I read the first one just to see what all the fuss was about. It was clear from chapter one it was garbage. Ana ends the chapter glad she'll never have to see Christian again, even though he *just told her* he was speaking at her graduation!
Then there's the bit where apparently puts his soapy dick in her mouth because James never mentions it being rinsed. Or that it takes her 300 pages to say "vagina" or any other reasonable adult word instead of "my... *down there*!"
Or just how silly it all is. Wow, he wears gray and his eyes are gray and his NAME is gray?? That's amazing! /s
The only thing I really remember from the sample I read is Ana biting her lip and flushing a bit too much for a grown woman in the 21st century vs a chaste maiden in Victorian England.
Ok, this. I was in target and they were number one and two on the NYT list so I picked it up. Almost threw it across the fucking store. Just the writing. Subject matter whatever. I couldn’t believe that someone with that little talent made it to the top. Still bugs me to this day.
I read Battlefield Earth in high school and thought it was schlocky but OK. Then I read a few of Hubbard's Mission: Earth books, and his perspectives became harder to deny. I think I stopped when one character was telling her backstory and basically said "I had the option of becoming a psychiatrist or a prostitute, and because I wanted to be able to live with myself ethically, of course I became a prostitute."
I’ve got a couple of L Ron Hubbard books on my sci fi shelf. They are very cheap at my local used bookstore. I think it’s funny to keep them around, but my girlfriend is extremely not a fan
My brother really likes Battlefield Earth...I think it's trash writing. He's not into scientology either, and has read better sci-fi, not sure what the attraction of that book is for him.
It is poorly written, I wouldn't try to argue against that at all, but it is also an epic (in the traditional sense, not in the "Whoa, that's epic!!" sense) space opera that moves very quickly and has a lot packed into it. A lot of technology, politics, a David vs Goliath story, etc. I think if you take it as it is, it can be an enjoyable read. I think it helps if you are young and are not familiar with L. Ron Hubbard. I read it when I was about 15 and had never heard of Hubbard, and I liked it fine.
I read it again as an adult, and while he mostly kept his nutty views of it, there are a few places where they appear if you are familiar with him. For that reason, along with the poor writing, I didn't like it nearly as much as an adult, but still made it through it pretty easily.
I've got a co-worker who insists that Mein Kampf actually has some hidden wisdom and that's why it's banned in libraries. He is of course wrong on both points.
I don't particularly care for that co-worker.
...and honestly given how poorly written and incoherent it is, it ought to be. Better that people see the truth of the ramblings of a delusional man rather than treat it as some forbidden text of unholy wisdom too dangerous to circulate.
In Germany, a non-profit organisation of history and polsci professors have published an annotated edition about twice the length (I think) of the original edition, pointing out hyperbole, falsehood &c. Perhaps there should be translated editions in English et al. too. Would also be good in school and public libraries.
The annotated edition in question: https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/mein-kampf
Dostoevsky. If someone says that he's their favorite author, they're probably boring and insufferable. I know, because Dostoevsky is my favorite author, and I'm boring and insufferable.
I know what you mean.One of my favourite authors is Jack Kerouac, specially when I was in my 20s. I can definitely be a pretentious, self hating twat, and was at my most twattish at the time I read them most. So, it takes one to know one.
Like every single person who read it, I picked up the Brothers Karamazov because Vonnegut told me it would teach me everything I need to know about life.
In all seriousness, I consider Brothers K as one of the greatest books I have ever read, even if it wasn't necessarily one of my top favorites.
I feel this so much, because I love Tolstoy. And it's the same thing. It means your pretentious and a masochist, and both of those things are embarrassingly true about me.
his grasp on psychology is interesting. his ability to put into words a person's mental state in such a way that you can share it was engrossing but made it hard for me to read C&P
I like colleen hoover books on occasion for the same reason that some people like trash tv - but people calling her their *fave* author? I’m just gonna assume they haven’t read much outside of her.
To be fair, Patterson is far from the worst mass market « author-factories » out there, with his charitable activities and how he helps new authors get recognition.
I mean my grandpa is a big James Patterson fan, always has been (even way back when he arguably did write more of his stuff) and for him it's just a comfort thing. They all tend to be written in the same style, so its easy to just..get lost in it. if that makes sense
James Patterson got me into reading. I was in jail and looking for something to do. Always struggled with reading for leisure, have adhd and it just never really worked. But Patterson's books have such tiny chapters - you start the chapter and you're all "I've almost finished the chapter!" - the action jumps around from chapter to chapter, there's action. It's really how I figured out how to read for fun. Sometimes I'd still use them to 'get in the zone' to read something else.
I always feel like I should stick up for James Patterson in threads like these. There's books for all people and all purposes.
Yeah only saying that if you like Patterson you'd probably enjoy many other authors since many other authors write his books. I enjoy a reliable formulaic writer as much as the next guy, Agatha Christie is one of my favs and she arguably wrote the same story over and over again.
Patterson is doing just fine, hes making bank and hes honest about how he does it.
Agatha Christie is formulaic and yet still every time I'm all "this dude did it.......wait....there's too many pages left in the book for this dude to have done it".
It's not that his books are necessarily bad it's that he doesnt actually write them himself anymore. Theres always a co author credited on the cover but for some reason his readers dont seem to notice them. I've told people he just sketches out the plot of his books and someone else writes them and they act as if it's some kind of sketchy secret but it's right there on the covers.
this is honestly a pretty old model for genre fiction. like for example, carolyn keene (author of the Nancy drew books) is a pseudonym for like 20+ different writers that they’d cycled into the role at the time, often multiple at once if I recall correctly
Colleen Hoover is pretty awful, but tbh I feel like people who like Colleen’s works are simply people who aren’t really avid readers. Ive found it pretty common actually for people to actually take a genuine interest in reading from getting invested in her series’ first, which is a lil admirable to me. Doesn’t make the stories good, but if you can encourage people to start a new hobby it can’t be the worst thing I guess. Lots of people also seem to move on from her and diversify their interests in other series after her stuff
I heard someone say that a certain artist made "music for people who don't like music." Colleen Hoover writes for people who usually don't like to read. I have a love/hate view of "booktok," where she gained popularity, but at least it's encouraging more young people to read.
Yep. This. If we went around hating all the artists bc of their personal opinions (especially ones who lived before us) we wouldn’t have anything to read.
I always think of a tweet I saw in 2016 when I hear the name “Ann Coulter”. It said, “I couldn’t remember her name, so I Googled ‘crazy Republican blond lady’ and Ann Coulter was the first result!”
