This Week’s KSK Commenter Draft: BOOK BURNIN’!
As you may have guessed, I am not what you would call a voracious reader. Don’t get me wrong. I like reading the labels on whisky bottles. But books? Whoa, slow down there, mister. That’s a lot of words, many of them big and fancy.
Books are very thick, and therefore intimidating. I like lots of books I’ve read, but I’ve also been so traumatized by the books that I was forced to read in school that I approach them now with a good deal of trepidation. Will this book transport me to a whole new, enrapturing world that holds me in its thrall? Or will it be “Great Expectations”?
/shudder
We had a book draft earlier in the year, in which we all pretended to be crazy literate, and Ufford referred to his writing as “his prose”, which is rather high-minded nomenclature for dead stripper jokes. One reader, PBNW11, who might be some sort of robot beta model, even compiled our choices (and many commenter choices) into this Amazon list, which was damn near the nicest thing anyone’s ever done for us.
But now it’s time to explore the other side of the coin. Oh, I like me some books. But I also hate a great deal of them of them as well. Now, I don’t normally admire Nazis or crazy Midwestern preachers, but I do like me the occasional book burning. Books are plentiful, and highly flammable. I see no reason no to use the shittier ones as an alternative fuel source. The time to switch from oil to Coulter is upon us. These are books you’d pick to throw into a bigass A&M-style bonfire.
THE RULES: Pick one book at a time. All editions of the book you pick will be incinerated, and can never be republished. Once a book is selected, wait 10 choices before selecting another. Once an author is selected, all their books are off the board. Sorry, Otto Man. Only one Bill O’Reilly book for you. I get first dibs, so I’m picking the single worst piece of shit foisted upon me by the English staff at Exeter.
“Herland,” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
I’ll let Wikipedia describe “Herland” for you:
Herland is a utopian novel from 1915, written by feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The book describes an isolated society composed entirely of Aryan women who reproduce via parthenogenesis (asexual reproduction). The result is an ideal social order, free of war, conflict and domination.
Racist? Yep. Reverse sexist? Yep. Demonstrative of pushy, annoying, extreme liberal ideals? Oh, yes. Worst of all, there were no Cliffs Notes for it. Guhhhhhhhh.
Your turn. Will Leitch, Bill Simmons, and Buzz Bissinger await your picks with horror.
Tags: Bernie Goldberg's canon could power an entire city grid, Big Daddy Drew, get the marshmallows, God I hated that one Toni Morrison book, ksk commenter drafts, YOU PEOPLE DON'T APPRECIATE THE ART OF WRITING
May 16th, 2008 at 10:00 am
“The catcher In The Rye”. That book sucked and I’ll never figure out why it is still so popular.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:01 am
sylvia plath’s bell jar
May 16th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Dianetics.
I win, bitches.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:03 am
Koran
May 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am
…very thick, and therefore intimidating.
That’s what she…I forget how the rest of that goes.
I would like to select The Book of Tells by Peter Collett, which I bought because I thought it would allow me to read and assess others instantly, therefore making me omnipotent. Instead, I only ended up learning that if someone avoids looking you in the eye, they may be lying and/or nervous. Insightful.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:04 am
I dunno, man. Book burning is kind of extreme. Even the worst books have some value, even if only as a negative example.
On the other hand, if I’m burnin’ shit, I’m starting with the Bible. You fucking heard me. Go big or go home, motherfucker and take your book of racist, sexist bullshit fairy tales with you.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:06 am
David Copperfield.
Who get’s to bang a hot chick AND have 800 pages of dribble. BULLSHIT!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:06 am
I’ll take “Things that will end badly” for $200, Alex.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:06 am
madame fucking bovary.
i swear to god if i meet gustave flaubert in another life or, like, in hell or something, i am going to beat the ever living fuck out of him
May 16th, 2008 at 10:08 am
“The Hobbit” – NEERRRRRDS!!!!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am
The first Harry Potter book.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:09 am
“The time to switch from oil to Coulter is upon us”
Brillirant.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
Big Daddy Balls is an Exeter boy?
I’ll take A Separate Peace then.
F those collar poppers
May 16th, 2008 at 10:11 am
I’ll take A Separate Peace by John Knowles.
Plot: “Dude, you broke my leg! Now I can’t train for the Olympics!”
What a bunch of pussies.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:12 am
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
Sure, his later books were more “out there,” but I didn’t have to read them in high school. Fuck this book.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:12 am
fuck smperk that was my next selection. However, I believe it is piece not peace.
It’s a gay book about gay prep school kids with gay names that break their leg and die.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
@smperk
Holy shit dude. Are you like right behind me?
May 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
First off, I think that Tracer Bullets entry was disqualified bc the author was already taken by John S. That is, of course, unless we take it literally and not just “Crazy Guy(s) Who claims to be Writing God’s Word” as the author, and use the specific Crazy Guy….whatever, I’m not paid to enforce the rules am i?
all that being said, my pick is….Jane Eyre
May 16th, 2008 at 10:13 am
The Lonely Planet’s “Scotland”.
You call the Oceanview Bed and Breakfast’s rooms “clean, comfortable and conveniently located”? And that “up-to-date bus schedule” was a joke.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:14 am
fuck, you too TF? also, I’m an idiot smperk it is peace. I hated that book so much I can’t even remember how to spell the title.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:15 am
The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom.
Not only is it a total downer (you know… the Holocaust), but the only thing I took from it is that a person can go their whole life without ever having sex. Which is a horrible thought for a 15-year-old virgin.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:15 am
Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown…..fuck that shit
May 16th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I’ll take for my second pick Sherwood Anderson’s Winesburg, Oh.
When I read that in high school, I picked the book and threw it across the house, then actually took it outside and burned it, and gave the ashes to my teacher.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
@Tracer Bullet: Best pick ever. Draft should be over.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
Melville’s other big book besides Moby Dick. I can’t remember the name and don’t feel like looking it up. But holy fucking God was that awful.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:17 am
UU, I guess we get to pick again.
Five People You Meet in Heaven.
Shitty book, self-righteous dickbag author.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:19 am
The author of the Koran is Mohammed. Take away this book from history and my friends who worked in Cantor Fitzgerald and my uncle who worked for Aon are alive again.
Still not “over it” no matter how many times a TV show or movie in the “in a very special Blossom” voice tells me it is time for “remembrance.”
May 16th, 2008 at 10:20 am
How about my Intro to Biology textbook.
Try getting shoved into a locker with that thing in your backpack
May 16th, 2008 at 10:20 am
The Secret Garden. Had to read that shit in 6th Grade and it STILL pisses me off. I just wanted the cripple to die.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:21 am
*just read the rules*
OK… unlike the music draft, I am not erasing the book from history, just keeping from getting published again.
I guess I don’t get my loved ones back, but, I still consider it a quality choice.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:22 am
Bridges of Madson County.
Clint… I will never forgive you.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:24 am
I’d have to go with Ayn Rand’s the Fountainhead. Supposed to be this big towering book of ideas and philosophy and I spent an entire summer slodging through it, hoping for some sort of pay-off. I was going to school for architecture at the time, and the protagonist is an architect, and well go figure. Turns out Rand likes her heroes to be Nietzchean supermen (and idealistic douchebags) and oh by the way if they happen to rape women along the way, it’s okay because they are Great Men and we’ll just let that slide because they do Great Things.
I’ve read all kinds of things and consider myself pretty book knowledgable and I’ve never come across a bigger piece of literary garbage, all the worse because I know a handful of people who loved this 700+ page pretentious shit-storm.
Sorry to get all riled up, i just really love books and therefore hate them all the more when they suck.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:24 am
How to Make Love Like a Porn Star. by Jenna Jameson.
I still can’t.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:25 am
Crime and Punishment
May 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am
Elmore Leonard’s “Pagan Babies.” I’ve tried to read Leonard on at least six different occasions and I’ve always been disappointed, but this was the worst.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am
nice pick, dougery. very nice.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:26 am
“The Way Things Ought To Be” – Rush Limbaugh.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:27 am
“The Happiest Baby On The Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp.
200 pages from what easily could have been a 2-page pamphlet
May 16th, 2008 at 10:27 am
I don’t think you can technically say Muhammad was the author of the Koran. It’s more like “as told by”, kind of like Charles Barkley’s biography.
In any event, that creates some issues with whether the bible and the Koran can be picked in the same draft.
Oh, and I pick Oliver Twist.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Well since the Koran and the Bible were taken already, I’m going with the MahÄbhÄrata.
That’s right, fuck the Hindus and their 8 armed gods and their cow worshipping and their kwik-e-marts. Dicks.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:28 am
“The World According to Garp” by John Irving.
Terrible book, terrible movie. More gay New England prep school stuff, not to mention transexuals, and feminists.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:30 am
any book “written” by College Humor. Granted there are some entertaining parts out there but for the most part that shit is so full of its self.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:30 am
“Orlando” by Virginia Wolff
…promise me you’ll never read it…promise.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
For reasons previously explained in the movie ending draft, I choose Little Women by Louisa May Alcott. I hate her.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Kama Sutra. If I’m not good in bed I’d rather nobody else was either
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
I salute the two erudite genuii that selected A Seperate Peace. Fuck Phineas, Fuck John Knowles, Fucking Fuck Fuck Fuck That Book. That being said…
Kate Chopin – The Awakening.
