The worst books ever written

Few books deserves a place on the bookshelf of shame, and I’m a little ambivalent about this – should I dignify the biggest drivel I have ever read, or is the best plan to let them die in silence? For artists and authors the worst thing is indiffrence. Hate is at least an emotion too.
But on the other hand: the world should be warned. I have no place for nazi techniques, but burning them will at least keep you warm for a bit. The only good I can see for those books. They should never have been written, never published and never read. These books are drivel, rubbish and the world would be a better place without them. So, as a service, here I present two books you can stay clear of, and consider yourself lucky and a better person for not having read them.

So- without further ado:

I give you The Alchemist.

Oh god. What sensless babble, what inane nonsense. The story and the point of the whole painful exercise is that there is gold in your back yard, but you would never have seen it without a nonsensical and stupid adventure (alchemy). The language is for children at best, and you can open it at any page and find skin-irritants like «The boy thought. The boy thought about the stars – I wonder what they think.» – or somesuch terror. Godawful stuff – and would not have earned a place on my bookshelf of shame if not for the immense popularity. I am sorry – but when people list this book among favourites, I write them off as idiots. Period (Actually – I’m not sorry about that).
The language is disgusting, the plot childish and daft. A lot of people like it and say it’s inspirational, a word that makes me shudder. Believe me: it is crap. I have read a lot. It’s dumbing down.

Then, to the more laughable and serious

Atlas shrugged.
What self-centered idiocy! What blind narcissism, what racist, stupid, vapid and cloyingly vomity. I read the first hundred pages thinking it was sarcasm, irony, a weird sense of humour – not so.
The woman is dead, that is a comfort, so she cannot spew out more braindead half-baked social commentary and «philosophy». What an affront! She tries to present her «philosophy» through «drama» – it is neither, and both is godawful.
She’s got charming views on social systems, classes and government, but most of all she is basically an «elitist» with facist leanings. Tipping over, rather. So. Poo-poo!

Here’s the brilliant thing: she divides the world into do’ers and wiengers. Do’ers – that’s about one in 10 000 are the only ones worth anything, obviously. Without these do’ers and leaders, the rest falls back to the stone ages and society falls apart into caveman behaviour at record time. See? So every single person reading this book will identify with the leaders and do’ers. The brilliant result is that the woman has a following (!), a cult and a bunch of fans…. now there’s a liiittle contradiction. You see yourself as a leader, and then hang after the author. But her whole «theory» is based on opposite. Result: the loosers hanging after the author and going to «appreciation groups» (how weird is THAT!) proves by going that they belong to the authors cavemen.
Wonderful. The author was an idiot. That doesn’t justify that tail of fools…

The whole book is ..oh.. about 1200 pointless pages of bad, bad drama and exceptionally bad thinking. If you find it in a garage sale, buy it, burn it and make the world a tiny little bit better.

One day I will invite you all to a bookburning, methinks. And we can laugh and read the worst sections of favorite pet-hates before getting hotdogs and hot whiskeys all around. And make the world a little bit better.

..and another day – I might tell you about my loathing for Mr. Hemingway, Anna Karenina and some of the Brönte clan.