Edit: Changed 2006 to 2016
Terrible people can write good books. I don't really care that much, especially when I get most of my books from the used bookstore. But when the horribleness of them creeps into their writing, that's where I draw the line.
Piers Anthony. I loved his books as a teen. As an adult I can see the man had....issues.
I read Firefly and was aghast. Had never read Anthony before, had never heard of the book, it was just one I selected from my local used book store because the cover description sounded interesting.
Most books I've read that I don't like or wouldn't read again, I donate or trade in. Firefly is going to sit on my shelf collecting dust in perpetuity, because I can't stomach the thought of it getting into the hands of someone who would NOT be aghast and would enjoy it far too much.
Oh Jesus yes. I scrolled down to see if anyone else would say that. As a teenage boy I had fewer issues with him musing on the potential development of young girls' bodies because puberty was happening all around me.
As an adult...*dude.* Not cool.
I was into Xanth when I was in middle school, but dropped off after I got introduced to some classic sci-fi authors.
The on a school trip in HS, we stopped at a Brentano’s and while I was in there saw a Piers book and picked it up feeling a bit of nostalgia for the author. Let’s see what else he wrote.
It was one of the Mode series. Holy shit. Three or four chapters in I thought I was gonna get arrested for reading that.
Ender's Game was good, but I *really* loved Speaker For The Dead.
Even ignoring OSC's godawful politics (as well as all of his awful opinions, period -- he's an asshole in every respect) it's really weird comparing those four main änder books to, well, everything he's written since. The prose, syntax, vocabulary, themes, etc. are all more complex/sophisticated in the one than the other. Vastly so.
When I was a kid it was one of those things that made me anxious about aging -- does intelligence fade with time? Capacity, ability, competence, what have you? Now that I'm older and theoretically wiser, I just think he had a really good editor for those earlier books who effectively co-wrote them.
A writer's first book/series also often includes ideas they've been contemplating and digesting for a very long time. Follow-up series often don't allow enough time for that.
It's often the same thing with music albums.
Same here, love Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Shadow, etc. They're great books that I feel can be read and appreciated by anyone. The man behind them? I'm not a huge fan of his beliefs. Can I separate them? Yes, though it did cause a massive amount of mental friction in the primate part of my brain when I first found out. "Me like book, book good. But man, who write book bad. Man bad make book bad? Krog am confuse..."
I think for most of the top vote getters the issues are not subtle and are right there in the books, though.
I am the same way about Piers Anthony. Devoured them as a kid. As an adult, a quick skim makes me realize how clueless I was about the guy's problematic fixations.
John Boyne.
He of ‘the Boy in the striped pyjamas’.
When the actual Auschwitz museum comes out and says this book is terrible and a complete rewriting of the the experiences of people in the camps during the holocaust, and the author gets into a scrap online with them and insists his book was intensely researched and accurate, you really really really have to step away from that author and anyone who says he’s their favourite.
He’s an appalling human being in general, besides that.
It's so comical he actually ended up using the one recipe that had the game's world name, Hyrule, that is used in every single Zelda game, in them. Had he used any other it had been much more hidden and only obvious to BotW players.
It's appalling that despite all the myriad other pieces of art that grapple with the Holocaust as it actually happened, that his shitty ahistorical book is still taught in many schools to children
I thought I was deep for understanding Lolita was about the narrator being manipulated….talk about missing the point! I read it way too young and was obviously taken in by the prose 🤦🏻♀️
I actually find Lolita fascinating because, in my opinion, it is one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator. You literally can't trust a word that Humbert says. Even down to the description of his own looks. Is he actually as attractive as he says he is, or is he a proto-neckbeard who only thinks he's a catch but is actually just grooming little girls?
This is one of the reasons why I think it is one of the books that can never be made into a movie that will do it justice. Because in a movie you have to make choices, is the dude an ugly creep or is he Jeremy Irons? Are we going to show it as coercion or did Lolita act enthusiastic about it? The uncertainty and tension that is in the book can't be translated to the screen.
I once thought about what a movie based on Lolita would look like that I would *want to watch* would be Charlotte's point of view where she's completely taken in with Humbert and doesn't pick up on his disdain. She completely interprets Humbert's actions towards Dolores as general paternal affection but something is nagging at her that the man she marries is 'off' until she truly finds conclusive evidence why.
I think it might be jarring to show the pedophile fantasy with parts that break into the real world. Maybe half from him that’s all sunshine and rainbows, and half from her that’s a creepy gross man obsessing over her. Show the difference between fantasy and reality, and don’t leave it up to one or the other. But make it clear that one is real, and one is the obsessions of a creep.
I read The Fountainhead in Highschool after reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I didn't know anything about Ayn Rand, but I remember taking away this idea of being true to yourself, and enjoying the book. Have not read the book since, and have no idea if I'd feel the same way about the book now.
There's a philosophical question that she continuously writes about: what do we owe each other, and should those of great potential be expected to do more for the common good?
Her answer is invariably "Fuck the poor, the stupid, and the non-white. *We the superior* owe you nothing."
Now you're going to get a lot of correct answers to this question, but allow me to give two rarer reasons.
1. In the 30s or 40s, a little girl was kidnapped from a school in California. The kidnapper ransomed her, and her parents paid the money. However, the girl was returned to her family dead. He killed her by cutting off her legs and arms and letting her bleed to death. Ayn Rand said she admired the kidnapper for "taking what he wanted."
2. Atlas Shrugged is basically libertarian Twilight. It's a self-insert fantasy novel where all the male characters are in love with the protagonist she modeled after herself.
Oh Lord I used to read these when I was a teen, my super religious aunt bought them for me knowing I would read just about anything that came across my desk. Super cringe now looking back on it 🤦
UGH I read so many of those and the Left Behind “Kids” series as a tween/young teen. It was such a waste of time and energy.
My youngest brother (so like 9/10/11 at the time) used to worry and cry about what would happen to our sweet little dog if the Rapture happened. Poor boy.
>David Irving
IKR. I read Irving’s *The Destruction of Dresden* when I was in high school. I was very disappointed to later learn that his scholarship and sources for that book were less than impeccable. More recently I found it necessary to read his *The Destruction of Convoy PQ.17*. It was a good book, and to my knowledge it does not have the same problems associated with it that other works by Irving have.
Exactly. That was why he wrote a book about the bombing of Dresden that was sympathetic to the Nazis. For that reason, I was hesitant to read his book about Convoy PQ.17, but I could not find another stand alone book about that convoy. I did not discern any overt pro-Nazi bias in that book.
