Books & Authors : Books you're embarrassed to say you've read

I read the first three Twilight. I didn't enjoy them, but I am a compulsive finisher. I feel a certain sense of accomplisment in not giving into the fourth one.

Although everyone tries to pressure me into it...

damned -- chuck palahniuk

i wont tell you not to read it, but i will say it was more disappointing than the other people who got early copies had led me to believe. brandon, im looking at you.

@Chuck

Hey, I'm a child of divorce.  Give me a break.

Regarding Damned, I thought it was certainly better than Tell-All, Snuff, and Pygmy, but not quite in the same league as his early stuff.

LOL @Meachman for New Earth by Eckhart Tolle. I read that.  Feeling the energy in your toes lately?  I'm embarrassed to say I've just finished the entire Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Err... and that I really liked it.  Also, a long list of best sellers and self help books that I will not get in to.

@EM

We could have a very long discussion about the works of Chuck, but in my mind, his writing career is in halves.

The first half of his releases I really liked.

The second half was more experimental, and therefore, more hit and miss.

I'll always get his books regardless, but unlike before, I have no idea what to expect.

Not so much embarrassed by it, but the Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series by Laurell K. Hamilton is like candy crack for me. They're fun and light when I need that kind of fix, heh.

I'll just leave this here...

"Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." - Stephen King

Embarrassed to read Palahniuk? You shouldn't be, in this workshop Charles.

I'm embarrassed I read a self-help book called The Disease to Please. I hate self-help books but this one was a gift, and the person insisted for me to read it and kept asking have you read it, have you read it? So I read it but... please don't tell anybody. It didn't cure me of the disease by the way.

Nora Roberts's Black Rose is high on that list. However, I would have to say that The Secret wins my award for most embarrassing and that's after deafeating the suicide inspiring trilogy His Dark Materials as well as The Alchemyst, The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel.

Embarrassed to read Palahniuk? You shouldn't be, in this workshop Charles.

my presence here or anywhere has nothing to do with being a fan of chuck palahniuk (something i havent called myself since haunted, but i continue to read his books and cross my fingers) i stumbled onto the cult nine years ago after reading lullaby, because i recognized chuck as an author who new his shit, and signed up for the workshop there rather than someplace like writers digest, where i spent about a day plodding through middle aged wet dreams and creamy panties masquarading as fantasy.

the bottom line is this is the best workshop online, and maybe the best one anywhere, period. it isnt for chuck fans, its for writers, and i would assume someone like you could see the reasons the sites divided without someone like me spelling it out for them. this place is something great that came out of people being fans of chuck, but that doesnt mean everyone doing it is, still is, or ever was. and none of that is to take away from the cult, or the staff here, to whom i owe much of what is good in my life, currently. including my wonderful wife i met on the cult, and the changes to my writing, which i can only credit to the workshop, because it clearly didnt come from college.

A few years back I (now regrettably) read those Halo novels by Eric Nylund I think it was...I thought they were awesome when I read them, but now I'm just embarassed to have found them in my book shelf.

i read one of these, too. ive been blocking its terribleness from my mind. Nylund makes it clear that anyone can write a book, but it takes an author to write a good one.

Lullaby is one of my favorite Palahniuk novels as well, I'm surprised they haven't turned it into a movie.  I'm not ashamed to admit it either that I've been disappointed by his last three novels.  I kind of like a story, a complete story and the last few books have felt like um, scraps and pieces of stories.  I appreciate going experimental but I really miss the substance.  I mean Fight Club worked on so many levels, now he's writing about gangbangs and movie stars.  I like Chuck but I agree that we shouldn't be afraid to criticize our heroes.  I grew up reading Stephen King and love his concepts but as I get older, I hate the way King writes, his style feels like molasses.  He takes forever to get to the point, his characters often come off as okie stereotypes rather than real people and he is great at premises but not at endings.  I loved the way Dark Tower began but the way it ended pissed me off so much.

Ground Up by Michael Idov. 

The Shack, WIlliam P Young. Awful Christian novel about finding God in the shack where your missing daughter was raped. 

