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February 2008
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It's important to run stories such as the one in my previous post. It gives those of us who value literary freedom the chance to roll our eyes and give thanks that we aren't like Those People, the ones in the Unthinking Classes. But secretly, you know we're jealous. Because it is human nature to want to tell the rest of the world how to behave. So having previously bashed our English teachers, let's take on the rest of the literary world and confess -- what book or books would you like to see smitten from the earth, banned from the eyes of your fellow Man and Woman? I'll start off by nominating an entire genre: Call it the "Spiritual Guide to Getting Rich Quick" category. People just can't seem to resist schemes that cover up greed with a veneer of holiness. I suspect that the only people getting rich this way are the publishers. Oh, and any diet book by a celebrity who has more plastic parts than my car. And that hideous "Rugrats" book that my daughter got as a gift and made me read nightly for a month until I accidentally "lost" it. Stop me before things get out of hand ... |
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Comments
Posted by Mary E. DeMuth @ 3:54 PM Tue, Aug 28, 2007
Hear Hear on this:
I'll start off by nominating an entire genre: Call it the "Spiritual Guide to Getting Rich Quick" category. People just can't seem to resist schemes that cover up greed with a veneer of holiness. I suspect that the only people getting rich this way are the publishers.
I think, though, that the authors are getting rich, particularly if they host TV shows and have biggish hair.
Posted by Joy Tipping @ 10:17 PM Wed, Aug 29, 2007
I nominate "The Bridges of Madison County," by Robert James Waller. A bigger piece of utter dreck I have never attempted to read -- I say "attempted" because I couldn't get past the first five pages. Ych, ych, ych.
The movie, though, was pretty good -- the exact opposite of what usually happens when books get adapted for film. This time, they took a God-awful book (can you tell how much I loathed it? can you tell how much I want my 10 minutes back?) and made a decent film.
Posted by Judy Alter @ 7:03 PM Thu, Aug 30, 2007
How about anything by Ron Hubbard?
And a whole category--celebrity children's books. The celebrities who write them are neither authors not child experts. As an author who's worked for years trying to learn those short sentences for second graders, I resent that instant success.
Posted by TD @ 9:29 AM Wed, Sep 26, 2007
I looked over this website for "bad" books http://www.pabbis.com/
and found some surprises included. Also was interested to see that "Mein Kampf" doesn't make the list.