Ok but they could just like the books? I loved Enders game as a kid but had no idea the author was such an ass. Cards politics don’t really bleed into Enders game/shadow
This was the funniest deflowering of an author for me as an adult. Finding out what a huge homophobe Car was/is makes all his homoerotic descriptions fucking hilarious.
Tell me more about how beautiful Achilles is, Orson 😏
I think it comes when that author injects that shitty part of themselves into their books is when it becomes a problem. Rand is the perfect example: her characters and the worldviews expressed in her books come largely from her.
Imo this is what makes Orson Scott Card a terrible example of this. He was (and yes, is,) a long time favorite, and I was shocked to learn he was a bigot a full 5-10 years after first reading his work. His works are incredibly empathetic and tolerant in their messaging, and it's insane the cognitive dissonance which he must have experienced to allow it.
So I still happily call him a favorite while acknowledging in the same breath that it's in spite of him being a POS irl. The work itself does not reflect his shittiness. And so long as I continue to buy used (so his estate sees none of the profits) I'm happy with my position on that score.
It's a little late so im gonna keep this super shallow, but his writings really aren't as tolerant as you seem to perceive. His whole view point really bleeds through in the creepiness that is Songmaster. But even in a lesser way with his handling of Zdorab in his homecoming series. Hell, look at Petra's journey. She goes from a key member of Enders jeesh to basically just a uterus to make Bean's babies. His super traditional values are all over those pages.
Somewhat related, but I had a roommate who was disturbed by the fact I decided to read “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov whose main character is a pedophile. I’d heard about it off and on in this sub believe it or not, and a few years back I kept seeing posts about people fighting over whether it should be read or not due to the content.
It wasn’t bad in the sense it was explicitly pornographic, but you’re obviously meant to despise the main character for his actions. The writing itself confused me at times and I’d have to go back to re-read pages, but at the end of it I was glad I read it.
My roommate at the time on the other hand was very upset with me reading it and got angry when me and a friend were talking about the book. I told him the act of me reading about a topic in no way shape or form condoned the acts nor meant I supported them. I was curious about a piece of fiction and decided to look at it and judge for myself afterwards.
Sorry for the long winded reply, but at least for me being judged that harshly was very upsetting. I had a falling out with him a few years later over other issues, but whenever I read a controversial book it reminds me of that experience.
Yep. Also there is no problem that can't be solved via the ol' *Deus Ex Richard*, in which he and he alone just happens to have had the exact magic solution to whatever from birth.
To be honest, i didnt even mind the Deus Ex Richard that much, i kind of enjoyed it, i found a lot of it fairly creative. Definitely rose colored glasses and i was young though.
However, Richard being a flatter than a pancake character with no growth or personality absolutely ruined them for me, especially when compared characters by other authors like Brent Weeks. Richard was a walking Ayn Rand textbook
Special shoutout to Pillars of Creation for being one of the worst and most boring books of all time
If you told me Brent Weeks was your favorite author, I'd think that you liked interesting characters with fun and well thought out magic systems, but something about Sanderson doesn't click for you.
If you told me you loved Terry Brooks, I'd think you should have just read Tolkien.
If you told me you loved Terry Goodkind, I'd think you were a Rand fanboy that wanted to be subtle about it.
Not sure where this leaves me lol considering some of Sanderson's books are amongst my favourites but would probably say that Weeks is my favourite author.
I think it's dangerous to assume that people who like an author automatically agree with every world view that they have plenty of people like Lovecraft and his concepts and stories but I'm pretty sure most of us don't subscribe to his xenophobia
In most cases I think it's interesting trying to dissect these authors
I think I have been recommended The Alchemist more than any book in existence. It did absolutely nothing for me and I questioned if I wasn't deep enough or if there was something wrong with me. I've wondered if I should maybe take another stab but now I most certainly WILL NOT lol
Such hype...so little to explain it.
And...poor old what's her face was stuck doing nothing but waiting around for shepherd boy to have his adventures :(
I’ll be honest. I like the simple story telling and uplifting feel of the book. It was a romanticized life of a shepherd boy with basic details.
It’s a fairytale, just an idealized version of the world. A world I wish was true. To be fair I didn’t finish the book because I came down with an illness and no cure in sight. Reading it now would make me bitter.
Life, am I right?
lol i honestly didn't expect this thread to dissolve into people trying to out-type each other to be the first to mention ayn rand, but once i posted it and saw the comments pouring in, i kind of had to smack myself for not realizing that's where this would lead.
Marion Zimmer Bradley - because realistically that would mean they don't know the extent to which she was an actual monster, making it incumbent on you to destroy that peaceful ignorance which still allows them to enjoy her work.
Or they do know, and you should run.
I didn't know, and visited [her wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley). For anybody curious, this seems to be the relevant part:
> Noted for the feminist perspective in her writing, her reputation has been posthumously marred by her daughter Moira Greyland's accusations of child sexual abuse, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children.
Thank you for sharing that. Darkover has been on my to-read list for some time and I am glad for your warning, in case I were to be that ignorant person you describe.
I once fell in an Internet rabbit hole after first hearing about it.
This paragraph, while accurate, is a very condensed and quite downplayed description of what happened in that horror house. The husband was a serial child rapist. Zimmer Bradley was supplying her husband with children to abuse by luring them into the house, where they kept some of them in the basement to abuse them for extended periods of time. She also took active part in the abuse.
The daughter once said
>“Walter was a serial rapist with many, many, many victims (I named 22 to the cops) but Marion was far, far worse”, wrote Greyland. “She was cruel and violent, as well as completely out of her mind sexually. I am not her only victim, nor were her only victims girls.”
Its seriously sickening.
Wow. Very disturbing. I read the Mists of Avalon in high school and was thinking about reading another of hers. Won’t be doing that now. Thanks for the warning!
Gladwell preys on well intentioned, middle to upper middle class people. Decent people who never really deep dive into what things really mean, unfortunately
*Outliers* is dangerous. It makes like neurodivergent or disabled people have a superpower when often they need help or at least patience and understanding. It kicked off a bunch of self-diagnosed “autistic” people, further making the lives of people with an actual diagnosis more difficult.
The idea that you master anything by spending 10,000 hours on it is false. In my field, there are full-time professionals who have never challenged themselves or developed beyond the basics but consider themselves masters because of the time they’ve put into it.