The DaVinci Code, D Brown. Awful Anti-Christian novel that most Christians couldn't accept was merely fiction and therefore not really all that Anti-Christian. 

Honestly, one of the best writer's intensives I ever took was with Craig Clevenger and had a section called, "How Not to Write Like Dan Brown." It has helped in no small measure. 

That's about it. I have no problem not finishing a book that sucks. Those two, honestly, were the result of peer pressure. Actually, the same person lent them to me, sure that I'd just love them. Very confusing, that guy. 

You know, Rue, the DaVinci Code movie wasn't all that bad, now that I think of it. I mean, it was entertaining, and that's the point. But you're right, outdid the book by a landslide. 

Never read any Blume, though. The name is vaguely familiar, I suppose.

^ Well said. 

Shit, I dunno. Like A. William, I read the Eric Nylund Halo tie-ins back in the day, but I'm not really embarrassed to have read them. Hmm.

Okay, I read the 2009 Star Trek novelization by Alan Dean Foster -- and absolutely loved it. Honestly, that guy can write about anything. He did the novelization of the first Transformers film, too, and the twenty pages or so that I read of that were actually phenomenal, which is a hell of a lot more than I can say about Bay's films.

I mean, hey, I watch them. But for those two hours or so, I pretend there's no such thing as plot.

I read the Left Behind series when I was like 11 locked in Juvenile Hall for bringing vitamins to school.
It really almost had me closer to Jesus, then then the rapture never came.

Instead now I've turned my spirituality toward even more fictitious religions.
Like the Flying Spaghetti Monster and Scientology. 

:)

Every book in the entire Sweet Valley High series, and its Sweet Valley Twins spin-off. I must've been about 10 or 11 then.

I read the entire Twilight series... and a few years ago, I actually though they were "cool". Though, a few years ago, I was 12. And now I'm almost 16. I guess common sense is the difference, there.

I've also read City of Ember by... er, I don't remember who, but that book was written so poorly, I couldn't stand having said I tried reading it... 

Now I'm onto better things, though, so life is good.

The D&D Forgotten Realms Drizzt Do'urden novels by R.A. Salvatore.

Drizzt is the Edward Cullen of D&D.

*Stands up from the circle of Lit'ers sat in a circle at the 'Embarassed I read supprt group*

Hello, I'm Jonny and I read: The five people you meet in Heaven...

...and liked it

*rest of group hang heads in my shame, and leave knowing their condition isn't THAT bad*

I can't say I'm embarassed about any book that I've read. I learned something from all of them. It wasn't always the lesson they were designed to teach, but I always found a way to make them useful.

Take the Da Vinci code. I was a senior at a Christian High School at the time, trying hard to fit in despite the fact that I considered myself a Deist (although a closeted one, who was enthusiastically and publicly pious in all the various strange rituals of Southern Baptists despite, again, the fact that I was allegedly Lutheran and was not even by the terms of that faith bound to give a fuck about their silly little hand waving antics, no offense to those here who speak in tongues). I do not remember the context in which I read the book but it did have a powerful affect on me, I took joy in eviscerating it on literary and ideological levels for the geekier members of my class (I mean, I don't just type like this, it's also the pompous ass way I speak words), people who were always looking for an excuse to defend the intellectual integrity of Christendom. I learned a lot about how not to use flashbacks, that was the main lesson I took from the Da Vinci Code, there were all of these weird flashbacks at all of the worst times and rather than giving the story a non-linear feel it made the whole thing seem disjointed and poorly organized. I also remember it giving me some insight into the operation of dogma in the minds of people who reject western religion but are not familiar enough with eastern religion to make a legitimate claim to spirituality (I guess the lay-term is atheist, but I really don't think that's the right word for the broader group I'm describing, it was something at the time on the other side of Deism from Christianity. Because at least I could claim, in my personal thoughts, to adhere to some Enlightenment Era church of reason derived very much on the intellectual model of Judeo-Christian theology, but the far side of that encompassed more than just the traditional 'atheist').

