(1) Books that promise to tell me “why the left is right and the right is wrong.”
I don’t need the help, thanks. Anyone who does should not be reading this book — as it will surely result in me having to associate with Democrats who are Democrats for all the wrong reasons. I want shallow conversations, I’ll talk to a Republican.
(2) Books of poetry written by songwriters.
If it wasn’t good enough for your last album, I’m not dropping 20 $ on it. Keep it on stage, loser.
(3) Books with subtitles that begin with a misuse of the word “How”.
Some examples:
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
by Christopher Hitchens (Author)Crazies to the Left of Me, Wimps to the Right: How One Side Lost Its Mind and the Other Lost Its Nerve by Bernard Goldberg (Hardcover – April 17, 2007)
Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart by Patrick J. Buchanan (Hardcover – Nov 27, 2007)
There Is a God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind by Antony Flew and Roy Abraham Varghese (Hardcover – Oct 23, 2007)
Consumed: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults, and Swallow Citizens Whole by Benjamin R. Barber (Paperback – Mar 10, 2008)
War on the Middle Class: How the Government, Big Business, and Special Interest Groups Are Waging War on the American Dream and How to Fight Back by Lou Dobbs (Paperback – Sep 25, 2007)
The Second Civil War: How Extreme Partisanship Has Paralyzed Washington and Polarized America by Ronald Brownstein (Hardcover – Nov 1, 2007)
No, sorry, hack. If you don’t, or rather your agent doesn’t, know the difference between “how” and either “that” or “why” (better yet, just to delete the first word altogether) you’re not getting my money.
(4) Collections of columns by columnists.
You writee book, I buyee book. You no writee book, I no buyee book.
(5) Books written by stand-up comics.
Unless your name is Steve Martin, I’m not buying your book. Chapter titles such as “The Battle of the Sexes: Toilet Seat Edition” do not make we want to stay up half the night, howling in laughter. Keep it on stage, loser. Better yet, keep it at home.
(6) Any book with an “Oprah’s Book Club” sticker on the cover.
If it looks like a good book, I’ll find a different copy. The calories I waste tearing off that horrid symbol of Cultural Monotheism would be better spent changing the channel on my TV.
(7) Novelizations of movies.
Though I will consider sonnetizations of architecture or stream-of-consciousness-i-zations of reality TV.
(8) Any book by Nelson DeMille. Period.
I made the mistake of being a passanger on a road trip with Wildfire playing on audiobook. I want my soul back, you miserable hack.
(9) Crazy Wacky Romantic Adventures.
He’s a forensic tax accountant. She’s a former trapeze artist. Together they find adventure and romance and fun! in the ice caves of Antarctica.
(10) Fantasy Science Fiction.
Elves on Interstellar Frigates. No. No, really. That’s fine. Thanks. But no.
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or subtitle. And especially if there are pictures of how the “food” is supposed to look when you’re done. Forget it! There are plenty of other things to feel inadequate about already.
Otherwise, an excellent list, lc, especially #9!! If I want a “crazy wacky romantic adventure,” I’ll just go write my phone number on some men’s room wall, thanks.
but you don’t like sci fi??? or is “fantasy” sci fi a separate category?
i’m wondering if all sci fi isn’t fantasy? even without the elves?
i don’t read “how to” books and i’m not a BIG romance novel reader, but have to say Susan Issacs “Almost Paradise” was fantastic. Great characters made it a great book.
Oprah’s book club… no problem with it.
And books that promise anything i tend to avoid.
Some of my favorite authors are southern… love their denseness and sensual language and images.
love mysteries, thrillers, sci fi. Some of my best experiences in the last years…. Lonesome Dove, Kite Runner, The Shining, The Stand, Nightshift, Go Down Moses, Beloved, The Indispensable Man, Cold Mountain, Surfacing, and Walter the Farting Dog.
Bush/Cheney first got elected I went on a rampage reading books about their lives, their families, and their politics.
I realized a couple of years ago that I am SO over that phase. I no longer need to parse who they are and how they got here. I just want them gone!!
annoying “tell all” books by rock star/movie stars that document how much fun they had while excessively consuming everything…… with a serious declaration about how they don’t use drugs/booze/ whatever else to fill the void inside.
Books telling women how to “get a man”, books telling women they are either “codependent” in need of major therapy, in order to facilitate getting a man.
Tom Clancy.
Books with long annoying titles: How I stopped hating my inner calico embraced myself, learned to love the world, while making a million dollars and so can you!!!!
Books about how you can make a million bucks very easily.
Mystery novels that are actually a thin cover for romance: together they must find the serial killer and fight off an attraction to one other!
The elves seem to have taken over SciFi, give me Phillip K Dick or Harlan Ellison anytime, but lately all the covers on the Sci Fi’s look like slightly perverted kids bad fairy books. The Grimm brothers is a better choice, on both sides here.
I avoid books written by pols and candidates. They are so idiotic and simplistic that it makes me vow never to vote again.
Also as a mystery fan I hate the new droves of bestsellers about terrorists, dirty bombs, assorted agency’s that save the day, all have covers that look like Nazi paraphernalia. Also wont buy the constant stream of sexual predators gonna get you. I get enough of these two scares off the news.
Must confess that I bought a book of poems by Patti Smith but in my defense it was on sale and had photos by Maplethorpe. Plus she’s a good poet, mostly.
but are actually lectures. This is the most despicable genre. Examples: Story of B, Celestine Prophesy, The Monk Who Gave Away His Ferrari, etc.
I cannot tell you how much I loathe this genre.
I am not talking about Buddhist thought but how it gets appropriated….
The Zen of Make-up…
The Zen of being a Good Manager….
I will add to that most books about being a good manager in the business world. I pretty much do the opposite of what many of them suggest and it works pretty well, although I am a nursing supervisor not in the business world. I would last about two seconds in corporate land.
i don’t wanna know any more about any thing that’s real!
signed,
head-in-the-sand
wandered downtown today to find the peace group place. little hole-in-the-wall basement bookstore (didn’t serve tea or coffee though, must change that!) and picked up two reads out of a great selection of books not found in chain stores. (are there any independent bookstores left?)
“Voices of Time” by Eduardo Galeano
and
“The Feast” prose poem sequences by Walter Bargen
(Bargen was just named Missouri’s very first Poet Laureate)
Mission in America
http://www.mindsetcentral.com/…
I just wanted to understand that blabbering Rush thing so I paid full boat for ‘The Way Things Ought to Be’ and then I hurt myself.
Chris Matthews Life is a Campaign.
Jon Stewart ripped it to shreds calling it “A recipe for sadness.”
The only collections of columns by columnists I would recommend (the one exception) would be Matt Taibbi’s Smells Like Dead Elephants. Too much good information in the columns he wrote for Rolling Stone. Well worth the read!
some book by Carville awhile back. If it’s still in the house I should track it down so I can throw it out.
…science and magic…god-like beings and evil critters and science advanced enough as to be considered magick…
Elements of fantasy and the fantastic, using fictional science from the relatively near future and far, long-forgotten past…?
(Serious question, as I’m co-authoring one such book as we type…)
No elves.
should be on everyone’s shelves.
i’ll never read the red and the black again. when i read a novel, i like to find at least one sympathetic character.
so, you didn’t read jewel’s “poetry”? i believe it’s the best-selling book of “poems” in decades.