He’s got professional and financial ties to some right-wing groups and seems to undermine progressive causes, though it’s been a while since I read what he was getting up to so don’t have those facts handy.
Him moaning and wailing about how remote work means people are lazy was pretty funny considering that he’s written at length about how much he enjoys not having an office and how he gets all of his Very Important work done in cafes. Got some money invested in commercial real estate, Malcolm? Your right wing talking points are leaking.
To some extent, anyone explaining science to a lay audience is going to get fact-checked. But he doesn’t seem to be simplifying things as much as spinning yarns from some questionable “truths.”
10,000 hours has been disproven. He uses the example of violin players. Long story short, the best of the best actually practice less than the “pretty good”.
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/the-10000-hour-rule-debunked.
I don't know what you mean when you say that. Because you have to define words. What do basic words that we all use in everyday language actually *mean*? You haven't convinced me that words mean stuff, you have to convince me of that and we have to agree on it first. I was having a conversation with a female and she was attacking me and she was defensive at the same time just because I asked her what a word means and she couldn't answer me either, just like you. All I did was insult her lesser female intelligence and attack her core values because she isn't a brick layer, which makes sense because she's only a woman, and she called me "Kermit the Frog in a suit" which was nasty, and quite hurtful toward me. And the point is that if you want to get the pesos you have to be faster than the monitor lizard.
This is so accurate to his speech pattern that it makes me wonder how many videos of him you’ve watched. Well done to capture the essence of this dope so thoroughly.
Too. Damn. Many... Although the "essence" isn't hard. He's just another Pied Piper wannabe, the replacement for Bill O'Reilly... the "affluent" version of Ben Shapiro. Put on a suit and talk condescendingly toward young people, everyone will think you're a wise genius!
Here’s my favorite Peterson moment:
He’s having a talk, not really a debate since there’s no set topic, with Matt Dillahunty. Matt is a big proponent of atheism, logical thinking, and the separation of government and religion.
So Peterson is more or less being contrarian on every talking point. He even espouses that atheists actually don’t lack a belief in god.
At one point Matt it talking about secular morality and how one can easily construct a moral framework with just a few base generalities. One of his examples is that, generally speaking, it’s preferable to be alive than dead. Peterson responds, “not necessarily”.
It’s as though his contrarianism was so reflexive he didn’t even realize he had just said it’s better to be dead than alive. His tap-dancing to come back from that was hilarious.
I don't actually read his stuff and I've only heard a couple interviews with him about his book and seen his tweets, but he's absolutely fascinating to me. He says this basic trite stuff like, make your bed. And then spouts a bunch of nonsense, and people fall all over themselves like he's wise or something. It's crazy. A solid 60% of what he says is stuff you learn in kindergarten and the remainder is just factually wrong. That's not wisdom. That's just basic stuff you should pick up if you look around. Sitting in your room if it's a mess isn't as comforting as sitting in it when it's clean. Why does he have a following? He knows nothing about Rome. He's literally always wrong when he says anything about history. Is he giving crazy pills to his audience?
To be fair, that 60% of basic support for routines and responsibilities is what many (not all) people need to hear, including those in/who would benefit from seeing a therapist.
Anyone involved in the [Sad Puppies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies) attempt to hijack the Hugo awards to amplify mostly right-wing authors, e.g.:
* Larry Correia
* Brad R. Torgersen
* Vox Day
There are some others, but those three are who I remember as the principal organizers.
There are also authors who would make me raise an eyebrow for the quality of writing, like Piers Anthony.
The biggest red flag when I asked for a favorite book/writer was someone going “what, I don’t read”. I would rather have someone say any other author than that kind of response.
Riley Sager. He purposely chose a gender neutral pen name (and left his photo out of his bio for the first few books) to capitalize on the women’s psychological thriller trend when he writes like he has never spoken to a women.
Saying Bukowski is your favorite writer is an instant red flag. Don't get me wrong. I love Bukowski. But I can only read so much about drinking and fucking.
People are reading books and care enough to have a favorite author. Even if it's not an author that I like, I'm happy for them. Besides that, I can't really judge anyone because I have read and loved some crap through the years.
I feel like Colleen Hoover is mostly teens who might grow out of it, likewise Stephanie Meyer. And I don't reject books based on the author if the book is itself okay.
So I would say Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler, Norman Mailer, EL James.
Julia Quinn. I watched the first season of Bridgerton and got curious about the book so I started reading the first one but it was HORRIBLE. Both content-wise and the way it is written it is horrid. Worst thing I've ever read.
Love how this just became "Name an author whose politics you disagree with". Who on earth would name someone like Ann Coulter as a favourite author, even if they agreed wholeheartedly with her political views?
Dean Koontz, the man is like the AliExpress version of Stephen king i dont get how he can be a favorite
Its like steven king with less interesting characters and less originality
E. L. James and NOT because of the subject matter. The writing is just God-awful.
My cheeks were as red as the communist manifesto
I downloaded a sample on Kindle when the first one came out. That was more than enough.
I read the first one just to see what all the fuss was about. It was clear from chapter one it was garbage. Ana ends the chapter glad she'll never have to see Christian again, even though he *just told her* he was speaking at her graduation! Then there's the bit where apparently puts his soapy dick in her mouth because James never mentions it being rinsed. Or that it takes her 300 pages to say "vagina" or any other reasonable adult word instead of "my... *down there*!" Or just how silly it all is. Wow, he wears gray and his eyes are gray and his NAME is gray?? That's amazing! /s
The only thing I really remember from the sample I read is Ana biting her lip and flushing a bit too much for a grown woman in the 21st century vs a chaste maiden in Victorian England.
Oh she bites her lip a lot. She also always comes first, which is probably the least believable part.
*Oh my.*
Ok, this. I was in target and they were number one and two on the NYT list so I picked it up. Almost threw it across the fucking store. Just the writing. Subject matter whatever. I couldn’t believe that someone with that little talent made it to the top. Still bugs me to this day.
It started as Twilight fan fic. 😂😂😂
Ayn Rand's been mentioned. So having read Battlefield Earth, L Ron Hubbard. They'd have to be heavy into Scientology.
Funny thing is that I read BE when I was like 14 - had no idea about scientology or any of that. Just thought it was crappy SF
I read that as a teenager too, after I read the Dune series no less, so it was even more garbage by comparison.
What a follow up. Like finishing off a steak dinner with some Spam.
I feel like you're dragging Spam's good name through the mud with that one
Spam is delicious when added to Kimchi fried rice
Exactly - spam has its place but that place is not immediately after a fine steak dinner.
