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What does everyone consider to be the worst FIVE books they've ever read?

Mine are:

Animal Husbandry - Laura Zigman
Ron Atkinson's autobiography
Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
The Autograph Man - Zadie Smith
The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

anything by Thomas Hardy

I was FORCED to read the Trumpet-Major at school and it put me off him for life, sadly.

Innocent Blood, by P.D. James

Utterly right-wing, all left-wingers are amoral in P.D. james opinion , the ending made me cringe, and philipas hatred of her mother is never explained, nor is anything, lots of unsuspected twists, but only because they're so hateful. Her most succesful book, well there ya go

Are we allowed to comment on other people's hated books?

What the hell. Foinavon, The Handmaid's Tale is one of the best books I have ever read I don't know how you could include that in your list. It makes some wonderful points on the amount of control placed on us by governments, is fantastically well written and truly thought provoking - a kind of feminist 1984. (all imo of course)

Anyway define worst, do you mean worst written or just books you didn't enjoy, as I think they can both be different things. I have really hated reading some books, but would recognise that they were well written.

The Trumpet Major is an odd choice to inflict upon the young. I did it for O level (yes, I am ancient enough to predate GCSEs!!). I wasn't keen at the time, but I came to like some of Hardy's other books. Particularly Tess and The Return of the Native.

The worst book I ever read was Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I had to study it at uni, and I just couldn't find any redeeming features at all. I was also not terribly keen (to put it mildly) on The Duchess of Malfi. My brain doesn't compute details that I'm not interested in, so I've forgotten who wrote the wretched thing.

You're not ancient, vagabond! I'm sorry that I haven't bumped into you lately...

Oh dear - this is a books thread..yes, em....worse book I've ever read...well, you see, I don't tend to read 'em, if I don't like them....

Probably The Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy - 'cos anything they liked was completely boring.

Hehe, GG - I've missed you around the place too! I was away for a while in Leeds, and I've been busy stalking Ainslie, too

I am with you on the not reading books if I don't like them, and I only ever did it when force to at school or uni. Much of what I did in first year English lit at uni was dire. I really hated it! But after that there were some great things to read.

I really don't think I can come up with a top five worst books, to be honest!

If I don't like them I just stop reading them and go onto another one so I don't really have a most hated list. I really liked the Handmaids tale though

Lewis Grassic Gibbon - A Scots Quair - particularly Sunset Song.

Its a love it/hate it book - and it is the only book I am sorry I ever began to read.

I meant books we didn't enjoy rather than badly written books. I personally didn't enjoy The Handmaid's Tale but we all have different tastes. Margaret Atwood is one of those authors whose work I either like or don't - Lady Oracle and Cat's Eye are two of my all-time favourite books.

I think the worst written book I ever read was a true crime book about the Jill Dando murder.

I agree about what you said about different tastes Foinavon. I just think there are some truly awful books out there that are much more deserving of the title worst book. Or maybe its only me who has read some really crap books.

Funnily enough, I did a Scots lit option at uni, and I really loved A Scots Quair.

And I adored the Handmaid's Tale too...

I must admit that I've been thinking of books I didn't enjoy, rather than *bad* books for this topic. There are so many authors that I can't bear to read at all. I think of Jilly Cooper and Catherine Cookson, for example.

*shudders*

aw, Jilly Cooper, i went through a phase of reading all the 'Emily' and 'Octavia' books and all the others with posh girls names when I was a teenager.
Catherine Cookson I leave to my Gran though.

Grrrrr! Get ye gone from this country!

A Scots Quair (Sunset Song, Cloud Howe, Grey Granite) is one of the greatest trilogies in world literature.

Sunset Song, alone, is a masterpiece up there with anything by Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Dickens, Austen, Melville, etc., etc.

Beautifully written, poignant, psychologically insightful, exuberant, wonderfully funny on every page, emotionally powerful, politically brave, deeply moving, compassionate, corrosive, stylistically imaginative and with a mystical/magical quality that so few novels have.

It is the greatest work of, for and about Scots/Scotland.

Sorry, nothing personal, I just get very annoyed when people diss these books. People give up because these books are written in Scots and set in early 20th Century Scottish farming/industrial communities, and people always seem to miss the delightful irony of the shifting narrative voices, especially in Sunset Song.

He's not even celebrated in his own country. But that is true of many writers worldwide. But Lewis Grassic Gibbon (James Leslie Mitchell) is a wonderful writer, and tragically died before he could gift us more of his genius.

Aaah, this is the problem with 'hate' lists. There's always someone who absolutely loves something you hate and cannot just accept it, but goes on to defend it at tedious length...

(Which ironically, isn't a fault of 'A Scots Quair', each of the three books is quite short, but full of literary beauty.)

I have a diary of all the books I've read since November, and there have been some pretty bad ones. The most disappointing was The Time Traveller's Wife. I heard great things about it but when I read it I just found it to be the usual chick-lit with a plot that was too similar to The Butterfly Effect.

The other book I found disappointing was The Da Vinci Code. Again, great things said about it but Mystery/Thriller is my favourite genre and I've read books in that catorgory that were a hundred times better.