The most pretentious piece of feminist garbage ever written. Oh, a poor repressed woman who lives on a fucking island and never has to deal with her husband has an emotional awakening and realizes she’s a dyke. But the world is too painful for her, so she’s just going to swim out into the fucking ocean and die. Oh, the humanity.
This book made me want to club baby seals.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Naked Lunch – William Burroughs
This is the most unreadable piece of shit ever to kill trees. Anybody who likes this book is an asshole.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
“The Firm”. Damn you, David Grisham for making 20 different books about the same damn thing.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:32 am
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte.
English was always my worst subject growing up, and this book was the bane of my existence for about two months in 12th grade. Sorry, but upper-class British twats fawning over each other does not make a good book. I got a lot more Brit-lit picks from that class on the backburner…
May 16th, 2008 at 10:33 am
GOSSIP GIRL!!!!!!!!!!!!! IT’S MY FAVORITE.
/eli manning
May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I’m going with any crock of shit by Ann Coulter. Not helping!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
The Adventures of Kavelier and Klay. I’m a huge comic geek, and a bunch of my friends told me I’d love this book. I later found out that the only ones recommending it were Jewish, and they said, “Yeah, we actually don’t know any shiksas that like it.”
May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
James Valente, someone already selected David Copperfield. No more Dickens.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
The fundamentals: 8 Plays for Winning in Business and Life by Isiah Thomas.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:35 am
I 2nd Wuthering Heights. Great Pick.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
really? no one? fine…
now i can finally die in peace
May 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Damn, I didn’t see that.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
I’m sorry that life in Nigeria sucks. Please pass the blunt…
May 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
I can’t believe nobody took Toni Morrison – Beloved. Worst book ever… “wah, i dont like being a slave, so im going to kill my kids.” brilliant choice by my feminazi h.s. english teacher.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:36 am
To Kill a Mockingbird.
I know… I know… it really is a great book, but, FUCK Atticus Finch and his “perfect father” ideal I had going into patenthood. Last time I checked, Mr. Finch did not have to get Scout of of the door to day care at 7:00 a.m. and, also, Scout didn’t even HAVE shoes so he didn’t get the “I DON’T WANT TO WEAR SHOES” thing. There was not even a “GET IN THE HOUSE RIGHT NOW SCOUT!” scene when she will not come in for dinner.
I will be generations of fathers from the impossible expectation of being a patient, kind, wise and saintly father at all times to all people.
You are welcome.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
for my second pick I’m going to choose “A Light in August,” by Faulkner. Love the author but man was this novel long and dry and just plain bad. After the ridiculously good and bizarre and difficult but worthwhile (to me) Sound and the Fury, I just don’t have a good thing to say about Light.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Ha, some chick actually pulled the Dirty Dancing move with me and gave me The Fountainhead w/o my asking. I was annoyed and even more embarrassed when my friends found out.
Since it’s been drafted already I’ll take…
The Lottery Rose …It’s about a retard that drowns when he falls face first into a puddle. Had to read in 7th grade.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
“The Giving Tree” by Shel Silverstein
The kid is a dick in the book and never gives anything back to the tree. I never read the book when I was a kid but someone gave it to my daughter and I read it to her. I am no longer friends with the person who thought that would be a good book to give to a 3 year old.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
correcetion: I will be “saving” future generations of fathers…
May 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
With my second pick, I take…
I Am The Cheese? Who else was subjeted to this crap in middle school? Why am I reading a book in 6th grade about a kid who rides his bike around the courtyard of his mental institution and imagines he’s in another world?
May 16th, 2008 at 10:39 am
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf.
You have no idea how many times I said “more like… to the OUTHOUSE!” while reading this boring piece of shit. Screw modernism.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
John S. , agreed.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:40 am
Iceberg Slim’s “Doom Fox.” A book written by a man who, if his writing is any indication, has never actually read a book in the whole of his life. I read about 20 pages before I gave the book away.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:41 am
@upstate u-dog, Catcher isn’t great but hate worthy? I dunno…
@James V. Harry potter too, while ubiquitous and annoying, is mostly harmless and kind of fun, if you are into that sort of thing.
@Snowflake, thanks for the shout-out, but your pick Winesburg? Really? I really liked that one. Maybe i was just too drunk when i read it.
@frnkln0385 Dude, Crime and Punishment kicks several different kinds of ass. I’d say its not for everyone, but man, I’m down for axing the landlady anytime.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:42 am
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
I think my 11th grade english teacher was a witch. She sunk when we threw her in the lake.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
Goethe’s “The Sorrows of Young Werther”
i cannot express in words how much i hate pussies
May 16th, 2008 at 10:43 am
“To the Lighthouse” is an outstanding pick. Generations of future English majors will praise your name.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:44 am
There was something about Winesburg that made me hate it. Perhaps it was the paper pills.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:46 am
@Mike: You stole my pick (sort of). Jazz is the only book I was assigned in high school that I didn’t finish reading, because I physically could not force myself to read beyond the first chapter. Toni Morrison blows.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Oh, and I’ll take The Scarlet Letter. That book sucks and Hawthorne can go get fucked since I’ve had to read so many times in school.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth
don’t tell me how to live you hypocriticial fat windbag. when you sell your mansion and private jet, I’ll buy a Prius.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:49 am
Lunar Park by Bret Easton Ellis. I’d like to believe we haven’t seen any new material from him since Glamorama.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Mein Kampf.
Time to put that shit to bed for all time too.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:50 am
Who Moved My Cheese?-Spencer Johnson
If the company you work for starts handing out this book, head for the door.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
The Scarlet Fucking Letter
May 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
‘The Blind Side’ by Michael Lewis
I thought that book was supposed to be about FOOTBALL, not gay shit. I left it inside a Village Voice box. I swear.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:52 am
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson, M.D.
When I worked the sales job I hated everyone raved about how awesome it was as a motivational tool and an allegory for sales and going out and getting your goal. Fuck you and fuck JUICE.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Jonathon Livingston Seagull.
My outrage against middle school literary canon continues.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:53 am
Dammit Naptown I spent too much time typing out my anti-DS-Max rant.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:54 am
A Million Little Pieces – James Frey
Personally, I wasn’t offended that he made the whole goddamn thing up and passed it off as a memoir. I was pissed that he concocted the whole persona just to make himself look cooler….and got away with it for awhile. This guy should be cockpunched hourly.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:56 am
@ John S. Don’t know how everyone (slef included) forgot that book. Either it slipped all our minds or everyone here is a secret Nazi.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I had Seen Castles
had to read this bullshit in high school, who the fuck writes an anti-war book about World War II? biggest piece of shit book ever, you want to be anti-war? fine, write about vietnam, korea, the present war in iraq, but world war II? get burned book
May 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
I live with this kid who swears Paterno By The Book AKA The Book By Paterno by Joe Paterno, is the bible. That shit is stupid, I don’t find it inspirational and there aren’t really any applicable life/coaching lessons so please allow me to toss it on the the pile.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Thankfully, I am on the job.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:57 am
@John John
I feel your pain. By the way…
The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People-Steven Covey
Are you a salesperson who needs somebody else to motivate you with a book or seminar? Get the fuck out of sales.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Pick #3. i’m sure to get all kinds of hell for this, since its such a guy’s guy book, but I just couldn’t stand Kerouac’s On the Road. There really isn’t much of a plot, just a dude who goes various places and gets wasted with his friends and shacks up all the time but WAIT before you indict me for what sounds like the greatest premise ever, consider this:
Instead of reading about a guy doing all this… if you find this stuff so cool just go and do it yourself. and instead of publishing your exploits… go to the bar and hang out with your friends and make them laugh and tell them your stories face to face. Hell, they might even buy you a beer.
May 16th, 2008 at 10:58 am
Continuing with my Brit-lit theme…
Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy.
Just when you think things can’t get any worse for Tess, they do. Class struggle and sexuality in rural England is just sooooo riveting!
May 16th, 2008 at 10:59 am
I don’t want to be the first guy who goes with “anything by X” but…
Can we just accept any autobiography by an actor/actress/supermodel as a given?
May 16th, 2008 at 11:01 am
God Save the Fan.
….what?
May 16th, 2008 at 11:01 am
I can’t believe how many of the books already chosen that I have had to read. I’ve been tortured. TORTURED, I tell you!
Jane Austen — Sense & Sensibility. Although I suspect that I wasn’t the intended demographic for that one.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:01 am
“Romeo and Juliette” by Shakespeare.
First, she was 13 and while that’s not necessarily a problem, I don’t want lectures on love from people who may or may not have pubes.
Second, teenagers, all teenagers, everywhere, are fucking stupid and should be kept in camps away from civilized people.
Third, check a fucking pulse, you stupid shits.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Ethan Frome. Fuck that book and the suicidal sled it ran into a tree and got paralyed from. It remains the only book I hate.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:02 am
Dianetics – L Ron Hubbard
best reason that religions / cults should be taxed.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:03 am
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
WORST PULITZER EVER. I really liked Lost in the City but this one made me want to jump off a tall building.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:03 am
Did you read the comments, Don’t you judge me?