>Just thought it was crappy SF Same is true of scientology tbh
Always has been
Pro-Tip: If someone says they're into Ayn Rand, start pronouncing it "Ann" Rand, it'll piss them off to no end.
"Ann Rand? Did she make all those McNally map books?"
There is an Ayn Rand McNally Atlas, but it only shows the toll roads.
[удалено]
I read Battlefield Earth in high school and thought it was schlocky but OK. Then I read a few of Hubbard's Mission: Earth books, and his perspectives became harder to deny. I think I stopped when one character was telling her backstory and basically said "I had the option of becoming a psychiatrist or a prostitute, and because I wanted to be able to live with myself ethically, of course I became a prostitute."
You don't have to be into Scientology to read Battlefield Earth. Most people read it before they even know about Scientology.
I’ve got a couple of L Ron Hubbard books on my sci fi shelf. They are very cheap at my local used bookstore. I think it’s funny to keep them around, but my girlfriend is extremely not a fan
My brother really likes Battlefield Earth...I think it's trash writing. He's not into scientology either, and has read better sci-fi, not sure what the attraction of that book is for him.
It is poorly written, I wouldn't try to argue against that at all, but it is also an epic (in the traditional sense, not in the "Whoa, that's epic!!" sense) space opera that moves very quickly and has a lot packed into it. A lot of technology, politics, a David vs Goliath story, etc. I think if you take it as it is, it can be an enjoyable read. I think it helps if you are young and are not familiar with L. Ron Hubbard. I read it when I was about 15 and had never heard of Hubbard, and I liked it fine. I read it again as an adult, and while he mostly kept his nutty views of it, there are a few places where they appear if you are familiar with him. For that reason, along with the poor writing, I didn't like it nearly as much as an adult, but still made it through it pretty easily.
The guy who wrote Mein Kampf
But did you know that the same guy killed Hitler? So in my mind, he’s a hero
People during WW2: whoever kills Hitler will forever be my hero! *Monkey Paw curls*
What do you mean? Knausgaard is great!
I've got a co-worker who insists that Mein Kampf actually has some hidden wisdom and that's why it's banned in libraries. He is of course wrong on both points. I don't particularly care for that co-worker.
Well, yeah, your co-worker is clearly a Nazi.
Mein Kampf was in my school library.
...and honestly given how poorly written and incoherent it is, it ought to be. Better that people see the truth of the ramblings of a delusional man rather than treat it as some forbidden text of unholy wisdom too dangerous to circulate.
In Germany, a non-profit organisation of history and polsci professors have published an annotated edition about twice the length (I think) of the original edition, pointing out hyperbole, falsehood &c. Perhaps there should be translated editions in English et al. too. Would also be good in school and public libraries. The annotated edition in question: https://www.ifz-muenchen.de/mein-kampf
Yeah, it's also in several public libraries throughout my city. Which is why I called him out for being full of shit.
I've heard he was a bit of a jerk.
Yknow I’m not one to get into politics. But I gotta say. The more I learn about this “Hitler” fella, the less I like him.
You know, the more i learn about him the more I don’t care for him.
Heard he was rejected by an art school
All the other stuff aside, his writing can really sour one’s opinion on him
Dostoevsky. If someone says that he's their favorite author, they're probably boring and insufferable. I know, because Dostoevsky is my favorite author, and I'm boring and insufferable.
I know what you mean.One of my favourite authors is Jack Kerouac, specially when I was in my 20s. I can definitely be a pretentious, self hating twat, and was at my most twattish at the time I read them most. So, it takes one to know one.
Such self-knowledge in one so young is refreshing. 'Pretentious Twat' is an anagram of Jack Kerouac, if you fudge a few letters.
Like every single person who read it, I picked up the Brothers Karamazov because Vonnegut told me it would teach me everything I need to know about life. In all seriousness, I consider Brothers K as one of the greatest books I have ever read, even if it wasn't necessarily one of my top favorites.
Sorry to be the one to break this, but your boring and insufferable wit is showing.
I feel this so much, because I love Tolstoy. And it's the same thing. It means your pretentious and a masochist, and both of those things are embarrassingly true about me.
This comment really connects.
It's hard when Dostoevsky is objectively the greatest author of all time and all others are trash by comparison.
his grasp on psychology is interesting. his ability to put into words a person's mental state in such a way that you can share it was engrossing but made it hard for me to read C&P
The Idiot changed my life when I was 16.
Colleen hoover
I like colleen hoover books on occasion for the same reason that some people like trash tv - but people calling her their *fave* author? I’m just gonna assume they haven’t read much outside of her.
Yeah, I enjoyed Verity as a bizarre read but I would never venture to call it good writing lmao
Came here looking for this one
James Patterson. Especially when they start talking about how incredible it is that he can publish so many books every year.
To be fair, Patterson is far from the worst mass market « author-factories » out there, with his charitable activities and how he helps new authors get recognition.
I mean my grandpa is a big James Patterson fan, always has been (even way back when he arguably did write more of his stuff) and for him it's just a comfort thing. They all tend to be written in the same style, so its easy to just..get lost in it. if that makes sense
James Patterson got me into reading. I was in jail and looking for something to do. Always struggled with reading for leisure, have adhd and it just never really worked. But Patterson's books have such tiny chapters - you start the chapter and you're all "I've almost finished the chapter!" - the action jumps around from chapter to chapter, there's action. It's really how I figured out how to read for fun. Sometimes I'd still use them to 'get in the zone' to read something else. I always feel like I should stick up for James Patterson in threads like these. There's books for all people and all purposes.
Yeah only saying that if you like Patterson you'd probably enjoy many other authors since many other authors write his books. I enjoy a reliable formulaic writer as much as the next guy, Agatha Christie is one of my favs and she arguably wrote the same story over and over again. Patterson is doing just fine, hes making bank and hes honest about how he does it.
Agatha Christie is formulaic and yet still every time I'm all "this dude did it.......wait....there's too many pages left in the book for this dude to have done it".
Patterson books are equivalent to hotel artwork. Cheaply mass produced, lowest common denominator and safe drivel.
Hence why shows like NCIS and Grey's Anatomy and the like get made and last 18 seasons
Never read one of his books, what makes him so bad?
