Show Library: Pseudointellectual Books That, in Fact, Suck

[Blarg]

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i will probably be tarred and feathered for this: crime and punishment
also great expectations

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I loved the first one and grew to love the second.

[RunDownHouse]

Whoa, great call with the Ayn Rand, Blarg. That's the best so far.

[SNOWBALL]

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Anything by William Bennett

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ok, but who prey tell, takes Bennett seriously?

[JuntMonkey]

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Fight Club, How the Grinch Stole Christmas

No explanation needed

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Good call on Fight Club (going by the movie), but sarcasm about the Grinch right?

[Nate.]

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Hi gang.

In this thread we will list, and probably argue about, various books that the tiresomely pretentious love to talk about, but which are either impossible reads or have no real intellectual value.

I'll open with: Levitt and Dubner's <u>Freakonomics,</u> one of the more lightweight reads of my 'serious reading' career, that goes to show why, hey, it is a bad idea to try to write an entire book without a thesis. Oh, hey, 'Lemonjello' looks bad on a resume, imagine that.

Rattle 'em off.

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Interesting. I found the thesis to be "It's valuable and important to analyze data from the real world, and we should be prepared to accept results that surprise us and counter our instinct."

I'm familiar with math, statistics, and some of the more shocking fringes of contemporary academia, and I was still engaged and enlightened by much of Freakonomics. Work that illuminates the nature of discrimination, gang organization, and educational fraud can be readable without being lightweight.

--Nate

[Blarg]

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Anything by Shakespeare. Is it good? I suppose. Is it worthy of the cult like obsession people have with it?? No.

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Yikes. Sorry, dude, I think you're just ignorant here. Certain Shakespeare works might fit -- I've heard reasonable negative critiques of his sonnets, for example -- but very very few informed reasonable people doubt the greatness of his major works.

--Nate

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I gotta agree here big time. If anyone doubts how influential he has been on our language and common patterns of thought, a read of Hamlet will bring up an astonishing percentage of turns of phrase that we still use constantly to this day. And a lot of even what seem like complete throw-away lines and minor themes are just so casually incredible.

[Blarg]

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Anything by William Bennett

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ok, but who prey tell, takes Bennett seriously?

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I only put him in there because so many people seem to. I'd hardly put him in any pantheon of intellectuals myself, but he sells a lot of books and gets on lots of talk shows without prompting snickers.

[Golden_Rhino]

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Anything by Shakespeare. Is it good? I suppose. Is it worthy of the cult like obsession people have with it?? No.

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Yikes. Sorry, dude, I think you're just ignorant here. Certain Shakespeare works might fit -- I've heard reasonable negative critiques of his sonnets, for example -- but very very few informed reasonable people doubt the greatness of his major works.

--Nate

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I gotta agree here big time. If anyone doubts how influential he has been on our language and common patterns of thought, a read of Hamlet will bring up an astonishing percentage of turns of phrase that we still use constantly to this day. And a lot of even what seem like complete throw-away lines and minor themes are just so casually incredible.

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I am just bitter because I am an English minor and that's all we ever talk about is Shakespeare. It's exam time, and I'm hating on old Willy pretty hard right now.

[fish2plus2]

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Anything by Shakespeare. Is it good? I suppose. Is it worthy of the cult like obsession people have with it?? No.

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Huh? It is a very tough read, and easier if you have the versions with notes on the side of the page, but it is still great stuff. What have you tried to read?

[fish2plus2]

I thought The Great Gatsby kind of sucked, or was atleast overrated. I also think Raymond Chandler sucks, although I have only tried to read a couple of his books.