A friend* of mine, faced with reaching the bottom of their TBR pile, has nominated the "Book of Mormon" as the book they least want to be reduced to reading.

So what's your absolutely-the -last-straw-book?

I'm undecided between my English-Armenian Dictionary and one of several volumes of Wisden...



*ie someone who hasn't yet unfriended me on Facebook

Any sort of dystopian sci-fi thing.

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We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

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That's a hard one - in some reading moods, and definitely in situations where few or no books are present, even the most unlikely reading material can be attractive. I've been known to read the ingredients on a pickle jar when bored with eating alone in a hotel.

Let's think - well, I do have a 1935 book called Book of Practical Television, which I feel would be a long way down the list of things to read, though even that has some interesting photos ('Laurie Devine in a striking make-up designed for low definition transmission' for example).

In terms of fiction I think I can safely say that I am unlikely to read anything further, especially the historical romances, by the late and very prolific M C Beaton - except perhaps as being funny in the same way that we used to find the equally late and prolific Barbara Cartland hilarious when I lived in a civil service hostel. I seem to remember that you have much the same opinion of MCB, Victoria?

I'm torn between Swann's Way (just as a starter) and Gibbon's Roman Empire, I've started both and never got past the first pages of either....

I have a typescript of The Little Marie-Jose which I've never read, now I have lots of time I probably ought to read it. I've only read The Little Missus once and will probably never read it again. I expect I'd read both if they were the only books washed with me on the shores of a desert island!

Tom Brown at Oxford. I read about a quarter and it was dire.

Ulysses.

No, it wouldn't even be the last straw. It'd be firewood.

Noreen, I'm with you on MCB, but I have to admit that if I was shut in a room with only one book, I would probably give in.

Maybe a different version of the question is what book would you not read even if it was the only one available to you? I would probably tackle most things, but not the 50 Shades series.

Anything too religious/preachy, or a complicated mathematical/scientific textbook!

_________________
We really must stop eating like this ...

Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open.

http://setinthepast.wordpress.com/

I think you could definitely say that I don't appreciate MGB. I was surprised to read of her criticising the many people writing faux historical novels as having done little research and claiming she'd done extensive research herself. I can't imagine where - it certainly hasn't made it into any of her books

That's just too funny for words, Victoria. Although heaven knows Philippa Gregory is a historian and never lets it get in the way of making her historical characters think and act as though they lived in the present day. I'm sure both writers have given a lot of pleasure to a lot of people - I'm just not one of them.

PS It may be unspeakably mean of me, but I suspect a large chunk of Hamish Macbeth's popularity is down to his dog!

Edited to correct a typo - rather a good one, mind you. 'Fanny' might be quite a good description of some of them...

I quite liked Hamish Macbeth when I first read him but the plots rapidly become Very Repetitve and Very Obvious so I stopped.

A lot of very popular series are simply the same basic plot over and over. It's one of the things that makes me think that a lot of people who claim never to reread books are effectively rereading. They are just paying £8.99 a time to do so...

However, we talk ahere bout "comfort reading" and, if that's how other people want to get their comfort, that's fine by me. Just so long as "popular" isn't taken to be the same thing as "good".