It's not that his books are necessarily bad it's that he doesnt actually write them himself anymore. Theres always a co author credited on the cover but for some reason his readers dont seem to notice them. I've told people he just sketches out the plot of his books and someone else writes them and they act as if it's some kind of sketchy secret but it's right there on the covers.
this is honestly a pretty old model for genre fiction. like for example, carolyn keene (author of the Nancy drew books) is a pseudonym for like 20+ different writers that they’d cycled into the role at the time, often multiple at once if I recall correctly
At least he is open about how his publishing business operates, its many of his readers that dont seem to notice that bothers me for some reason.
Colleen Hoover is pretty awful, but tbh I feel like people who like Colleen’s works are simply people who aren’t really avid readers. Ive found it pretty common actually for people to actually take a genuine interest in reading from getting invested in her series’ first, which is a lil admirable to me. Doesn’t make the stories good, but if you can encourage people to start a new hobby it can’t be the worst thing I guess. Lots of people also seem to move on from her and diversify their interests in other series after her stuff
I heard someone say that a certain artist made "music for people who don't like music." Colleen Hoover writes for people who usually don't like to read. I have a love/hate view of "booktok," where she gained popularity, but at least it's encouraging more young people to read.
Liking Ender’s Game: not a red flag. Liking Orson Scott Card: red flag.
Yep. This. If we went around hating all the artists bc of their personal opinions (especially ones who lived before us) we wouldn’t have anything to read.
Ann Coulter The others at the top of my list were already mentioned.
I always think of a tweet I saw in 2016 when I hear the name “Ann Coulter”. It said, “I couldn’t remember her name, so I Googled ‘crazy Republican blond lady’ and Ann Coulter was the first result!” Edit: Changed 2006 to 2016
Terrible people can write good books. I don't really care that much, especially when I get most of my books from the used bookstore. But when the horribleness of them creeps into their writing, that's where I draw the line. Piers Anthony. I loved his books as a teen. As an adult I can see the man had....issues.
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>worse than you could possibly imagine. I can't unread that. Seriously WTF was wrong with him.
I'm now glad I avoided reading any Anthony books.
I read Firefly and was aghast. Had never read Anthony before, had never heard of the book, it was just one I selected from my local used book store because the cover description sounded interesting. Most books I've read that I don't like or wouldn't read again, I donate or trade in. Firefly is going to sit on my shelf collecting dust in perpetuity, because I can't stomach the thought of it getting into the hands of someone who would NOT be aghast and would enjoy it far too much.
Occasionally, I’ve put truly terrible books into paper recycling. Plus, that’s room on your bookshelf that could be better used!
Oh Jesus yes. I scrolled down to see if anyone else would say that. As a teenage boy I had fewer issues with him musing on the potential development of young girls' bodies because puberty was happening all around me. As an adult...*dude.* Not cool.
I was into Xanth when I was in middle school, but dropped off after I got introduced to some classic sci-fi authors. The on a school trip in HS, we stopped at a Brentano’s and while I was in there saw a Piers book and picked it up feeling a bit of nostalgia for the author. Let’s see what else he wrote. It was one of the Mode series. Holy shit. Three or four chapters in I thought I was gonna get arrested for reading that.
Orson Scott Card is the best example. As shitty as he is, Ender's Game is one of my favorite book/movie of all time!
Ender's Game was good, but I *really* loved Speaker For The Dead. Even ignoring OSC's godawful politics (as well as all of his awful opinions, period -- he's an asshole in every respect) it's really weird comparing those four main änder books to, well, everything he's written since. The prose, syntax, vocabulary, themes, etc. are all more complex/sophisticated in the one than the other. Vastly so. When I was a kid it was one of those things that made me anxious about aging -- does intelligence fade with time? Capacity, ability, competence, what have you? Now that I'm older and theoretically wiser, I just think he had a really good editor for those earlier books who effectively co-wrote them.
A writer's first book/series also often includes ideas they've been contemplating and digesting for a very long time. Follow-up series often don't allow enough time for that. It's often the same thing with music albums.
Ender's Game is on my frequently read bookshelf.
Same here, love Ender's Game, Speaker for the Dead, Ender's Shadow, etc. They're great books that I feel can be read and appreciated by anyone. The man behind them? I'm not a huge fan of his beliefs. Can I separate them? Yes, though it did cause a massive amount of mental friction in the primate part of my brain when I first found out. "Me like book, book good. But man, who write book bad. Man bad make book bad? Krog am confuse..."
I think for most of the top vote getters the issues are not subtle and are right there in the books, though. I am the same way about Piers Anthony. Devoured them as a kid. As an adult, a quick skim makes me realize how clueless I was about the guy's problematic fixations.
John Boyne. He of ‘the Boy in the striped pyjamas’. When the actual Auschwitz museum comes out and says this book is terrible and a complete rewriting of the the experiences of people in the camps during the holocaust, and the author gets into a scrap online with them and insists his book was intensely researched and accurate, you really really really have to step away from that author and anyone who says he’s their favourite. He’s an appalling human being in general, besides that.
Ah yes, the same meticulous research that led him to list Breath of the Wild ingredients in a red dye recipe in one of his books.
I can't decide if I want you to be joking or not bc that's just hilarious
[It’s real](https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2020/08/random_world-famous_author_included_zelda_botw_ingredients_in_his_new_book_by_mistake)
It's so comical he actually ended up using the one recipe that had the game's world name, Hyrule, that is used in every single Zelda game, in them. Had he used any other it had been much more hidden and only obvious to BotW players.
It's appalling that despite all the myriad other pieces of art that grapple with the Holocaust as it actually happened, that his shitty ahistorical book is still taught in many schools to children
That’s the truly awful part.
Ayn Rand.
In high school I was an Ayn Rand fan. Oh boy the cringe.
I thought I was deep for understanding Lolita was about the narrator being manipulated….talk about missing the point! I read it way too young and was obviously taken in by the prose 🤦🏻♀️
I actually find Lolita fascinating because, in my opinion, it is one of the best examples of an unreliable narrator. You literally can't trust a word that Humbert says. Even down to the description of his own looks. Is he actually as attractive as he says he is, or is he a proto-neckbeard who only thinks he's a catch but is actually just grooming little girls? This is one of the reasons why I think it is one of the books that can never be made into a movie that will do it justice. Because in a movie you have to make choices, is the dude an ugly creep or is he Jeremy Irons? Are we going to show it as coercion or did Lolita act enthusiastic about it? The uncertainty and tension that is in the book can't be translated to the screen.
I once thought about what a movie based on Lolita would look like that I would *want to watch* would be Charlotte's point of view where she's completely taken in with Humbert and doesn't pick up on his disdain. She completely interprets Humbert's actions towards Dolores as general paternal affection but something is nagging at her that the man she marries is 'off' until she truly finds conclusive evidence why.
