Terminalcoffee discussion
note: This topic has been closed to new comments.
Feeling Nostalgic? The archives
>
authors you refuse to admit you have read
date
newest »
newest »
You really aren't expecting answers here are you Sarah, that would actually be admitting.
I don't think I've withheld anything from Goodreads, but there could be some books so horrible that my mind has blocked them and I am unable to admit to them.I grudgingly admit to reading the entire Twilight series...twice. There were weird circumstances behind this (since it wasn't even worth the first read) which I cannot divulge, or I would have to kill you.
Actually, it was just to see if I had overlooked some tiny shred of merit the first time through. Nope.
Jim wrote: "You really aren't expecting answers here are you Sarah, that would actually be admitting."I told mine.
I have a shelf I call "guilty and sometimes dubious pleasures" that includes all the books I'm somewhat ashamed of: the cheesy stuff that works great on long car trips, the rugby biographies, etc.
When I came to GR, I didn't even try to put a lot of the books I've read. I've kept a list since college and it's several thousand, so it would just be impossible. If I remember correctly, they have a list you can start with and I went through that list, then added a few more favorites. I add to GR what I read for pleasure, but I usually leave out things like how-to's, health books, mumble mumble diet books mumble mumble. I put things that I think other people might want to see opinions about.BTW Sarah Pi, couldn't agree with you more about Piers Anthony. I read a half dozen or so, and they always left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth, but everybody was reading them, so I did too. My ex-husband liked those Apocalypse books,don't know the name of the series, "On a Pale Horse" and all that. Then I also had to read a bunch when I was working in publishing and they just seemed to get more vomitous as time went on. There was a general feeling around the office that some folks were kind of waiting for his death.
I ended up taking Twilight off my list (even though I didn't have them rated high) because I got sick of them being used as some sort of jumping off point as a comparison to other books I'd rated, even ones from other genres.Other than that, the only other books I've left off my list are some of the eroticas with really tacky/racy covers that I'd rather not have some of the underage girls on my friends list see.
Oh wait, I never added the Left Behind books, but that's not out of embarrassment (even though I know some people wouldn't claim them). It's just been so many years since I've read them, that I wouldn't know how to rate/review the books. Some might be 2 stars, others 4 stars, but I don't remember enough to recall each book.
I started Goodreads with a clean slate. If I read it before joining, it isn't listed.I did read ALL of Anthony's Xanth books, as well as the first dozen of Robert Asprin's "Myth" books (the ones he wrote solo).
The rest of Anthony was a mixed bag. I did like the Adept series.
A question for the Xanth readers --- did you ever get interested in any Jack Chalker books? I loved most of his stuff, starting with Four lords of the diamond. I should admit, though, that I haven't picked up anything of his since the mid 1990s.
Sarah Pi wrote: "Jim wrote: "You really aren't expecting answers here are you Sarah, that would actually be admitting."I told mine.
I have a shelf I call "guilty and sometimes dubious pleasures" that includes a..."
Yeah, I don't have any to tell, I'm not proud of having read a couple Twilight books, but I will admit to it.
I went through a Grace Livingston Hill phase that is a bit embarrassing to admit to. (She wrote Christian romances back in the 30's and 40's I think it was.)
Mod
V. C. AndrewsI read all of the Flowers in the Attic books and a few of her stand alone books. Actually, I read them more than once and own most of them.
**hangs head in shame**
Confession time. I acquired a boxful of Harlequin Romances after a fund raiser. I took them up to the hospital and donated them to the library but not until I'd read every one of them. I kept one because it named the community I live in. What are the chances that any book would name a little hamlet and area with about 300 families in Northern Alberta?
Mod
Fortunately any confessions I might have made have been erased from my memory.
I loved Flowers in the Attic back in the day. Maybe I should add it...
I don't add most of the romance books that I read as palate cleansers.I like your shitty TV analogy LG...
She has points of her own, sitting way up high.
I guess I'm torn between my compulsion to include everything on here sooner or later and my compulsion to hide the embarrassing parts. I mean, I can write in a review that I read the first ten Xanth books before I was twelve, then threw the eleventh one against the wall and shouted "Enough with the adverbs! Enough with the puns!" but if you're just doing a quick comparison or looking at my most-read authors all you will if I include all of those books is that Piers Anthony is one of my most read authors. I'm already embarrassed that Orson Scott Card is so high on my list.
Mod
Most reprehensible show I've ever seen, probably. Nasty, nasty piece of shit.
Rebecca wrote: "When I came to GR, I didn't even try to put a lot of the books I've read. I've kept a list since college and it's several thousand, so it would just be impossible. If I remember correctly, they h..."I keep a list, too. I've only had it for about 7 years but i would love to hit over 1,000. I think I'll make it. At 270 now.
I started my list in May 2003 and I'm now at 872. I'll probably hit 1000 in 2012.
