five books I wish I had never read and five books I wish I had read instead.

image from here

Sometimes spring cleaning forces you to have a good hard look at yourself, or in this case, my reading material. In preparation for a wave of new books due to arrive from The Book Depository in the UK (Mr Curbside has been on a bit of a bender) we've been cleaning out the bookshelves and doing a bit of 'library editing'. Deciding what stays and what goes is usually quite difficult, but this time the job was made much simpler because some truly awful crap had made it's way into my personal collection. Now I must point out that not all of these books were purchased by me and that not all were read in their entirety, this is important because I don't want their inclusion to be considered a reflection of my personal taste, ehem.......

so here goes, the FIVE worst books I have read or almost read and five books I wish I had read instead.

Number 1, The Bride Striped Bare by 'Anonymous', I'll admit to getting caught up in the hype of this book. Described as "telling shocking truths about love and sex" and being "so deeply private" that "I did not want my name attached to it". This book was supposed to be a very personal account of a relationship, but turned out to be a brilliantly marketed, poorly written, gratuitous 'diary' of a very sad woman with poor impulse control. Not worth the $24.95 I paid for it and definitely not worth the time spent reading it.
Book I should have read instead, Perfume, The Story of a Murder by Patrick Suskind

Number 2, The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. This book started off well enough, I'll even admit to enjoying it and getting caught up in the whole conspiracy theory thing but somewhere in the middle it just degenerated into an Indiana Jones type farce and I lost interest. Disappointing because it started off so well and thus the let down was all the greater.
Book I should have read instead, The Road by Cormac McCarthy


Number 3, The Twilight Saga by Stephanie Meyer, I'm Including all four books as one entry because they are barley distinguishable and frankly would have taken up 4 of the five entries because I truly regret reading them all. I could probably write a very long winded thesis about the many ways that this series of books corrodes the very fabric of society. A series that parades itself as a big, juicy, forbidden love apple is actually a reeking pile of submissiveness, self destruction and apathy. Never have I met a central character I have loathed more than the insipid 'Bella'. Also any author who calls a character 'Renesmee' should have their pen license removed.
Book I should have read instead, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrel by Susanna Clark

Number 4, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, (I did not buy this, it was a gift and I have not read it all).  I am an atheist so I was never going open this book with an un-biased mind. I was however incredibly curious about the philosophy this book was selling. The power of positive thought is a nice and harmless idea, but the idea that you can have everything you want just by thinking positively is dangerous, idiotic and un-true. Rhonda Byrne would have more credibility if she sold snake oil as a cure for cancer in-front of a children's hospital.
Book I should have read instead, Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

Number 5, Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. This one just didn't do it for me. I got about half way through, put it down and couldn't spare the energy to pick it up again.
Book I should have read instead, Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

What do you think of my 'list o' regret'? Do you have any books you really wish you had never picked up?