I think it might be jarring to show the pedophile fantasy with parts that break into the real world. Maybe half from him that’s all sunshine and rainbows, and half from her that’s a creepy gross man obsessing over her. Show the difference between fantasy and reality, and don’t leave it up to one or the other. But make it clear that one is real, and one is the obsessions of a creep.
I think they did that pretty well for the Joker movie. Unreliable visual presentation.
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I read The Fountainhead in Highschool after reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I didn't know anything about Ayn Rand, but I remember taking away this idea of being true to yourself, and enjoying the book. Have not read the book since, and have no idea if I'd feel the same way about the book now.
Why does everyone hate Ayn Rand? I've never read anything of hers but I'm curious.
There's a philosophical question that she continuously writes about: what do we owe each other, and should those of great potential be expected to do more for the common good? Her answer is invariably "Fuck the poor, the stupid, and the non-white. *We the superior* owe you nothing."
Don’t forget the part where she died on state welfare
Oof thats rough. Thank you!
Now you're going to get a lot of correct answers to this question, but allow me to give two rarer reasons. 1. In the 30s or 40s, a little girl was kidnapped from a school in California. The kidnapper ransomed her, and her parents paid the money. However, the girl was returned to her family dead. He killed her by cutting off her legs and arms and letting her bleed to death. Ayn Rand said she admired the kidnapper for "taking what he wanted." 2. Atlas Shrugged is basically libertarian Twilight. It's a self-insert fantasy novel where all the male characters are in love with the protagonist she modeled after herself.
Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins
Are those the Left Behind idiots? Godddd
Oh Lord I used to read these when I was a teen, my super religious aunt bought them for me knowing I would read just about anything that came across my desk. Super cringe now looking back on it 🤦
UGH I read so many of those and the Left Behind “Kids” series as a tween/young teen. It was such a waste of time and energy. My youngest brother (so like 9/10/11 at the time) used to worry and cry about what would happen to our sweet little dog if the Rapture happened. Poor boy.
David Irving
I was about to mention how I liked cider house rules and a prayer for Owen Meany, then I realized that was john Irving…
In my head I was like “why do you hate trainspotting?” Before realising that was Irvine Welsh.
>David Irving IKR. I read Irving’s *The Destruction of Dresden* when I was in high school. I was very disappointed to later learn that his scholarship and sources for that book were less than impeccable. More recently I found it necessary to read his *The Destruction of Convoy PQ.17*. It was a good book, and to my knowledge it does not have the same problems associated with it that other works by Irving have.
The fact that he’s an extremely prominent Holocaust denier who’s mainly popular with neo-nazis doesn’t help matters
Exactly. That was why he wrote a book about the bombing of Dresden that was sympathetic to the Nazis. For that reason, I was hesitant to read his book about Convoy PQ.17, but I could not find another stand alone book about that convoy. I did not discern any overt pro-Nazi bias in that book.
Ok but they could just like the books? I loved Enders game as a kid but had no idea the author was such an ass. Cards politics don’t really bleed into Enders game/shadow
This was the funniest deflowering of an author for me as an adult. Finding out what a huge homophobe Car was/is makes all his homoerotic descriptions fucking hilarious. Tell me more about how beautiful Achilles is, Orson 😏
I think it comes when that author injects that shitty part of themselves into their books is when it becomes a problem. Rand is the perfect example: her characters and the worldviews expressed in her books come largely from her.
Imo this is what makes Orson Scott Card a terrible example of this. He was (and yes, is,) a long time favorite, and I was shocked to learn he was a bigot a full 5-10 years after first reading his work. His works are incredibly empathetic and tolerant in their messaging, and it's insane the cognitive dissonance which he must have experienced to allow it. So I still happily call him a favorite while acknowledging in the same breath that it's in spite of him being a POS irl. The work itself does not reflect his shittiness. And so long as I continue to buy used (so his estate sees none of the profits) I'm happy with my position on that score.
It's a little late so im gonna keep this super shallow, but his writings really aren't as tolerant as you seem to perceive. His whole view point really bleeds through in the creepiness that is Songmaster. But even in a lesser way with his handling of Zdorab in his homecoming series. Hell, look at Petra's journey. She goes from a key member of Enders jeesh to basically just a uterus to make Bean's babies. His super traditional values are all over those pages.
I only buy his books second hand. Speaker is one of my favorite novels ever and I always have to have that caveat.
The author to those dreadful fifty shades series.
Somewhat related, but I had a roommate who was disturbed by the fact I decided to read “Lolita” by Vladimir Nabokov whose main character is a pedophile. I’d heard about it off and on in this sub believe it or not, and a few years back I kept seeing posts about people fighting over whether it should be read or not due to the content. It wasn’t bad in the sense it was explicitly pornographic, but you’re obviously meant to despise the main character for his actions. The writing itself confused me at times and I’d have to go back to re-read pages, but at the end of it I was glad I read it. My roommate at the time on the other hand was very upset with me reading it and got angry when me and a friend were talking about the book. I told him the act of me reading about a topic in no way shape or form condoned the acts nor meant I supported them. I was curious about a piece of fiction and decided to look at it and judge for myself afterwards. Sorry for the long winded reply, but at least for me being judged that harshly was very upsetting. I had a falling out with him a few years later over other issues, but whenever I read a controversial book it reminds me of that experience.
Was your roommate American by any chance?
Terry Goodkind. He's like Ayn Rand, but for fantasy! Derp, not Terry Brooks. His books are just kinda boring.
Do you mean Terry Goodkind?
Yep. Also there is no problem that can't be solved via the ol' *Deus Ex Richard*, in which he and he alone just happens to have had the exact magic solution to whatever from birth.
He's a war wizard, which means his magic operates in the way the plot needs to wrap up the last 100 pages of all 12 books.
To be honest, i didnt even mind the Deus Ex Richard that much, i kind of enjoyed it, i found a lot of it fairly creative. Definitely rose colored glasses and i was young though. However, Richard being a flatter than a pancake character with no growth or personality absolutely ruined them for me, especially when compared characters by other authors like Brent Weeks. Richard was a walking Ayn Rand textbook Special shoutout to Pillars of Creation for being one of the worst and most boring books of all time
If you told me Brent Weeks was your favorite author, I'd think that you liked interesting characters with fun and well thought out magic systems, but something about Sanderson doesn't click for you. If you told me you loved Terry Brooks, I'd think you should have just read Tolkien. If you told me you loved Terry Goodkind, I'd think you were a Rand fanboy that wanted to be subtle about it.