May 16th, 2008 at 11:03 am
When asked my opinion about “Waiting for Godot,” I told my English professor that I grieved for all the trees that had needlessly died to make the paper for this piece of crap. Despite making A’s and B’s on everything, the prick gave me a C. Beckett is an Irishman who writes in French, need I say more? Theatre of the absurd sucks (ah, to be an academic and say “it sucks”).
May 16th, 2008 at 11:05 am
@ Tracer
Shakespeare is the tits. The potion the apothecary gave Juliet made her pulse too faint to be felt.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:06 am
The Children Bob Moses Led
When the author for that piece of shit showed up in my high school english class he probably never thought he’d be called out for his extreme bullshit. Plus I called him anti-semitic.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
Quiet Strength-Tony Dungy
Gee, thanks for the life lessons coach. How about you you go back to the film room and make sure we don’t get beat by Billy Fucking Volek next year? Also, this was a better book the first time…when Rosa Parks wrote it.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
the old man and the sea.
It starts there the old man… and he job is to catch the feesh… so he get in the boat to try and catch feesh. So he catches feesh… but the feesh is very strong, so the old man can’t reel in the feesh. So then he fight the feesh some more and he finally catch the feesh.
So he catches the feesh so he can make money?
No… on the way home the sharks come and eat the feesh and so… he no make money
FUCK YOU ERNEST HEMINGWAY
May 16th, 2008 at 11:07 am
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
I was about to go to an upstart prep school that decided it’d break in with this reputation as being a really tough school. So what’d they do? Make a ten year old read 428 fucking pages of his size eight font literary defecation…IN THE FUCKING SUMMER.
Fuck you, Jules Verne. May all your books burn.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Hey BS… pick a book not just an author… follow the rules dickhead.
Im taking Lord of the Flies. I read that in school and thought: are they encouraging kids to rebel and start a chaotic self destructive society that worships false gods?? WTF is this??
If i was on that island i would have killed everyone of those little bastards and piled thier bodies in the sand in the shape of H E L P.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am
celestine prophecy
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Kavalier and Klay was the tits. That commenter is obviously anti-semitic.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am
slaughterhouse-five. sorry, but it sucks.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:08 am
The Gay Science, Nietzsche. I truly do appreciate his work. However, if I have to listen to one more psuedo-Nietzschean say “God is dead” to me one more time when they have no idea what Nietzsche was trying to say, I might just reply with “and so are you” and grow a blade hand like the T-1000 and eviscerate him/her.
I think I need to lay off the coffee this morning.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
my bad – I searched on author.
Stupid White Men – Michael Moore, from the ultimate stupid fat white man.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
Ordinary People by Judith Guest, because it’s an overrated book and I’m STILL mad that the film adaptation won best picture over Raging Bull (NOPE, still mad.)
May 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
@unsilent: i agree. that book was the tits.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
How has no one picked The Yearling? I had to read this shit back in middle school.
I’ll summarize it for you: Some hick kid lives in the woods and his only friend is a boring, stupid deer. The end.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:09 am
“The Golden Compass”/”His Dark Instruments”
Hey, let’s write a kids book that indoctrinates them into OUR pushy nihilist atheism even though that’s exactly the kind of thought imperialism we’re supposedly rebelling against! Blow. Me.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:11 am
+1 to J
May 16th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Left Behind, by LaHaye/Jenkins. Picking this has the added bonus of putting Kirk Cameron out of work.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:12 am
“To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Wolfe. I’ve hated that boring fucking piece of shit since I had to read it sophomore year.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:12 am
War and Peace
Big book burn long time
May 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
John B: Great choice, but I already picked it.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Dammit, Mr. Snrub, you stole my next pick.
I’ll take “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Eggers. Fuck you and fuck your 10,000 footnotes and endnotes, you pretentious cheesedick. You aren’t funny, and I have no idea why people like your book.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Dutch by Terri Woods, not to nit pick but if your follow up books are just the title with numbers then it’s probably not that well thought out of a book series.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:14 am
If I Did It – OJ Simpson.
guess what, we already know you did it. burn this shit.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:15 am
@ dinosaur
And you just stole my next pick with AHWOSG
May 16th, 2008 at 11:17 am
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy. I generally like Ellroy, but the last 50 pages or so were just completely unnecessary, and fully detracted from the rest of it. Let’s just leave it with the film adaptation, and everyone will be better off.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Ben: Damn! You’re right. Howza bout “Interview With A Vampire” by Anne Rice? Perhaps the most overrated successful author of the late 20th century. Fucking pretentious hack…
May 16th, 2008 at 11:18 am
i liked this book a lot but it’s just too good to pass up: fahrenheit 451.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:19 am
+10 to SuperFrankieLampard for the obvious but overlooked choice.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:20 am
Men At Work by George Will-
Fuck you, you Republican cockmeat swallower.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Chairman Mao’s Little Red Book – Burn Commie, Burn
May 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
“Oil!” by Upton Sinclair.
Fuck you and your socialism and fuck you for being named Upton.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
Monday Night Jihad anybody? We could throw Elam in the fire with the book.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:22 am
I can’t believe no one’s picked “The Da Vinci Code” yet. What a steal this far in. Tracer Bullet, you want fairy tales, how about a book where the protagonist is a fucking SYMBOLOGIST!? Is that even a real job? Gay premise (Jesus liked him his bitches…oh no I can feel my religion melting by the page!) and horribly lacking in anything but the most superficial survey of history in all of literature. Not to mention it produced an entire population of “art expert” douchebags who could suddenly solve the world’s mysteries by looking for “cups” and “daggers” in five-hundred-year-old paintings. Movie sucked too. Only good part was at the end where we got to see Magneto flail about as a crippled waste of space.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am
@Tracer. Romeo and juliet rocks pretty hard for being written 400 years ago.
@Spatula. Right on. Waiting For Godot was a huge waste of time. You can learn a lot from a person who likes this play, i.e. “I’m not going to agree with you on a great many things.”
@BigTrav. Lord of the Flies? Lord of the Fucking Flies!? That was the only book from public school i actually enjoyed.
@superfrank. Slaughterhouse is fucking great. Most Vonnegut for that matter.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:23 am
@ Chocolate
Then put a mirror under the bitch’s nose. I normally advocate teen suicide, but this was just stupid.
I strongly considered Othello. “This handkerchief is my single most prized possession in the world and I must have it with me at all times . . . but if I drop it, I won’t notice.”
May 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
A Brief History of Time – Stephen Hawking
god that sucked.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
@J
I feel your pain, but POD burned Dan Brown’s cash cow a long time ago.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:24 am
“Fatherhood” by Bill Cosby. Just because
May 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Shit, just realize it’s been taken. My point still stands. My makeup pick is “Patriot Reign” by Michael Holley, and I’m a Pats fan. That book sort of sucks all kinds of balls now that we know the team’s super recipe for success.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:25 am
ATLAS SHRUGGED is worse than THE FOUNTAINHEAD.
But I digress…my nomination is THE 9 STEPS TO FINACIAL FREEDOM by Suze Orman.
Yeah, okay, there are some good tips in there. The same fucking tips from 500 other self-help books written since 1980. Now my chick sucks up all the memory on our DVR with this repetitive carpet muncher’s “yap-yap-you go, boyfriend-yap-yap.”
May 16th, 2008 at 11:27 am
+ 1 Marcus
I probably should’ve picked Ethan Frome, as it is definitely the worst book I’ve ever read. Fortunately, I read that during the actual school year, so Wharton’s scarring is far less severe on my soul than Verne’s.
Still, burn that book. And the sled. And the cat. And that stupid fucking pickledish.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:28 am
@ lt. winslow –
I can’t stand Old Man and The Sea. I’ve started that book 7 or 8 times, and the first chapter is so awful i can barely get through it. I’ve never finished it…
May 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am
@ Tracer Bullet
how can you like sports & not like othello? othello was the shit. a big jacked-up black dude giving the business to a high society white chick.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Tom Clancy- The Hunt for Red October.
Yeah, it was an ok read, but get over your hard-on for Ronald Reagan. Also, this takes out all of those subsequent books, which really started to suck.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The Good Earth by Pearl Buck.
Almost made a Hines Ward joke here, but this book’s about how shitty China is, not Korea.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am
“Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” by Robert Kiyosaki.
Basically, this guy has gotten filthy rich by writing a book telling other people how to get filthy rich. Except that he wasn’t rich before he wrote the book and became a motivational speaker.
And he claims that the book is nonfiction, but he’s been caught making up the characters in his book. His sheep-like followers don’t care.
