h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"The Aardvark is Ready for War" - anyone else read it? Actually, that's a bit of a cheat, I couldn't get past about page, er, 1. (I didn't buy it!)

Worst book I actually finished? Probably "The Firm", it's dreadful.

Never heard of either

I have to be honest on this one...

"High Fidelity" by Nick Hornby. I didn't manage to get through that one. And when the movie came along, the critics said; "It's a bit more boring than the book". (Yet I saw it... Why??)

How can you not like High Fidelity! It's one of my favourites. It's the sort of book that finds you when you are in a certain mood or situation but otherwise might not mean anything to you.

Hmm... the worst book I've read? Any spin-off books are usually terrible. I tried to read some star wars books a while ago and they just fly over my head with stuff that I was supposed to know about even though there is no mention of it in any of the movies. I found "The Lost World" (Michael Cricton not the original) quite disapointing since the first book was surprisingly good. Pretty much anything I was forced to read in school was dreadful (they were all the same regurgitated tales of miner boys or black slaves in america. I'm not knocking the subject matter but come on write something original!)

Anything by Henry James!

Shakespear- overrated by a long way

They were written like soap opera is today.

Too much is read into it

Shakespeare? Over-rated?! Sorry - I must restrain myself...

Worst book - "Pemberley", by Emma Tennant. Whilst I don't particularly like "Pride and Prejudice", I can't deny that it is an important literary work. The sequel, on the other hand, is utter dross.

the worst books i have ever read tend to fall under the romance genre because those things have no substance and merely serve to reassert gender roles. as for anything specific other than that, i think i must have blocked the experience out of my mind, but i generally hate anything where i can't identify with the supposed protagonist.

Lord of the Flies.
Disgraceful.

I thought it was bloody good for a first novel.

I love this thread - think it might result in some wonderfully refreshing feuds...
No, really. I just hated that self-righteous, moralising squirt of a so-called novel.
So what's this fishy-smelling thing approaching my face with seemingly terminal velocity?

Hmm... I'll refrain... but on second thoughts, here's a ...

Nah. I'm just impressed that the Beeb didn't delete the "bloody" in my last post.

Well of course they wouldn't. It's part of Britain's superior cultural heritage, after all...
However, they do like to add *u*s where there weren't any originally....

I've just had a brainwave to get around the deletion of URLs by the sodding moderator. You leave a space between the components, so it's obvious what it's meant to be but the moderator doesn't pick it up, like this:

[URL removed by moderator]

instead of (trying to see if it'll delete this):

[URL removed by moderator]

Bugger it. It didn't.

No proper respect for the authorities.
...tuttuttut...

I'm just trying out the techniques of anarchy shown by L.P. Hartley in his novel "Facial Justice"...

*sniffs*
Is it just me, or do I detect a slight scent of Spirito del Revoluzzo?

Hey - I love the Beeb, I just being resentful, especially now that I'm not allowed to decry the Tories in random fora... oops.

I see great trouble awaiting you.... I see a dark, smelly, cellary kind of place... you seated on a chair in the middle of it...a spotlight enhancing your lovely features (gee, aren't I a charmer....)