What is the best book you've ever read? worst book?

The best book has to be Star Wars Allegiance by Timothy Zahn. It's a really great read and it doesn't draw out for a long time just to fill pages. It's to the point but still long, so the plot is chock full of action, adventure, and great things. I would recommend this book to anyone who's a star wars fan.

The worst book I've ever read had to be the Harry Potter series. I know I might get flamed for saying that, but I just didn't like the book. I was never a fan of wizards or magic spells, and i dont read all that often, and it just didn't tickle my fancy.

Regards,
TheYoda

Best: Agatha Christie's _And Then There were None_

Worst: _These are the Rules_

best book lightining


worst ,can't say i ever read a bad book usually know if i won't like a book after a couple of chapters

Best Book(s) The Dark Tower Series by Stephen King (now in Graphical Novel form)

Worst The Great Gatsby (I hated this book with a passion, actually burned my copy in HS)

Yeah, the great gatsby was pretty bad, from what i heard. I might have to read it this year 0_o

Best: Dr. Faustus (the Thomas Mann novel).
I had better not say which was the worst.
Z

Best book - "Windows for Dummies"


Worst book - "Windows for Dummies"


Well, it is for dummies, so what would you expect?

I don't really have a best book right now...I'm on a current events/politics kick right now.

Worst book honors go to The Jungle. Yes, I also read The Great Gatsby in high school, but trust me, The Jungle was much much worse. *shudders*

I have so many favorites I cant list em all. The stand by S. King is amazing. The riddlemaster of hed series was my favorite fantasy series growing up.

When I was much younger, I loved the Narnia books though I had no idea there were so many christian references at the time.

My favorite story I guess is IT by Stephen King.. since I have read it quite a few times. I dont have a worse book.. if its boring I wont keep reading. I have been trying to read a book recently but I cant get past 3 pages.. boring. It's called jonathan Strange.

i too enjoyed The stand, pity about the lousy movie



ITnow there's one scary book ,i lived alone when i first read that and it scared the bejesus out me.also shame about the lousy movie.


have also read the bachman books ,my favourite was called the long walk(i think)
the running man was also good,pity about the movie

I have most of S. King's works and must say that Roadwork is one of his worst books (way to slow for me)

Philip Pullmans "His Dark Materials" series was billed as "The next great Fantasy series" only one problem..... its written for 13 year old girls (needless to say I gave it away to the g/f's sister)

Favorite us a hard one. I've read literally thousands of books in my lifetime; If I become engrossed in a book, I'll be back at the library or bookstore the following day. I've reread the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy deveral times, so perhaps that qualifies.*

The award for all-time worst has to go, not to a book, but an author - Dickens. Don't think I've ever been able to get through more than four or five pages of any of his stuff.

It actually just dawns on me.. one of the worst books I ever read, and by worst I mean, that it was very frightening, and rather scarred me on a deep emotional level was Pet Sematary By Stephen King. That is one of the few books I have ever read that I had to stop reading and set it aside. Scared the hell out of me.. and it is the only book by King that I have never re-read. I won't ever. It was awful.

You have to read it in the right setting. Wait for a windy, stormy night, when the power has gone out; the only sounds are the howling of the wind, the sleet on the roof, and the tapping of branches on the sides and windows of the house. Read it by candlelight. Alone.

That's real funny MattV!

I loved "Expendable" by James Alan Gardner and the other books in that universe. I'm also getting into Alan Dean Foster's science fiction books. I generally stay away from books that aren't sci-fi or fiction. Though I do love Kenneth Robeson's series "Doc Savage".

IT creeped the crap out of me. I was young, maybe 16 years old and was away on vacation. The hotel room was on the first floor so we had a sliding glass door leading outside as well as the front door. It was really windy and I was sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room and I was reading It with a single light on next to the couch.

As I was reading it i kept hearing things getting blown into the sliding glass doors and it was scaring the crap out of me. I remember this so vividly. Book was incredible.

I dont really have a favourite and a most hated book. I never read fantasy books. Read a few S.King books, but used to prefer books by john grisham, dan brown, tom clancy. Ever since Uni (bout 2001) I have stopped reading books much. I cant concentrate for too long and have a bit of stimulus satiation from the work i do and the life i live. The last book took me 3/4 of a year lol. Currently reading "Der menschliche Makel". I try to read one german one english one german one english book...

Oh MattV!

That is just pure evil thoughts....but I like!

Ahh, sorry Pandora, I know how you feel "IT" was the book that terrified me, the only difference I did read it all the way through.

But come to think of it I do have a slight paranoia about drains.

Best: probably Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.

Worst: probably Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. It started well, then went gradually down hill, and then there was the part with the helicopter.......



I read IT for the first time this summer, I've always found clowns to be creepy, this book just made this worse! Great, truly scary book!

Best book is a toss up between "Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy and the " Revelations of John" (plus the rest of the Bible)

hard to pick a worst, as I dont finish any thing that I don't like and then "purge" it from memory as much as possible (except for a mental marker that it sucked )

Even if a book sucks, I'll usually finish it in the hopes that it might suck less by the end. Sometimes I'll start reading a book and think "this sucks", but by the time I'm halfway through I can't stop reading.

The best book I've read so far are academic. "Accounting for Non-accountants"
Worst: "Accounting for Non-Accountants"

I used to be the same way until I had kids. Then I realized time is too precious to waste on a really crappy book. Now if I start a book, and I give it a 100 or so pages and it is still crap, off to the library donation pile it goes.