Utter douchebag.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The 4 hour work week–
I can’t stand a fucktard who tries to tell me how I should live my life more like him.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:30 am
The Secret by Rhonda Byrne – in a similar vein to Who Moved My Cheese, my old job gave me a copy of this positive thinking bullshit along with WMMC.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:31 am
“Missing Links” by Rick Reilly
fucking lame ass book about golf. Read it on a friends recommendation.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:32 am
@ John John The Bastard: EXCELLENT choice, that was about ot be my super sleeper pick.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:33 am
+100 secrets to John John The Bastard.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:34 am
how about Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason? There’s a famous story about Kant is that he was so regular people in the town of Konigsberg Prussia set their watches to his shits.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:36 am
dougery, i also couldnt stand on the road. i still havent made it the whole way through to this very day despite numerous attempts.
as an english major, i read a lot of shit books in high school and college. but the allt time worst was joseph andrews by henry fielding. i couldnt get past the first 10 pages… oh and guess which “random” book i drew for my final for that class? yeah, i actually wrote about the first 10 pages and managed to get a B. woot!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:36 am
@lt. Winslow, as a big black dude who routinely gives the business to a white wife, it’s that I didn’t like it. I thought it hinged on a really weak plot contrivance. For the first half of the play, Shakespeare falls all himself to tell us how important this hanky is to Desdemona because it was a present from Othello and how she must have it by her side at all times and routinely pulls it out to hold it to her face.
But she can drop the thing and walk away without realizing it for hours? Horse. Shit.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:36 am
Since ATLAS SHRUGGED was passed on, I’ll take that. 1000 plus pages of bullshit philosophy from a chick that wasn’t even fuckable.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:36 am
@J
Someone did already pick the Da Vinci Code.
great call on Kant. Fuck that guy. Foucoult can eat a bag of dicks as well.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:37 am
“Sex and the City” by Candace Bushnell
For being an atrocious, pandering book, and for the subsequent damage it’s caused. God damn it.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:38 am
@John John
Oooohh… Yep, that shit is retarded. This is real life. Not Imaginationland.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Juiced. stunned it took this long
May 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am
@ jordan ginsberg- Standing O for you my friend.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:40 am
Tuesdays with Morrie.
Just die already.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
@ Tracer Bullet Says
he that stirs next to carve for his own rage holds his soul light, for he dies upon his motion.
that, sir, is how you break up a fight
May 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Jordan Ginsburg took my next round pick, dammit…but thanks Jordan.
Imagine the HOURS and HOURS of shit TV that could have been saved had this book not been written? Maybe HBO could have even ponied up for another season of ROME or Carnivale! Not to mention the movie and the dozens of other shitty TV shows that ripped off the inane fucking formula.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:41 am
Daredevil #105
This title started listing as Bendis ended his run but I had high hopes for Brubaker. Suffice to say, those hopes were dashed. “Criminal” is great, Bru, but you drove me off Daredevil with #105. That shit was boring, derivative and just plain AWFUL.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
Steinbeck and all his american dream trash can burn in a fire. This one isn’t even a book though, its four short stories that were written for magazines over several years then compiled into what is supposed to be a single coherent book, but they are almost completely unrelated and completely unreadable.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:42 am
110 People Who Are Screwing Up America: (and Al Franken is #37) by Bernard Goldberg.
For the title, for the fact that no one has currently taken any of this gasbag’s books, and again for the title.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
porky1: You forgot to mention the seemingly endless line of SITC rip-off columns that started appearing in every other newspaper around the country.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
Just woke up so I am late and don’t feel like reading all the comments so if someone else picked these I don’t really care.
Gotta go with Ethan Frome, the worst fucking book EVER made…and the movie was terrible too…oh and since I was late, The Great Gatsby is my second pick…which was also a shitty movie with that ass clown Robert Redford.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:44 am
@lt. Winslow. Bill could write a threat, but if I dropped my wedding ring (or my book of other women) I’d damn sure notice.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am
The Social Contract by Rousseau.
You think Kant’s bad? This trumps it by far. Rousseau just spouts off contradictory bullshit page after page without a real point. Never could understand it.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am
@ dougery
Great pick. I hated “On the Road”.
For my second pick, The Outsiders. Because 60’s gang violence was apparently boring as fuck and written at a retarded 3r-grader reading level.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:45 am
@SmittyLite
You’ve never finished Old Man and the Sea after starting 7 or 8 times?! It’s like 92 pages…that’s a Buzzsawesque commitment to not trying.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am
For the sheer arrogance of the entire concept of this book:
The Ultimate Weight Solution – Dr. Phil
Maybe he should follow this up with an ultimate cure for baldness solution or something.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am
@Tracer
Buddy of mine picks up DD and I read it most times I can. The only recent one that I haven’t seen was 105. not missing much i guess.
Are you reading Cap? Thats some big espionage fun shit.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Now I Can Die In Peace.
Bill Simmons circle jerking the Red Sox
May 16th, 2008 at 11:47 am
Let’s see…
THE GODFATHER RETURNS by Mark Winegardner.
Let’s just take a big ol’ steaming shit on a classic by essentially attaching a shitty video game-level subplot to one of the world’s great modern storylines. The world needed this piece of crap about as badly as it needed a musical remake of Hairspray starring John Travolta finally living out his drag queen fantasy.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Stay gold, Glove, stay gold.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:48 am
@porky1
Good call.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
Gone with the Wind- Margaret Mitchell.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
“Mere Christianity,” by C.S. Lewis
This book may be fantastic, but I’ll never know. The first five pages are full of some of the most specious reasoning this side of Ayn Rand. He hadn’t even gotten around to discussing Christianity on these first five pages, he was just writing utter bullshit. I couldn’t bring myself to read any further.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:50 am
@ Smitty Lite
except for few dozen references to “the great dimaggio”, i think my comment pretty much sums up the entire book, cover to cover
May 16th, 2008 at 11:51 am
“Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson
I want my DDT back, these mosquitoes are killing me.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:52 am
One of my friends gave me that book for Christmas. I stopped being the friend of the group who gives good presents that year based on that gift.
I did get a form of revenge though…his birthday gift this year was a $5 clearance Marmalard jersey from Wal-Mart.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:54 am
@ Glove
that’s tough
May 16th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Damn, I came to this way, way too late. Stupid job.
But to answer this: Once an author is selected, all their books are off the board. Sorry, Otto Man. Only one Bill O’Reilly book for you.
I would never, ever want to burn books by O’Reilly, Coulter or any of the rest. They’re the most deranged and most laughable things out there, and I’d never rob the world of the pleasure of reading them and mocking the shit out of them.
Hell, I’d just as soon pass a law calling for the end of fat guys falling down on the ice.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Find Me
Rosie O’donnell
nuff said
May 16th, 2008 at 11:56 am
@Snrub: I’ll see your Fatherhood and raise you Couplehood by Paul Reiser.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:57 am
The Art of the Deal Donald Trump.
Step 1- Have a rich father.
Step 2- Don’t fuck it up.
Step 3- If you do, get a TV show to hide the fact that you’re an awful businessman who is in debt up to his asshole with everyone.
Really hate that guy
May 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am
Super/System by Doyle Brunson.
that fucking book has cost me too much money.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:59 am
Actually, “The time to switch from oil to Coulter is upon us” is fairly persuasive. Maybe we can keep one to mock, and burn the rest?
May 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
@grungedave
Secret to that book? You can usually tell who has read it. So the betting patterns are easy to identify. Use that book as the opposite of what to do and …. profit
May 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
“The Lost World” by Michael Crichton…
Just because I enjoyed Jurassic Park and the sequel seemed as if he wrote it while pinching a log.
And “State Of Fear” is one of the most boring “scientific” potboilers ever written. That Asshole.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
@dinosaur. I couldn’t finish Heartbreaking blahbitty blah of blahbitty blah-blah either. I thought the gimmicks in the front were funny, but a one time only thing, after which they were tiresome, and when he finally got to the actual story I
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
May 16th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
“The Happiest Baby On The Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp.
200 pages from what easily could have been a 2-page pamphlet
Seriously. The DVD wraps it up in 5 min.
Wraps it up! A swaddling joke!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
Find Me by Rosie Odonnel. I never read it but Im sure it would burn nicely
May 16th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
crazy joe… it was easier when no one knew shit. Now it takes effort to steal their money. That book shoulda been burned 20 seconds after I finished reading it!!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
ohh damn Nazz stole it from me!!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
@ BigTrav:
Of course it would burn nicely…the first ten thousand copies were printed with ink saturated with Rosie’s steam-room fat drippings. But that book was already off the board.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
the 1999 trinity high school year book, man did I look fat in that senior picture.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
“Needful Things” – Stephen King. Unreadable, even for a King fan.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Giants in the Earth by Ole Edvart Rolvaag. Swedish family moves to the plains of South Dakota. Swedish Mom goes crazy from the open space and kills herself. Surviving Swedish family are terrorized by Indians, bad weather, and their complete ignorance of farming.
It was so bad, the teacher apoligized for putting us through it.
We had to read it because it was about 19th century South Dakota. Be glad you are not from South Dakota.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
The Sky Fisherman by Craig Lesley
this is one that a High school english teacher recommended to me. I’ll never know why, and I’ll always regret agreeing to read it. Its one of those “coming of age” stories that middle aged school teachers love to give to teenagers who are actually coming of age, and thus cannot possibly appreciate reading about someone else doing it (which is not why I hated this book, but why I hate “coming of age” stories in general). The plot summary sounds interesting enough with a fire and murders and such, but its incredibly boring. I remember the fire and the kid poking a bloated corpse with a stick, but that’s about it. I’m saving generations of students from this one.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:09 pm
American Queer, Now and Then by David Shneer and Caryn Aviv
Rushed selection… but still burnable
May 16th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
pick #4.
the plague by Albert Camus.
