"I can't believe you read this crap".

[davywavy]

There are both good and bad sides to not owning a television. The bad side is that I tend to miss the few really good bis of televisual entertainment that are out there, like Life on Mars or Top Gear. On the plus side, however, that means I have more time to thrust my nose into any passing books.

There are the sort of books which you feel kinda you have to read because they're classics, like Les Miserables, one of the most tedious books I've ever read and every single one of whose leaden words took an hour to lever itself from the page and into my brain. Then there's the stuff you read for pleasure; Flashman, or Erast Fandorin or Captain Alatriste and so much more. And then there's crap literature. There's an entire section devoted to it on my bookshelves; books whose titles alone ment I had to buy them. I own Conrad's Quest for Rubber (also known as Conrad's Rubber Adventures). I own Thongor at the end of time. I own The Hard Corps. There's so much joy to be had from reading truly terrible books and then leaving them on the shelf next to pretentious gubbins like Crime and Punishment.

So, question of the day: which is the most embarrassing book you're willing to own up to owning and having read?

Comments

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I read a Danielle Steele book once. I was staying at my Nana's and in the quest for something to read came to the conclusion that one of her many tomes would do no harm.
I was wrong, it was awful, it was worse than awful, it was the worst book I have ever read.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

I'll have to get back to you on the most embarrassing one I actually own

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

The thing is, truly bad books aren't necessarily awful. I'll lend you The Hard Corps some time - it's astonishingly - if unintentionally - funny.

[tooth-fairy.livejournal.com]

will it hurt me? :p

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I have posted a review on amazon which summarises it nicely.

[ditzy-pole.livejournal.com]

Nope, none of my books are embarrassing.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

You forget I've seen your bookshelf.
And I seem to recall you own a copy of The Reeducation of the female.

[ditzy-pole.livejournal.com]

Recall?? You're the one who bought it for me! It was a very insightful read I'll have you know.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It made me laugh until my tummy hurt.
And that's a lot of hurting.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

I unreservedly LOVE Guy N Smith.

Crappest writer on the planet (unless you count Lionel Fanthorpe). Titles such as NIGHT OF THE CRABS, CRABS MOON (and several more in the "OMG giant crabs" series), THROWBACKS (somehow everyone reverts to being Neanderthal and men become inflamed with bestial lust at the sight of red knickers), THE MASTER (a Satanic S+M public school in the Scottish Highlands), sprang from his fevered pen. Liberal use of italics, misuse of the elipsis, deathless prose, every setting culled from the last place he went on holiday/to a conference... I can never quite tell if it's supposed to be funny or is unintentionally so.

My favorite passage must be:

Crabs! The size of beach donkeys! Coming down the Blackwall Tunnel! Clickey click... Clackety clack...

(This may not be the precise quote, but it's close enough).

I also seem to recall "He was going back for Pamela! Crabs or no crabs..."

hehehe

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

I read his book Warhead, I think - the one with Nuclear Apocalypse precipitated by the Voodoo gods?
Let's just say that 11 was probably a little too young for me to have read it.

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

Oh dear! D=
He is slightly prone to go off on unpleasant "erotic" tangents. I haven't read that one, but there are a couple of eXXXploitation themed forays.

The Crabs! series are pretty smut-free. Although there is a lot of eating intestines and waving them around on claws like obscene pink spaghetti. Bats is also remarkable for setting a plague of giant bats in Birmingham. I have a sneaky suspicion that he thinks that a prosaic, familiar setting makes the horror more intense. In reality it just makes it more hilarious. Bats in The Bullring? ROFL

I really do think that Guy is the logical progression of the penny dreadful, having just read Sweeney Todd, or The String of Pearls, which uses a very similar format.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

"Project Management for Dummies"

I feel dirty.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Not as bad as some of James Herberts nonsense, though. Heavens, when I enthusiastically read my way through them in my early teens, I was glad when I'd finished them.

Speaking of Penny Dreadfuls, I'm off to see these fellows on Saturday, hurrah! http://www.pennydreadfuls.co.uk/

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Faith No More are headlining Download.

Shall we?

[manywaters.livejournal.com]

On my way to a Camarilla convention, I picked up How To Marry a Millionaire Vampire (http://www.amazon.com/How-Marry-Millionaire-Vampire/dp/B001TKD4ZI/ref=dp_kinw_strp_1) at the airport out of sheer horror. It was truly awful.

Upon arriving at the convention, I promptly took it in character and started accusing prominent characters of having written it, and ultimately got far more than $6.99 of giggles out of it.

The worst in my house that hasn't already been passed on would be Spy Candy (http://www.amazon.com/Candy-Zebra-Debut-Gina-Robinson/dp/1420104721/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236079797&sr=1-4), though the duology of Stand By Your Hitman (http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Your-Hitman-Romantic-Mysteries/dp/084396037X/ref=pd_sim_b_1) and Guns Will Keep Us Together (http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Will-Together-Greatest-Romance/dp/0843960361/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b) continues to make royalcrown's brain hurt. My friend Ron maintains it was my purchase of Twilight (http://www.amazon.com/Twilight-Saga-Book-1/dp/0316015849/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1236080044&sr=1-1).

[gnommi.livejournal.com]

I seem to remember guiltily giggling over some scene in a JH at secondary school, where a baby spectates intercourse in utero. What was the author thinking!?!

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

He would doubtless thinking I'll be quids in from gullible teenagers! Ker-ching!.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

Um... um... maybe; know if they're doing anything else? Didn't really enjoy download that much last time I went...

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Playing my Follower of Set, I went through a phase of taking large boxes of overpriced chocolates to games and handing them around freely with the words "Would you like a delicious chocolate of Set?" Simply adding the words of Set to anything at all would make people immediately suspicious, meaning that a lot of people simply refued to eat what were perfectly normal tasty chocs. Ah, happy days.

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

Their only UK date this year, apparently.

[manywaters.livejournal.com]

I still manage to incite suspicion by offering people Pocky (http://www.glico.co.jp/pocky/index.htm) ICly with big blinky eyes, but the of Set is far better an amusement ploy.

[robinbloke.livejournal.com]

That may settle it then... hrm... A one day ticket just for them shouldn't be tooooo bad

[davywavy.livejournal.com]

It was one of the best pieces of advice ever given to me by angelusmorbidum about playing an FoS. "Give people stuff. It really screws with their downtimes".

[annwfyn.livejournal.com]

Laurell K Hamilton - the Merry Gentley books. Like porn without the story, decent characterisation or realism.

I tried to give them away recently. No one would take them.

I think I may own some Jilly Cooper as well, but she's more of a guilty pleasure than any kind of unreserved embarassment.