I always wondered why there were so many crappy books in the library.

LOL.

Hey at least I donate em I actually donate every book I read, unless they are so good I would want to reread in the future.

When I buy a book, the only way it will leave my possession is if it somehow destroyed. I have books that I've never even opened, simply because they're antiques and/or collector's items. Valuable, in other words.

I have some valuable books to (mostly stephen king signed or Donald M. Grant first editions of Dark Tower), but when I go out and buy a paperback, I see no reason to hold on to it. They rarely increase in value and I would rather allow someone else to read it.

A few years ago I went over to buying everything as ebooks to read during the commute. With all the DRM and stuff donating or lending them are an impossibility and would probably violate some license agreement I've agreed to along the way. But it is nice to be able to carry a thousand books in my pocket.

I only buy books which I've already read and want to reread, wanna have them on my shelf because they are so awesome or if I know I'll love them -- new parts off a book series/parts I haven't read yet, etc. For example I buy Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt stories straight away if I find them for low prize, because I already know I'll love them. If there's a book I'd like to read but don't know much about or it's not a part of series I've already read earlier books from, I'll borrow it from the library and read it. If it's awesome, I know I can't resist buying it at some point later on.

Have read a few awesome book series and almost without exception I've bought all of them or am still collecting, either rereading or have reread them.

Having to write and read some hundred(s) of emails every day i find it hard to concentrate on a pdf document for long and thence prefer the little thing to be held in my hands. It just feels better to read a proper newspaper or book, rather than having it online.

-edit- fixed typos. geez i ll never manage to post without atleast one typo

PDF is a horrible format when it comes to reading it on a screen. The only way to go is with a real ebook format like Mobipocket's prc (which works on most mobile phones and is what I use) or Microsoft's lit format. God forbid that I should ever actually have to read a PDF.

All of my reading is done on a HTC Universal, although I'm looking to replace it with the HTC TyTN II as soon as they stop selling out before I get to the store.

I don't have a best or worst book, but the "worst book" I have read that made me temporarily change my personality would have to be American Psycho, before it was banned in Australian.

It totally screwed with my head, though I just had to read it all the way through, and to be honest I couldn't wait to finish.
I became moody, distant, short tempered and I began to think of ways to bump off my boyfriend at the time....seriously.
About a month after I finished reading it I realised how much it was altering my perception of my suroundings. That is one book I never want to read again!

Not being an avid book reader,however I liked Ken Follett's "The Pillars of the Earth".Such a good Story,I didn't want it to end.
I bought a couple more of his books, and to me were garbage.Wonder is this because the Publishers demand, say a book a year from these writers, and they simply can't produce one Classic after another.Just my thoughts.

Have you considered medication?

Worst Book Ever: Anything written by Hemingway. Can't stand him.

BEST book I ever read was Treasure Island as a twelve year-old boy. The version I read was also in it's original script, with which I persevered and was rewarded. It opened my eyes to the joy of books. I have read it every few years again and again, in between the many historical books I read, that, (rather unromantically), are always factual.

WORST book would be anything in the Cartland mould. Those little paperbacks with titles like 'The Lady falls backwards' or 'He did it, so she could love' etc., and cover pictures of a lady swooning into the arms of some damned handsome hunk.....eurgh!

Favorite Books in no particular order:

1984 by George Orwell
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
The Shining by Stephen King
The Harry Potter Series by Jk Rowling
Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Worse Books I have had to read:

Anything by James Fennimore Cooper or Virginia Wolfe

Proust is far worse than Hemingway!


Some writers that I have spent some happy time with (excluding Shakespeare and Thomas Mann, of course):

Dickens
Dostoevsky
Hesse
J.Joyce
Wilde
Somerset Maugham
Laurence Durrell
Whitman

Z

The worst book I've ever read is Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War, and its sequel the title of which I can't remember. The sequel doesn't even come close to redeeming the first book. And it's suggested reading for young adults?!?!

The message of that awful book is "conform or you will be destroyed". There is no joy, no hope, nothing.

Orange Blossom

What a lovely theme...I think I'll steer clear of that...

best for me would be Ender's Shadow

Okay forgive me for not remebering authors, but the best book;
Joshua Son of None ( the cloning and reincarnating of John F. Kenedy )

The worse; Hilter A Great Mind; ( how macigal it was to have so much power over so many people )

One of the 'worst' books I've read in the past year ...

Every two weeks I fill a tote bag with misc books from our local library (love libraries!) and discovered one was 'odd' indeed.

Written by a person who happened to be 'black' and the book contained all sorts of nasty comments about 'whites'. I read the entire thing - partly hoping the story line itself would improve and partly trying to understand another's point of view (judging people based on colour of skin).

And ended up sorely disappointed. The story line didn't improve and the writer was simply a bigot.

But the 'best' books I've read lately surely won't make one smarter, but they are laugh-out-loud-funny in so many places! It's the series of novels based on the character Stephanie Plum, written by Janet Evanovitch.

The best will always be 'The Lord of the Rings' for me.

The worst is book called 'The Snakes'. Can't remember who the author is. Quit a few exotic snakes get loose in the UK, kept alive for a while by unseasonably warm weather. This weather also seems to give the snakes greatly increased intelligence and a need to hunt humans.

The snakes soounds great

The best book I ever read was "Veronika Decides To Die" by "Paulo Coelho". I will be trying to read his "The Alchemist" next.

-- Goku