawking : anyone who, like me, didn't take an interest in science until later in life, might benefit from reading Lancelot Hogben.

[jason_c]

I have only read one book by Jeffrey Archer, I believe it was his early novel Kane & Abel. It's probably his most famous novel and was absolutely dire. I doubt he got any better as a writer.

[Mayerling]

I liked the Peter Wimsey novels of Dorothy Sayers years ago. Also "The Daughter of Time" and "The Francise Affair" by Josephine Tey. It is hard to do a consistently good series of stories or novels about any character - even Conan Doyle wrote some weak later stories about Sherlock Holmes ("The Lion's Mane", for instance). But his best stories still have considerable punch to them.

While in college I discovered the Edmund Crispin novels about "Gervaise Fen" which were fun.

One popular 20th Century writer I have never fully understood the public affection for: Salinger. I read "Catcher in the Rye" twice for school, and if admittedly well written, it still was irritating because I came to conclude the biggest phony in the story was narrator Holden Caulfield, and I believe that was not the intention. I also found Knowles' "A Separate Peace" readable (also for a high school course) but irrelevant (I went to a New York City High School - it was set in an upper crust prep school in the 1940s).

And how many of us think that, for all his brilliance as a novelist, Henry James wrote a bit too much?

Jeff