Indian Readers discussion
Recommendations
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Books I didn't like/couldn't finish


I loved 'God of small things'- have read it a couple of times. Only thing I didn't like about it was the end.

@Akansha hey whadya mean by rite sort of books :P

Yes, a lot of time ago, when I was at school. He is great. I didn't put in my bookshelf of GR all the books I have read, I decided to start with the books read after divorce because I had again time to read :-)


Sometimes I forget that the books in my shelf are all with the italian title and so you can't understand what I have read :D



Absolutely! I was waiting for you to tell you to look "rec" a spanish horror movie. Very scary, I didn't looked at it but my son did and he says it's one of the best horror movies ever seen.
Sorry for OT!
I liked 'Rec' too, though its English remake, 'Quarantine', was plain silly.

anyways i have just started to read The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King. i'm his big fan but i dont know why m not sure if the series would be as good as his horror novels are!
the only two books I've read by Stephen King is Pet Semetary and another book (forgot the name) about a man whose twin's brain is living inside him, or something like that.
Both were scary.
Both were scary.

Never read a more bogus story than than in my life.. left it mid-way...

As for Fountainhead, it didn't trouble me much. Plot was easy to follow. Add to that the most fascinating philosophy by Ayn Rand made it hard to lay my hands off the book.
The book that I gave up on was Amartya Sen's The Idea of Justice. From that day on-wards, I think twice before buying a non-fiction.
Funny how we've all buried the same books. I haven't attempted The Fountainhead but Catcher in the Rye, War and Peace, and Catch 22 were all more effort than they seemed worth taking. I did enjoy Marquez' Love in the Time of Cholera and An Evil Hour, but One Hundred Years made me feel I had spent 100 years to get through it.

REAL BAD EXPERIENCE
Moby Dick. There are very good reasons why this book is a classic, but even for Victorian literature, the book's length is measured not in the number of pages but just the raw tonage of verbiage. I had to wonder which was deeper; the ocean described in the book or just the incessant and never ending baroque prose that seems to drown the reader.

@hitesh, heard of that one and the hoppers too. Glad i didn't buy it :-)


I have Sarah's key with me. I have heard negative as well as positive comments about Room - maybe its a love/hate kind of book with no middle way about it.



Anyone read Crash by J.G.Ballard? What on earth is up with that book? I managed to get upto a hundred pages waiting for something to happen, but the thing refuses to go anywhere. Its just about guys going and causing massive accidents and getting off on it. Yet the blurb says "A classic work of cutting edge fiction, Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations." Even with all those big sounding words I did not understand, it was just random bits of dialogue and action, interspersed with a lot of porn. Anyone got any smart ideas?


and for all those who have "The FountainH..."
Kiran's book is long, but reality of the convergence of hopelessness and loss at the end leaves some readers in dismay. I see, as an author, too much colorized Indian and Bangladeshi literature today. All a bit too wonderful, and all things are Ok, or good or at a juncture of closure at the end. Truth can be revealing as well as entertaining, and that is the craft we should pursue, and not to be trite, but truth can be stranger, and more entertaining than fiction! Thus historical fiction. And there Amitav Gosh I admire-- such a treat.


dear me..thats one of the most pathbreaking books of all time..you will either agree it or lie to yourself..though the book is quite strange in its style,its really worth a read or two...

yes..the fact that ayn rand doesn't like to sit on a wall makes her a darling or devil for people..
Well, a book I didn't finish... the Bible... it's a good book, but I heard everyone dies in the end...

Lol

Mansee wrote: "Craig wrote: "Well, a book I didn't finish... the Bible... it's a good book, but I heard everyone dies in the end..."
Lol"
LOL



This book tested my patience to the maximum and in the end I just gave up.
Such was the impact that I dint like Namesake also because it had Gogol in it :P

I'm reading it now and so far (100 pages) I'm liking it. But I am a Russian literature fan. With the Russians I suggest always to begin with the short stories to see if we like them. Only after this and if we liked them we can read masterpieces like Dead Souls.
Books mentioned in this topic
This Side of Paradise (other topics)Dark Angels (other topics)
Eat, Pray, Love (other topics)
XVI (other topics)
Divergent (other topics)
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I have never read Jane Eyre and I don't know Nicholas Sparks. Thanks for the suggestion. Next time I will go to the bookstore I will give a look to Sparks' books to see if it is a kind of book I could like.