What I mean about dogma in the minds of such people is this, have you ever heard Bill Maher talk about religion? There is no compromise on the subject, religion is always bad, there is no room even for relatively secular notions of faith, reason is all that matters and only his interpretation of what is reasonable is considered. Much of the Da Vinci Code struck me as polemic and irrational in the same way, so, maybe that was a failing of the book but since it was a failing I learned from I don't regret sticking it out to the end of that sucker. The Da Vinci Code did motivate me to purchase a copy of the Gnostic Gospels though and I must admit, they were a much better read than the Da Vinci Code, but still, props for turning me on to them.

Twilight, I mean, if it had been an effort I might be ashamed. My ex read them, sometimes I was over at her place, looking for something to read, bam, there's the twilight book. Now we can have protracted debates about the troubling themes therin.... hmmm... in retrospect maybe I should have avoided those, although I suppose that her and my relationship was fundamentally unstable (she was willing to put up a debate but she did not enjoy it, and I do like to debate that sort of (philosophical/religious/political) thing anyways), so if Twilight helped expose the problems in our chemistry then I can't say I'm embarassed to say it's influenced my life.

Left behind I didn't read. Honestly, you're probably right guys, I would probably be embarassed if I'd read those too.

Book of Mormon? It's a pretty silly book, but I'm not ashamed to have read it. Especially not when the Mormons come knocking (although you can't feed them much other than shouted references to Warren Jeffs or else you'll never be rid of them)

There are some History books I guess, "FDR's Folly" is about, well, how FDR did nothing to end the Depression and was the worst and most treacherous president of all time. That one's a little embarassing. Didn't learn much other than to avoid that sort of openly critical book about a historic figure. I mean, it's whatever, I know the guy wasn't a saint and that not every policy he advocated worked great, but I found that a few more measured approaches to the history, less focused on spewing bile at a specific boogie-man figure are more compelling history book choices than hoping that different radical perspectives will even themselves out.

The Fountainhead strikes me as silly now, but I learned a lot from Ayn Rand. She is, in some ways, an inspiring figure. Her personal, moral, and philosophical failings aside consider this: when Ayn Rand came to America and started her career Conservativism as it exists today was a monstorously unpopular philosophy. There was a maximum wage, high taxes on top earners, well funded and entrenched social welfare programs which had been expanding since the New Deal. And it is also clear from her writings and lifestyle that she lived in a time before the "Moral Majority" was co-opted by the lasseiz faire crowd. She singlehandedly created a mythology of neoliberalism. She was grandoise, she was heavy handed, she was a literary Stalin handing down moral decrees of absolute and unimpeachable authority to generations to come, even if her style was a little rough around the edges and some people got hurt in the process. But she had a vision, and now we all live in a world profoundly shaped by her vision.

The Dynamics of War and Revolution by Lawrence Dennis (author of "Is Capitalism Doomed?" and "The Coming American Fascism" just to give a little background on that crazy shit) is a pretty embarassing book to admit to having read at this point, but only because admitting to it likely means that I can be imprisoned indefinately and secure me a spot on the no-fly list. We really only remember two manifestos, Marx's Manifesto and Mein Kampf, because those were the two most accurate. Hitler wrote a manifesto and then went and carried it out, Marx effectively predicted underlying forces of social tension that would play out for the next hundred years. But I have to admit I find failed manifestos to be just as fascinating as either of those books (which are each extremely insightful as to the times and places they were written) because while they certainly are not effective or accurate lenses through which to view the times in which they are written, they still often display underlying components and structures of the times in which they existed that are missed out in more accurate histories because they are "not actually relevant to the outcome of events" but this does not make these aspects of the time any less real or relevant to our own modern experience.

I mean, I just read everything I can get my hand on, even if it is just the trite and poorly written scribblings of a self absorbed lunatic I would probably be satisfied just finishing it as quickly as possible, filing away the relevant information and being proud that I had brought another corner of the world into my understanding, trying to learn what I could from the individual components of the craft and also from the larger context of the author's life and approach.