I never should have bothered, but i liked THE STRANGER just fine, and i had an Atlantic flight to kill, so I figured why not? I like apocalypse/society crumbling stories and think diseases are scary as fuck, so how on earth was this SO BORING?
I passed it on to a buddy i was traveling with after warning him it would suck, but he stubbornly went along with anyway. A month later he slapped me on the back of the head with it and walked away.
To this day its the only book i’ve ever been assaulted with.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
“The Communist Manifesto” by Karl Marx and Freidrich Engels
Disappointed this wasn’t my first pick. America, fuck yeah!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Ah crap! Late to the party. Still, the book that would have been my first pick to begin with is on the board even now: “State of Emergency” by Pat Buchanan, which I actually just read this week. Fuck you, you hate-mongering xenophobe. I’m a first-generation American and my parents are both highly educated and devoted members of their communities. Moreover, I’m like 10,000 times cooler and sexier than you. I hope you don’t like baseball if you’re really all that down on Hispanic immigrants, you shithead. I wish I had a dick so I could tell you to get down on your pasty white knees and suck it. I HOPE YOU DIE.
Phew! That’s all for today.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The Lorax by Dr. Suess
Only because my sister-in-law thought it would be great if I read that to my niece at a St. Patrick’s day party.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
+100 cocktails to the future mrs.!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:12 pm
@ dougrey. Nah, I’m trying to cut back on my comics while seeking gainful employment and until this Secret Invasion crap is over. I’ve heard good things about Cap, though.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I totally disagree with a bunch of these. Vonnegut is the best and if you don’t agree, you’re dumb.
I’m making two picks because we’re already over 200 and I feel like it.
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas Kuhn. Seriously. I was told to read this twice in college. 8 pages in, I learned one word (paradigm) and felt like killing myself 8 times.
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley. People rave about this book. Let’s see… They took the cool story of King Arthur and made it about feelings and lady parts. Fuck that.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:13 pm
I liked “The Yearling.” Yeah, it’s depressing. Still good. Whatever.
I had to think awhile on this, because I’m generally opposed to book burning, but finally realized that “Trump: The Art of the Deal” and all his books deserve to burn. I’ve never read any of them, but I’m betting that they’re all a celebration of his own doucheyness.
Fuck you, Trump. I hope you die poor.
And “Fahrenheit 451″ was an awesome pick.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
I can’t believe how literate the kissingsuzykobler readers are! 200 comments and it’s barely past 9 a.m. here on the west coast. I’m gonna take Henry Miller’s “Tropic of Cancer” with my first pick. I’m so liberal I’m practically a fucking communist, but meandering smut like this has no place being considered serious literature.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:14 pm
The Warren Commission Report On The Assassination Of John F Kennedy
should have been filed under “fiction”
May 16th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
My Prison Without Bars by Pete Rose
How are you going to write a 336 page book that could have been two sentances: I did it, I gambled on baseball. Can I get into the HOF now?
May 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Tawmmy picks “19-0: The Historic Championship Season of New England’s Unbeatable Patriots” by the Bahston Globe.
“What do ya mean that’s an ineligible selection? Fack you, you fackin’ queeahs! It woulda happened if the league office hadn’t conspiyahed to undahmine the Pat’s makin’ fackin’ history because of some whiny queeah makin’ up lies about taping Kaht Wahnah tahssin up dyin’ quails in a fackin’ scrimmage!”
May 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
The Mystery Method by Mystery. I don’t care what you will say about “well if that goofy looking dude can pick up chicks it must work” I make my own luck goddam it.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I swear I didn’t see Trump farther up. Told you, I had to think about it. And I can’t think of another. So I’ll just second Crazy Joe’s selection. Burn, Trump, burn.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I can’t believe I forgot this one.
“Where is Joe Merchant?” by Jimmy Buffett.
A friend recommended this to me. I never fully trusted that friend again. Jimmy Buffett has an IQ of, at most, 95. And he writes like an eighth grader. And not an honors eighth grader, either, I’m talking an eighth grader in general-level classes in an inner-city public school.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
@Zack. Hell yes, good pick. On the short list of Big “Important” Books i could never finish. I think this book is considered important because it was banned and racy at the time. its probably somewhat of an overstatement to say that if a book like this was published today that it would get no reaction, but still. excellent choice.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
“A Search for Meaning in Love, Sex and Marriage” we had to read it in my catholic high school and it was the dumbest thing in the history of dumb things.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
PRE-EMPTIVE STRIKE: The “Stuff White People Like” book. Let’s see, 14:57, 14:58, 14:59 . . .
May 16th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Catch This by “Terrell Owens”
T.O. (aka his ghostwriter) talks about how much he loves playing in Philly and wants to stay there forever and ever and ever. Fuck him.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
My Life So Far
by Jane Fonda
now that she is a non-fuckable post menopausal hag, there is absolutely no reason to pay any attention to her.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
Along the lines of that Mystery horseshit, I’ll pick “The Game” by Neil Strauss. The fact that there exists an actual “seduction community” makes me want to eat a flurry of bullets.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:31 pm
“A Tradition of Purple: An Inside Look at the Minnesota Vikings” by James Bruton. I must admit I have never actually read this book, but it’s about the Vikings so it must suck…
May 16th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
“Treasure Island” by R.L. Stevenson. Because that old poop Henry Fonda forced the kid in “On Golden Pond” to read it and he gave in and did it. Pussy.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:34 pm
/drinks 100 cocktails
/sends inappropriate text messages to at least 75 people
/dies
May 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
NO! You have to live!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
223 posts? about books? on KSK?
what the fuck?
May 16th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Fuck that book. Fuck it up it’s stupid asshole. The most worthless piece of literature I’ve ever had to read in high school. Like the author’s name suggests, Eff Scott Fitzgerald.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:36 pm
“life’s little instruction book” by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
This guy made money off a book that tells you the most common sense bullshit, like: have a firm handshake and other crap.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Hell Bent by Skip Bayless.
Bayless is the most clueless sports writer ever i cant ever remember a time when he was right.
Plus how can you write for the Dallas Morning News then with no proof, write a book about how Troy is gay.
I’ll tell you who is gay anyone named fucking “Skip”
May 16th, 2008 at 12:37 pm
Wow I’m surprised this book hasn’t come up:
The Game by Neil Strauss
AKA how to teach a generation of dudes to become douchebags.
Freakanomics comes in at a close second.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
Oops, look like “The Game” was picked already, I’ll go with Freakanomics then.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
“The Teachings of Don Juan-A Yaqui Way of Knowledge” by Carlos Castaneda
Although give the late author credit for stretching the same rambling peyote-trip bullshit into 12 books.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:38 pm
@Big Satan: Cannot disagree more with “I Am The Cheese.” Cormier is pretty bad-ass (and I haven’t even read “The Chocolate War”).
I’ll go with “100 Years of Solitude” by Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, because a) I stopped reading it halfway through because it was taking forever (rimshot), and b) it’s the favorite book of an asshole I went to college with. So take that.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
“The Prince” by Machiavelli
1) Dick Cheney masturbates to this nightly
2) Some rap guy uses it as his name…but spelled differently, so he’s edgy!
Eat taint, you Guinea piece of sterco (which is Italian for shit, I think)
May 16th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
Living History
by Hillary Clinton
I can’t believe this is still out there, it’s like finding Peyton Manning available in the 6th round!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton – I liked some of his other books when I was in high school, but the ending to this book makes me wish that I had died along with the others in Piedmont.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This is a classic? Really?
May 16th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
“The Rules” by Ellen Fein and Sherrie Schneider. From two “dating coaches” (the fuck is that, a dater who blew out their ACL and had to retire) that temporarily made every woe-min in the 90’s go crazy with their bullshit advice and may or may not have inspired a terrible sitcom or two.
Fuck them both.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Clarissa, or, The History of a Young Lady, by Samuel Richardson. A seemingly endless stream of utter crap. Had to read this for a class on feminist literature. Worst class ever, worst book ever.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:43 pm
@ SonOfSpam: Didn’t know if you were being sarcastic or not, but that “rap guy’s” been dead for over a decade. Past tense
May 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
“The Man Inside Me”
Tobias Funke
May 16th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Wow, Eggers is long gone, and Kerouac is off the board too, so I guess I’m stuck with Richard Ford’s “Independence Day.” Any book where it’s so obvious that the author is a.) writing about himself and b.) thinks he’s the greatest fucking guy on the planet and c.) can’t understand why everyone else doesn’t think so, too, is kind of like that video of the monkey drinking his own urine.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
“The Bourne Identity” by Robert Ludlum
Seriously, how in fuck’s sake has this corpse sold so many books? 99% of porn has more realistic and fully formed dialogue.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game by Gregggggggggggggg Easterbrook
Value pick! Value pick!
Apologies in advance to Big Daddy Balls’ dog for the undeserved kick to the stomach this pick will cause it to endure.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Porky1 obviously never took a heavy acid trip.