Lobstergirl wrote: "I don't really get why people are ashamed. Reading V.C. Andrews or Harlequins is no worse than watching shitty TV. I have repeatedly copped to watching Bachelor and Bachelorette. No, I wouldn't ..."That's so funny LG, a friend of ours, who
The only books I'm a little careful with are erotica, not that I'm ashamed of reading them, I just don't want to have to discuss with my colleagues or in-laws why I'm reading this, so I'll bring something else to work to read on my breaks :-)
LG, that's the same point I made when a friend gave me a hard time for reading A Woman of Substance and two of its sequels back in the '80s. I didn't watch "Dallas" and "Dynasty" but these books were the equivalent.Phil, I really enjoyed Four Lords of the Diamond, and went on to read the Dancing Gods and Well World series, which were okay but didn't blow my socks off like the Four Lords books did.
I liked Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality series, read the Xanth books until they were all puns and nothing else, nearly tossed my cookies reading his space opera series and was meh on the Adept books.
To answer the original question, I'm not ashamed of the books I have read but eek, there are some books I am humiliated to have purchased with my own money!
I read as many Animorphs books I could hunt down until I got sick of searching and looked up all the books' synopses online. And then, when I got done reading the last book's synopsis, I never wanted to see another Animorph book again.
If I feel it redundant to add a whole series, I'll just add the first book and give a star rating for the series average, then note the reason in my review.When I finally get around to making the shelf for books of my childhood, I'll probably do that for very long series like Little House on the Prairie, Babysitters Club, Nancy Drew, etc. Who wants to add a whole series that has a ton of books, especially when the number creeps up over 30?
That might work for those of you who want to note that you read a series but don't want to flood your list with all of the books from one author.
I don't think I've admitted to reading Carlos Casteneda's drivel about Don Juan. Oh maybe I have. I don't care, really, as I was quite young.
Mod
If it's a spreadsheet, you could use the import function.
Either way, not impossible. Easy peasy! I had a big long list myself, and even though it was in spreadsheet format, I chose to enter them all by hand because I just felt like it. It took a few days, but it was so much fun for my anal self. The only thing I regret is that my poor friends had to see dozens and dozens of my books come flooding through their feeds at once. If I did it again I would stagger it out so as not to overwhelm friends' inboxes.
I'm never admitting to having read a Twilight book, and you can't make me :P
*cracks knuckles and pulls out the implements of torture*
Implements of torture? Oh do you mean the rest of the Twilight books? :P
That would be far too easy. I'm a bit more creative.
Or we could just send him to the Ficus and be done with it.
For me it would be all the R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike books I read as a kid. It seems I read a hundred or so of those books but now I only seem to remember a few of them. They were all so similiar to each other, but yet, very entertaining to read.
Yeah, like a few others have mentioned the only books I remember reading but don't have listed are series I read as a kid. I know I read at least half of the Fearless books and probably all of Animorphs, but all the books run together so there's really no sense in me adding them individually. I just added the first book with a rating that seemed appropriate for the whole series. Similar thing with The Babysitters Club and Goosebumps -- I know I read a lot of them, but which ones were good and which were meh and which I never even picked up, I have no idea.But yeah, there aren't any books I refuse to admit I've read. There are books I think about reading that I refuse to add to my to-read shelf for fear of being mocked incessantly before I have the chance to write a suitably snarky review though.
I am unashamed of books that I have read. Have I read some bad ones, absolutely. I have even read two of the Vampire Diaries. ::hears sucking in of breath::
My sister pushed them on me. It was not a big deal. They sucked. Really, really bad stuff. But, hey, they each took less than a day to read. I read them while she was visiting and I would stop to tell her how dumb they were every few pages. We laughed. I had her in tears by the time I was done. It was fun. Now they are but a memory. I watch the show. There is some man candy on there.
There's quite a few authors I don't usually mention to people whose books I have read. Some of them are guilty pleasures, others have written books I wish I had never picked up.One of the guilty pleasures is David Eddings. I used to love his Belgariad and Mallorean series when I was little. Going back to them as an adult, I can see how flawed they really are. Regardless, I still look back on Eddings with a fond sense of nostalgia.
P.C Cast's "House of Night" series falls into the latter camp. I picked these books up after a friend's favorable recommendation. She told me that if I was disenchanted with vampires, these would rekindle my interest. I don't have the heart to tell her how much I loathed these books.
Also, I tried reading "The Da Vinci Code" when the craze for that was going on. I hated it so much and felt so dirty afterwards that I just pretend I don't know who Dan Brown is. ;)
But the worst author I have EVER read is the jerk-off who penned the phone book. Far too many characters and a plot that literally goes nowhere!!!!!
I feel there is no fault in loving a book for what it meant to you at the time in which you read it. I have gone back to read books from my youth and thought, yikes, not as good as I remembered. But I don't disregard them as being insignificant or drivel just because my tastes have changed. They were there to entertain me when I needed them. I still love them for that. I often rate a book due to what it meant to me at a certain time and not necessarily for its literary merits.
David Eddings was okay, but derivative. I enjoyed them anyway. :)
This topic has been frozen by the moderator. No new comments can be posted.
Terminalcoffee
Books mentioned in this topic
A Woman of Substance (other topics)Lilith: A Snake in the Grass (other topics)
If I added all of the Piers Anthony books that I read as a kid to my GR read books, my author stats page would look like he was one of my favorites, when in fact I despise his writing. I've compromised by including only one Xanth book, one from the horrible Mode books (in fact I stopped there) and all of the Adept books, which were the best of the lot.