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Kill Me, Please! Just Don’t Make Me Read That Book — Tabula Rasa
Let’s say you’re in prison and you are told you must read a book or be executed. Most of us would muddle through the book, no matter how distasteful.
On the other hand, each of us probably has a list of books so bad that, given a choice between reading one of them and death, we’d seriously consider death as the better alternative.
On my list is any novel by D. H. Lawrence: I detest everything about his writing. Likewise any book by Noam Chomsky.
I have a new one I’m adding to my list. Debuting on May 12, you will have the chance to buy Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises by Timothy Geithner. Can you imagine anything worse? The subject matter is depressing and the theme is obvious: it’s all George Bush’s fault. The author is a whiny tax-dodging Obama apologist. Will it be interesting? No. Will it illuminate? No. Will there be any good anecdotes? No.
There may be a handful of sentient creatures who will read the book, but I won’t be one of them.
Will you?
What books are on your “I’d rather take poison than read this book” list?
Published in General
I hear ya! I once read Lawrence’s “Women in Love” which, by the way, is the most misleading title ever. It should’ve been called “Men in Love … with Each Other.” Lawrence’s random scenes of young men wresting playfully in the nude was a little too much for my taste.
You, too? That was also the DHL novel I had to read, and I came to the same conclusion. (I had to write an essay on the darn thing, which I entitled “Men in Love”.)
The World is Flat by Tom Friedman.
Kahlil Gibran’s Collected Works. The greatest scathing book review I have ever read–and I am a particular fan of the genre–was this poetic literary evisceration published a few years ago in First Things. It begins:
(continued)
And for each of them Kahlil Gibran has prepared
Another ornamental phrase,
Another faux-Biblical cadence,
Another affirmation proverbial in its intent
But alas! lacking the moral substance,
The peasant shrewdness, of the true proverb.O Book, O Collected Works of Kahlil Gibran ,
Published by Everyman’s Library on a dark day,
I lift you from the Earth to which I recently flung you
When my wrath grew too mighty for me,
I lift you from the Earth,
Noticing once more your annoying heft,
And thanking God”though such thanks are sinful”
That Kahlil Gibran died in New York in 1931
At the age of forty-eight,
So that he could write no more words,
So that this Book would not be yet larger than it is.
Anything by Maya Angelou or Anna Quindlen. Maureen Dowd’s Bushworld.
Great minds think alike :)
Naked Lunch made me want to lose my lunch. And I took enough drugs to be in Burroughs’ sweet spot.
I also was so bored when visiting my folks I picked up John Dean’s apologia pro Dean called Blind Ambition. Couldn’t keep hold of it for all the sanctimony that dripped from it.
Racist!
Semi-enjoyed The Stand, even have the unabridged version and the movie (wife’s idea). I liked the desert scenes knowing the characters passed close to my present area of residence. It’s like knowing I drive over the routes Jedediah Smith traversed on his way to California back in the 1820s.
Hang on, is that a Calculus derivative or a derivative asset?
Well, I liked Lolita. In fact, I was amused to find that it wasn’t really about what most people seemed to think.
I’ve already read the book…Very Bad Deaths by Spider Robinson. I believe the tribulation I suffered making it through that book has gotten me out of at least 30 minutes of Purgatory.
I actually just read my first King novel the other day, Salem’s Lot, and I found it to be quite enjoyable. What don’t you like about King?
I have a hard time seeing Geitner spending too much effort pinning the blame on Bush; he was a top regulator himself at the time, you know.
By the way, if you subscribe to the view that the crisis was caused by reckless fiscal policy, then it really was Bush’s fault, even if the specific form the crisis took (a housing collapse) was caused by Democratic lending policies. If those policies hadn’t existed, some other sector of the economy would have experienced a bubble instead. That’s how balance of payments crises work.
There’s a reason we had the Great Bush Purge.
Joseph: You’re taking a mildly humorous attempt at humor a bit too seriously. I have no idea what Geithner will say, nor do I care. He was boring in office; he’ll be boring now. And he had little problem blaming everything on Bush when was in office. Remember?
If his books floats your boat, please read it. I won’t be joining you (which was my point).
It could be worse; we could be talking about Alan Greenspan’s book.