Castaneda is a bad mofo
May 16th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
My Life by Bill Clinton–I get it, you rose from Arkansas squalor to making 100 million dollars a year for giving speeches. But can you give me the time it took me to read your 1,000 page shit-opus back? I think not.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
“The Audacity of Hope” by Obama. I am not a huge fan of commies funded by George Soros.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
“Love You Forever” by Robert Munsch
saddest kids book ever, the mother dies at the end.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:51 pm
After the Cataclysm by Chomsky & Herman. Communism Rules! Oh and genocide in in Cambodia is understandable given that… communism rules!
“Stalin party of three, right this way!”
May 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
Thanks, Mr. Lawrence, for making sex & adultery boring.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
@ Dickens Cider
I was waiting for ten picks to pass and you beat me on the tenth pick. I like some books in the fantasy genre, but that one was too unbelievable.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
@Snrub: Thanks for the update. I will pour a little of my King Cobra on the sidewalk out of respect (that’s the proppa thing, right?)
“A Charge to Keep” by George W. Bush. Really? A fucking charge to keep? How about, “How a Dimwit Fucktard Accidentally Became President”???
May 16th, 2008 at 12:53 pm
@Silience, I’m guessing you would have picked The Communist manifesto if hadn’t earlier.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:54 pm
“The Audacity of Hope” by Obama. I am not a huge fan of commies funded by George Soros.
Regarding my earlier comment about how books by mouthbreathers like O’Reilly and Coulter shouldn’t be burned — this is exactly what I’m talking about. If you robbed us all of the pleasure of being able to point and laugh at dumb motherfuckers like this, the world would be a sadder place.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
1984 by George Orwell. Because the hardcore dickriders of this book annoy me, it’s overrated (Brave New World BETTER) and so no one can take Animal Farm.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:57 pm
@ Gallows
You talking about my pick for Obama’s book or my pick of the book about the Greatness of the Minnesota Vikings? Because both are complete fantasy!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Alright, finally making my first pick — Ulysses by James Joyce.
Sorry, foppish English majors, but being impossible to read isn’t the sign of a great book.
You could set Stephen Hawking’s robotic voice to random and it would come up with something easier to understand and prettier to hear.
May 16th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
@ Otto
Ah good point, O’Reilly and Coulter suck ass too. I didn’t see your earlier comment, my bad.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Walden. Thoreau was a dick.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Generation X Goes to College – Peter Sacks
I was assigned this pile of dung in a college English class and have regretted not dropping the class immediately ever since.
Synopsis: Journalist leaves the newspaper business and gets a job teaching journalism at a community college. He refuses all advice from superiors and other teachers. He sucks at teaching and hates how he can’t connect with his students. He gets tenure after 3 years and still bitches. He writes book blaming students, school system, and pop culture. He also includes 40 pages about how we’re in a post-modern society for no apparent reason. He refers to his wife as his “partner”, thoroughly annoying the shit out of me.
My analysis: You couldn’t hack it at a real job. You couldn’t hack it teaching at community college. You can’t even write a decent book. You suck at life.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
So many possibilities. For starters, please begin marinating “Motherless Brooklyn” by Jonathan Lethem in lighter fluid. Fantastical superhero sequences, gratuitous gay sex. How … twee.
A laurel and hearty handshake to whoever picked that David Eggers book.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:02 pm
Damn, there are so many books on here that I dig. I might actually be a pretentious sack of crap. Eek!
Fuck it, I’m drafting again. “Skinny Bitch,” by two idiot girls whose names I’m not even going to bother looking up. Young women do not need to be brainwashed into having eating disorders, thank you. I’m an advocate of eating healthy food and exercise, since I do like my skimpy clothing in the summer, but preaching the gospel that you need to starve yourself skinny is the worst example of female self-loathing I can think of — besides hanging out with Joe Francis, that is.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Sorry Otto, Portrait of the Artist was already taken. Uylsses stands
May 16th, 2008 at 1:04 pm
Kudos to those who said The Scarlet Letter.
I don’t think anyone had made this pick yet… Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf. Definitely in the top 5 of horrible books forced upon me in English class. Previously mentioned Ethan Frome also high on the list.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
Oh man, pick of the century here.
The Secret, by that fucking fraud Austrailian bitch. I worked at Barnes and Noble when that came out and wanted to kill every person that bought it.
Also, fuck you Oprah.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Sorry for the “dumb motherfucker,” Dickens, but the Soros-funded commie thing is approaching tin foil-hat territory.
Personally, I think all politicians’ books are self-serving bullshit. I’d only buy Bill Clinton’s phone book of self-wankitude if I needed to weight down the back of my car to drive in the snow.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:10 pm
“Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women” by Elizabeth Wurtzel
If that’s not a solid KSK choice, I don’t know what is.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
@ Glove: Good choice, but it was picked already
@ peb: Anything by Wurtzel deserves to be burned, can’t believe she lasted so long.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Sorry Otto, Portrait of the Artist was already taken. Uylsses stands
Eh, no worries. No one would read it anyway.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
The Audacity of Hope
May 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm
I’m trying to decide on a second pick, but I need a clarification:
Is Katherine Hepburn’s Me a book?
May 16th, 2008 at 1:18 pm
You guys must really be bored as hell today. Wow, a book burning draft? I guess drafting women must have gone out of style.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
Gulliver’s Travels Johnathan Swift
i guess i just liked it better the first time i read it. you know, when it was called Voltaire’s Candide.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Pretty sure Gulliver’s Travels came first, LT.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
Samuel Richardson’s “Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded.”
Because it isn’t, and because reading that book was the most painful experience of my college life.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
Politics and memoirs should have been ruled out. I don’t care that it was taken, I was supposed to read it at four different points in my academic career. I woul d use all my picks to re-burn Jane Eyre.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
@Mr Snub
I was thoroughly disappointed with Lunar Park as well. The first 40 pages were pretty good, but the ending was utter horse shit.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Damn. thanks for the update Mr. Snrub.
I choose “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. I don’t care what you believe but I tried to read this book and couldn’t. Dawkins was too busy with the ad hominems and being an asshole to actually make a point.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
@Mooby. Gatsby is pretty good, but so be it.
@Gallows Gnome. Frankenstein is another book I enjoyed. oh well.
@Grimey. if you hated 100 years of solitude, don’t go anywhere near Love in the Time of Cholera. More like Boring in the Time of Stupid.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Red Badge of Courage
If I wasn’t such a fucking nerd in middle school I would have chosen the book I had already read from the list for my book report and saved myself the misery of trying to read this piece of shit. I don’t think I even finished the book but just skimmed random pages toward the end so I could write the report.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:33 pm
Cheers to whoever picked “Jazz” by Toni Morrison earlier. Absolute garbage.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
Got to the game way late but here’s my pick:
“Johnny Got His Gun” – Dalton Trumbo
1) Hated the English teacher who assigned this (though he also assigned Slaughterhouse Five, which I enjoyed)
2) Reading about an armless, legless, faceless guy get a handjob from a nurse is as disturbing at 25 as it was at 15
3) Trumbo was a pinko
May 16th, 2008 at 1:36 pm
the crying of lot 49 by thomas pynchon. only book i ever threw at a wall after finishing. it made me want to break things.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Devil in the White City
Everyone said, ‘Hey, its a gritty tale of a serial killer in Chicago in the late 1800s set against the backdrop of the Worlds Fair. You’re from Chicago, you like that kind of stuff…….you’ll love it.’
Meanwhile, the first 100 pages read like a damn architectural textbook. No thanks.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Sheesh, slim pickings this far down. I guess I’ll make “A Simple Plan” by Scott Smith into a late-round pick. A bunch of idiot hicks find some money and are too stupid to go to Vegas and launder it, hilarity ensues.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:40 pm
Postsecret books – Listen I have enough of my own hidden shames, I take no solice on reading others.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
@ hardaway – devil in the white city was pretty enjoyable in my opinion. HH Holmes is probably the best name for a serial killer ever.
I’m taking Friday Night Lights just to spite Bissinger.
And if I had to pick a terrible Toni Morrison book (is that redundant?) I’d choose The Bluest Eye.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Watership Down – Richard Adams..aka the god damn bunny book. If not for a brief bit in the middle where it looked like a farmer was going to eat the bunnies, the whole thing would be unreadable. I had to read this in school at some point and only passed the test by watching the movie (which is only slightly less horrible).
May 16th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
I don’t think this has been mentioned and I only chime in with it cause I absolutely loathe the existence of this book, “He’s just not that into you” by Greg Brehedshutthefuckup.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
How the hell is Rick Warren’s A Purpose-Driven Life still on the board? From his site:
“The most basic question everyone faces in life is Why am I here? What is my purpose? Self-help books suggest that people should look within, at their own desires and dreams, but Rick Warren says the starting place must be with God and his eternal purposes for each life. Real meaning and significance…”
Color me a soulless atheist bastard if you must, but that just fills me with blind rage.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
“My Turn,” by Nancy Reagan.
I won’t say any more on the subject, because I don’t want to start a PoFlaWa in this thread.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Haven’t seen this so far …
“Flatland” by Edwin A. Abbott
For a few points extra credit, I had to read that last week for my “visual communication” class. We were supposed to write about three paragraphs on how this book relates to problems with communication.
Instead, I wrote four pages on how much I fuckin’ hated Flatland. Incomprehensible nonsense. The same “exaggerated viewpoint of the social injustices inherent in society turned into ‘amusing’ parody” bullshit from the late 19th, early 20th century that a bunch of authors tried to craft but failed on an epic scale.
I don’t even care if I get the points — at least I can sleep at night.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:01 pm
“Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul” – by Some Asshole
I got talked into reading this book by some girl I thought was hot in high school, and I made it about five pages in before I couldn’t take anymore.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
@ Archie: That was going to be my second round pick, but I couldn’t remember the name of the book or author. I tried Google searching “creepy preacher self help book” to no avail. But anytime I go into B&N, I see his toothy grin jumping off the shelves and coming to sodomize me.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:06 pm
Portnoy’s Complaint – Philip Roth.
An entire book about the inner workings of a completely neurotic, selfish, self-conscious, obnoxious, perverted pussy. It’s like High Fidelity if it was written by Mort Goldman. Only not funny.
Alexander Portnoy is one of the few individuals who could have actually become a better person through a semester of brutal hazing at the hands of a sadistic fraternity.
Dr. Spielvogel should have given him the following advice:
1) Shut the fuck up
2) Go tell your mother to shut the fuck up
3) Drink a liter of Wild Turkey
4) Go to a strip club
5) Eat a big lobster dinner
6) Shut the fuck up
I’m sure this shit was funny/shocking in the 1960’s. Now? It’s just fucking whiney.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Not that it’s worth getting all excited about, but I’m going to finish off with Robert Heinlein’s “Number of the Beast”. Absolute garbage.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
After I graduated from college, my Dad gave me “The Book of Virtues” by former drug-czar William Bennett. I can’t technically include it here, because it is still sitting on my shelf unopened, but I felt it merited inclusion here in case anyone else was subjected to that tripe.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:12 pm
@devin hester’s speech coach
Try again, I already picked that shitheel Crichton…
May 16th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
It’s like High Fidelity if it was written by Mort Goldman.
I’d like to hear more about the time Mort miscarried.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:20 pm
@ John B – Yeah I noticed. Andromeda Strain still sucks ass.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:24 pm
The Corrections hasn’t been taken yet? Fine, I’ll pick The Corrections! Mainly because I kept hearing about how it would be the Next Great American Novel (and the author went to my school), but its plot fell flat and it didn’t live up to the hype.
Also, I understand the Eggers hate but fuck it, I’ll defend AHWOSG to the death. Great writing, great stories, tragic without being maudlin, funny without being over-the-top… yes it is pretentious but I was willing to forgive that.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
I can’t believe nobody picked it yet, but as an opponent of the Blogosphere and until recently a member of the wapo staff I think I’m Back for More Cash: A Tony Kornheiser Collection (Because You Can’t Take Two Hundred Newspapers into the Bathroom) should be burned. Yes I used proper bibliographic listing.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:25 pm
Annnnnnnnd my underlining didn’t show up.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
WOWWW I thought I was the only subjected to reading the hell that was Herland. I sympathize with you, Drew. That shit was awful.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:42 pm
Football for Idiots by Joe Theismann.
Yes, this book really did happen. It should be burned even if only for redundancy; he talked to me like I was an idiot every Sunday night for over a decade.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
What To Expect When You’re Expecting
Suggestions include eating no more than 2 tablespoons of fat (total!) per day, that oral sex on a pregnant woman can cause an embolism, and that fetal hiccups indicate the cord is wrapped around the baby’s neck.
I’d like to throw the authors on the fire as well.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:48 pm
Okay, one last one. Larry Niven’s “Destiny’s Road.” He’ll probably get cut in training camp, but I see no harm in letting him suit up and having the veterans take a few shots at him.
May 16th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I’m burning Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham. I’ve tried reading that damn book three times and have never made it. It’s interesting for a couple hundred pages, but the remaining 500 seem to be a daunting task once I reach that point.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Jesus Christ, you actually have to do work for a day and you miss out on a fun draft. Good to see both books I have pegged for burnage were picked though (Watership Down and The Scarlet Letter).
Other than that, I got nothin’.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hey Buzz Buttfinger and Costass (creative nicknames, hey?), looks like some of us got some book learning. I hope both of you drown with Jane Austen, the overrated Nora Roberts of her generation, and take all her novels to the depths with you.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Edie on the Warpath, a children’s book by Elizabeth C. Spykman, about a stupid girl named Edie. In fifth grade there were like 6 copies of that book in the library so me and my friends thought it would be funny to all check the same book out (of course, I was the only one of the group who actually read books, or could actually read, but that’s neither here nor there.). But since in Catholic School there’s no such thing as a harmless prank, our teacher Ms. Zabrasky collared us and punished us by making us write a book report on it. It sucked. Completely and totally. And this from someone who read Pippi Longstocking and the Ramona books…but not Judy Blume!!
May 16th, 2008 at 3:31 pm
God Emperor of Dune – Frank Herbert
I enjoyed the first three books, but jumping us thousands of year ahead to read to a worm philosophize for 450 pages is just fucking brutal.
Also, kudos to everyone hating on “The Old Man and the Sea”. It’s the longest 90 pages in the history of literature. If I had the choice I’d go ahead and burn everything Hemingway ever wrote.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:38 pm
And for my Bill Polian value pick…
Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus-John Gray, Ph. Disaster.
Nope, we’re both from Earth. You sir…however…are an alien douchebag.
May 16th, 2008 at 3:43 pm
On that note, Biggus Rickus, technically a legal pick:
“Dune: The Butlerian Jihad” by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson
See “Godfather Returns,” above. As bad as “God Emperor” was, at least it wasn’t fucked up twenty years later by his son and one of the biggest hack-for-hires in all of SF fiction. We don’t NEED an endless series of half-assed prequels and sequels based on notes Frank Herbert scribbled on a cocktail napkin. It’s just a money-grubbing attempt to fill in the void created by the giant sucking hole that Star Trek became about 15 years ago. (Not a Trekkie, just an observation.)
May 16th, 2008 at 4:02 pm
The Historian by Elizabeth SomeRussianovich
Starts out interesting about this girl’s search for her professor father who may or may not have been abducted my Dracula. Halfway through we are treated to her grad school thesis for 200 pages about the history of Europe or some shit. Then her professor is kidnapped by, again, presumably Dracula. Would you like to know how it wraps up? “Spoiler” alert, as if the actual ending isnt the true spoiler:
Well, you may believe we’ll see a bait and switch.. but no, it really IS Dracula. But what’s his motivation for kidnapping professors and academics???? Since he’s been alive for a zillion years, he’s collected quite a few original works of literature and he needs somebody to CATALOG THEM AND BE HIS LIBRARIAN!! THATS IT!
And yes, this is absolutely grounds for digging up the dead over-used body of Comic Book Guy: Worst.Ending.Ever.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
@porky1 – Good choice. I haven’t read any of them for all of the reasons you listed.
Since I’m in this thing really late anyway, I’ll pick again.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
I have a biblically bound copy of this thing in its entirety that I borrowed from a friend, forgot to give back before he moved, and we’re not in touch anymore. So it’s mine now. Yes, I’m a dick. I like this book…for about 200 pages. Then I can’t fucking stand it’s whimsical nature and put it aside. A year or two will go by, I’ll read other books, run out of things to read and remember, “Hey, I never finished Hitchhiker’s Guide.” However, I forget what had happened up to the point where I stopped the last time, so I start from the start. I then get burned out on the book again and the cycle continues. Destroying the book, I fear, is the only way to break it.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
@ the Incredilbe Fulk.
Nice pick. That book inspired the phrase “English Shiterature” from my wife.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I have that same leather bound Hitchhiker’s Guide that I picked up at Goodwill for 2 bucks–you may laugh, but books is a’spensive and they get good shit there, particularly historical non-fiction.
It’s like the Nerdcronomicon. And it was a lot more entertaining when I was 14 (what isn’t?)
May 16th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
@ smaaron
And everytime my wife sees a vampire/Dracula movie, she has to crack a joke that he’s looking for help with the Dewey Decimal system.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:17 pm
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. This book was boring, drawn out, and for once was done much better in movie format with Apocalypse Now. It’s the only book I didn’t finish in school, and even hearing about it pisses me off
May 16th, 2008 at 4:20 pm
Let Freedom Ring by Sean Hannity. I think Sean needs to be sodomized by John Waters.
On that note porky1, I made the mistake of venturing into The Butlerian Jihad and it reads like a fourth grade show and tell presentation.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:26 pm
Late to the party, but …
Jim Cramer’s Mad Money: Watch TV, Get Rich
First I always couldn’t stand this screaming jackass. It was like watching the really bad informercials on Sunday where some asshat scamdicapper yelled and raved about this week’s selections and showed you a clip of last week where he nailed a winner. Of course, if you watched last week’s show that was the only winner he nailed in the 10 plays he gave out but who’s counting.
Cramer could nail every stock he picks from now until he retires and it will still not make up for him telling his loyal viewers not to unload Bear Sterns a week before it went belly up and lost investors billions. (video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUkbdjetlY8)
May 16th, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I’ve found several t’s and a bitchin’ black trench coat at the Goodwill, so no laughter here. And yeah, at 14 I may have been able to finish the fucking thing.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:49 pm
Is “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” a book, cuz I think we should probably burn it anyway. Damn anti-masonic trash.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser.
Boring ass book that I couldn’t get through 20 pages of. I think it’s a good rule of thumb that when you read a high school or college US History or Western Civ text and it gives shoutouts to how great books from certain periods are, you can be assured they are crap. It’s like they have been grandfathered into the Western Canon but nobody wants to admit that they cannot finish or comprehend these books.
Think of all the examples of books you’ve mentioned today lilke Joyce, Hemmingway, Fitzgerald, etc. Once you voice that you hate these books, people who haven’t even read them immediately defend them as classics.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
@ Otto Man,
oh sure, if you go by “publication date”.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Fuck me, I almost forgot this, Wide Sargasso Sea, take Jane Eyre and cross it with Toni Morrison. This book is my antithesis.
I’ll let wikipedia elaborate:
Wide Sargasso Sea is a 1966 postcolonial parallel novel by Dominica-born author Jean Rhys. After many years of living in obscurity since her last work, Good Morning, Midnight, was published in 1939, Wide Sargasso Sea put Rhys into the limelight once more and became her most successful novel.
The novel acts as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s famous 1847 novel Jane Eyre. It is the story of the first Mrs. Rochester, Antoinette (Bertha) Mason, a white Creole heiress, from the time of her youth in the Caribbean to her unhappy marriage and relocation to England. Caught in an oppressive patriarchal society in which she belongs neither to the white Europeans nor the black Jamaicans, Rhys’ novel re-imagines Brontë’s devilish madwoman in the attic. As with many postcolonial works, the novel deals largely with the themes of racial inequality and the harshness of displacement and assimilation.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm
@ Church of Da Coach
as a securities litigation attorney, i will say that i learned more in 2 years of watching kudlow & cramer than i learned in 4 years of high school
May 16th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
“Obasan” by Joy Okagawa. A mind-numbing book that was ostensibly about how shitty life was for the Japanese in Canada during WWII, but was really just an outlet for the only fat Japanese chick to vent about how bad her life had been.
In conclusion, fuck high school english.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Oxford English Dictionary. Then, no more books can be made.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
And if you throw in Merriam-Webster’s rhyming dictionary, we’d never have to deal with a new Nickleback or Gwen Stefani album again!
May 16th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Johnny Assfucking Tremain.
You’re welcome.
May 16th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
The first comment mentioned “The Catcher In the Rye”, thus all is right with the world.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
@tech n9ne’s tribute to Falco
You just made me remember the “Windward Heights” by Maryse Conde. Wuthering Heights didn’t suck enough for you? Why not re-imagine it on a Caribbean island in the 19th century?
Screw you Bronte(s) and your pretentious umlaut.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
SILAS GODDAMN MARNER!
How it fell 330 something picks is beyond me. A lady used the pen name of George Eliot since literate women were so frowned upon at the time. Now I see why.
May 16th, 2008 at 6:44 pm
Grendel by John Gardner. I had to read this fucking piece of shit in high school and still haven’t forgiven my English teacher for it. It’s the worst book that I’ve ever read. Which means it’s worse than a few coloring books. Synopsis: it takes the monster from the Beowulf story, Grendel, and you get to listen to his whiny ass throughout the entire book. He complains that nobody likes him and society is to blame for that or something. I see red when I think about it and it may or may not have caused me to kill a few homeless people. He had plenty of mother issues as well. Apparently Grendel was Jewish.
May 16th, 2008 at 7:46 pm
Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler.
Utterly boring.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
Dammit, I came to this late! And I was all set to select “The Old Curiosity Shop” because those of you who hate “Great Expectations,” “Oliver Twist,” and/or “David Copperfield” have no. Freaking. Idea. I mean, the man got paid by the word – what do you expect?! [sputter]
/gets ahold of self
May 16th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
The Elements of Style by William Stunk and E.B. White
I’m graduating college in 9 days. I hope to prevent future undergrads from my experience, which is my professors telling me, “Well, if you read this book five times a day, then your paper wouldn’t have sucked so bad. Get out of my office.”
May 16th, 2008 at 10:07 pm
Zack,
Larry Niven is a lousy writer and a miserable old crank. Thought Destiny’s Road was bad? Stay away from Footfall; Earth gets invaded by little elephants, and not in a good, delerium tremems kind of way. Heinlein’s young adult books are great, Starship Troopers and Stranger rock, but Farnham’s Freehold was so paranoid-racist I felt unclean for days after reading it.
My pick: the unabridged Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo. 900 goddamn pages long. I got halfway through, but after slogging through a 100-page non sequitur on the Battle of Waterloo I hurled the thing against the wall. Unreadable.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
the awakening, worstr book ever
May 16th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Barbara Kingsolver’s “The Poisonwood Bible” – Oprah’s endorsement should have been enough to make me know better
May 17th, 2008 at 1:54 am
How about “The Godfather Returns”. Talk about dogshit. And anything new by WEB Griffin, c’mon, I know that’s your son writing now (chuckles with his virgin bride while drinking Famous Grouse). Wait, is that two? Awww Fuckit.
May 17th, 2008 at 9:07 am
THE HANDMAID’S TALE by Margaret Atwood
How was this even still around? Probably the worst piece of garbage I have ever read.
May 17th, 2008 at 10:40 am
“Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” by Robert Pirsig.
My therapist told me to read this, so I did. Then I found a new therapist.
May 17th, 2008 at 3:35 pm
Amen, Hochuli. Amen.
May 17th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
How about ‘Cry, the Beloved Country’ by some jackass. I hated English class for 2.5 years only because of that pile of shit that some call a book.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:24 pm
Honorable Mention: Undaunted Courage
A few years back, my wife joined this book club with a friend. So what do they pick for their first selection? Why, the story of Lewis & Clark and their quest to the Pacific of course – Undaunted Courage. Apparently nobody could bear to read it, as everybody kept coming up with excuses to delay the meeting. It got to be a running joke. I told my wife, how bad can it be and started reading it. I still don’t know what was worse – how slow or how boring it was, and I usually eat up history stuff.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:01 am
“The Education of Little Tree”
Freshman year of High School they give us this crap. And this is just before either apathy set in or we learn how wonderful Sparksnotes really is, so you can bet your ass we read every horrible word. God dammit I hated this pile.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:10 pm
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I had to read this over Christmas break for a high school English class and needless to say my break was ruined – the only thing that kept me from killing myself was one cuba libre after another, followed by the occasional mojito. “Oh Mr. Darcy, you are so annoying but I am attracted to you” “Oh Elizabeth Bennet I dont like you but now I have a hard on for you but you are of lower stature than I am” “Oh I am so progressive for breaking class boundaries-” “Oh I have to get married bla bla bla-” GET A REAL FUCKING PROBLEM YOU STUPID CUNTS. Fuck Jane Austen for subjecting the world to this crap, she can shove this book right up her dead asshole. Had I known this book would have been so bad I would have gladly eaten a steaming plate of my own shit to get out of reading it.
I give Oscar Wilde infinite credit for making The Importance of Being Earnest (the other book we had to read) a million times more readable…
May 19th, 2008 at 11:36 pm
Infinite Jest. The most pretentious thing ever written in any language. And almost 1100 pages of it. I hope David Foster Wallace falls in the fire, too.
May 20th, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Fuck you assholes.
Between your literature hating, emotional repressed, homo-erotic, unimaginative, cheap liquor guzzling, narrow-minded, sexist, bandwagon sports following, short limped dick, spineless, 2-bit tranny whore fucking, syphilic riddled, Camero driving, mullet wearing, racist, fecal freak loving, tobacco chewing, pot bellied, basement dwelling, jerk-offs have deprived the world of some of the best books ever written.
At least future generations will be able to gather around my Kindle and enjoy them.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Darwin’s Black Box and all of its ilk
May 21st, 2008 at 3:41 pm
I just read went through 300-some comments to see if any of you smart fucks would skewer this dude for me, but you didn’t, so thanks a lot.
“Everything Will be Illuminated” by Jonathan Safron Foer.
I would like to meet the author just once so I could punch him in his smug goddamn face.
May 21st, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Very late answer to dork matter – part of why I hated Number of the Beast was because I actually enjoyed Starship Troopers quite a bit, so NOB was a huge disappointment. And for my last pick, I’m happy to burn the comment written by ChunkyDark. People have different tastes, asshole. Some of the other drafters on this board have taken books I thought were terrific (well, not so many. I liked Infinite Jest; I don’t give two shits that CRP drafted it, if I cared so much about David Foster Wallace I would have drafted something else of his and gotten him off the board). There’s a reason why this draft got more comments than anything else I’ve seen, because it was fucking fun.
July 7th, 2008 at 6:43 am
[...] I’ve said before, I’m not really much of a reader. Your parents may have told you that reading is cool, but [...]
July 15th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
sarcastic-an adjective, describing a type of humor. People who are sarcastic usually annoy the hell out of everyone who cant get their jokes.
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=sarcastic