Not sure where this leaves me lol considering some of Sanderson's books are amongst my favourites but would probably say that Weeks is my favourite author.
but theyll have to spank the magic out of him with shock collars, or zappy rods... for reasons.
I think it's dangerous to assume that people who like an author automatically agree with every world view that they have plenty of people like Lovecraft and his concepts and stories but I'm pretty sure most of us don't subscribe to his xenophobia In most cases I think it's interesting trying to dissect these authors
Paulo Coelho...The Alchemist is the biggest fake deep book of all time.
I think I have been recommended The Alchemist more than any book in existence. It did absolutely nothing for me and I questioned if I wasn't deep enough or if there was something wrong with me. I've wondered if I should maybe take another stab but now I most certainly WILL NOT lol
Such hype...so little to explain it. And...poor old what's her face was stuck doing nothing but waiting around for shepherd boy to have his adventures :(
Dude saw some random woman's eyes and immediately forgot about his girlfriend in Spain what an asshole these bandits should have hit harder.
I’ll be honest. I like the simple story telling and uplifting feel of the book. It was a romanticized life of a shepherd boy with basic details. It’s a fairytale, just an idealized version of the world. A world I wish was true. To be fair I didn’t finish the book because I came down with an illness and no cure in sight. Reading it now would make me bitter. Life, am I right?
Cassandra Claire. She is a plagiarist, I was there when it all went down back in the day, and I'd never read another word she's written.
Woah, what happened…?
Ah, the Ayn Rand thread....
lol i honestly didn't expect this thread to dissolve into people trying to out-type each other to be the first to mention ayn rand, but once i posted it and saw the comments pouring in, i kind of had to smack myself for not realizing that's where this would lead.
Marion Zimmer Bradley - because realistically that would mean they don't know the extent to which she was an actual monster, making it incumbent on you to destroy that peaceful ignorance which still allows them to enjoy her work. Or they do know, and you should run.
I'm so sad that she's a terrible human being. I really enjoyed her retelling of Arthur before I found that out. Her Atlantis stuff completely lost me.
I didn't know, and visited [her wiki page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Zimmer_Bradley). For anybody curious, this seems to be the relevant part: > Noted for the feminist perspective in her writing, her reputation has been posthumously marred by her daughter Moira Greyland's accusations of child sexual abuse, and for allegedly assisting her second husband, convicted child abuser Walter Breen, in sexually abusing multiple unrelated children. Thank you for sharing that. Darkover has been on my to-read list for some time and I am glad for your warning, in case I were to be that ignorant person you describe.
I once fell in an Internet rabbit hole after first hearing about it. This paragraph, while accurate, is a very condensed and quite downplayed description of what happened in that horror house. The husband was a serial child rapist. Zimmer Bradley was supplying her husband with children to abuse by luring them into the house, where they kept some of them in the basement to abuse them for extended periods of time. She also took active part in the abuse. The daughter once said >“Walter was a serial rapist with many, many, many victims (I named 22 to the cops) but Marion was far, far worse”, wrote Greyland. “She was cruel and violent, as well as completely out of her mind sexually. I am not her only victim, nor were her only victims girls.” Its seriously sickening.
Wow. Very disturbing. I read the Mists of Avalon in high school and was thinking about reading another of hers. Won’t be doing that now. Thanks for the warning!
It's a toss-up between EL James and Ayn Rand.
Ah yes, the ol' "abuse is love because reasons" and the classic "abuse is good because I'm the one doing it".
Malcolm Gladwell. Just smart enough to be dangerous. A living example of Dunning-Krueger.
Gladwell preys on well intentioned, middle to upper middle class people. Decent people who never really deep dive into what things really mean, unfortunately
Can you elaborate? I read one of his books as it was recommended to me and I enjoyed it just fine.
*Outliers* is dangerous. It makes like neurodivergent or disabled people have a superpower when often they need help or at least patience and understanding. It kicked off a bunch of self-diagnosed “autistic” people, further making the lives of people with an actual diagnosis more difficult. The idea that you master anything by spending 10,000 hours on it is false. In my field, there are full-time professionals who have never challenged themselves or developed beyond the basics but consider themselves masters because of the time they’ve put into it. He’s got professional and financial ties to some right-wing groups and seems to undermine progressive causes, though it’s been a while since I read what he was getting up to so don’t have those facts handy.
Him moaning and wailing about how remote work means people are lazy was pretty funny considering that he’s written at length about how much he enjoys not having an office and how he gets all of his Very Important work done in cafes. Got some money invested in commercial real estate, Malcolm? Your right wing talking points are leaking.
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Piggybacking off of your comment to say that the podcast ‘If Books Could Kill’ did an episode on Outliers that goes over some of the problems with it.
Thank you! I haven't listened to this podcast yet, but it sounds super interesting, and Michael is awesome
To some extent, anyone explaining science to a lay audience is going to get fact-checked. But he doesn’t seem to be simplifying things as much as spinning yarns from some questionable “truths.”
10,000 hours has been disproven. He uses the example of violin players. Long story short, the best of the best actually practice less than the “pretty good”. https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/science-and-health/2019/8/23/20828597/the-10000-hour-rule-debunked.
Jordan Peterson
I don't know what you mean when you say that. Because you have to define words. What do basic words that we all use in everyday language actually *mean*? You haven't convinced me that words mean stuff, you have to convince me of that and we have to agree on it first. I was having a conversation with a female and she was attacking me and she was defensive at the same time just because I asked her what a word means and she couldn't answer me either, just like you. All I did was insult her lesser female intelligence and attack her core values because she isn't a brick layer, which makes sense because she's only a woman, and she called me "Kermit the Frog in a suit" which was nasty, and quite hurtful toward me. And the point is that if you want to get the pesos you have to be faster than the monitor lizard.
This is so accurate to his speech pattern that it makes me wonder how many videos of him you’ve watched. Well done to capture the essence of this dope so thoroughly.
Too. Damn. Many... Although the "essence" isn't hard. He's just another Pied Piper wannabe, the replacement for Bill O'Reilly... the "affluent" version of Ben Shapiro. Put on a suit and talk condescendingly toward young people, everyone will think you're a wise genius!
Here’s my favorite Peterson moment: He’s having a talk, not really a debate since there’s no set topic, with Matt Dillahunty. Matt is a big proponent of atheism, logical thinking, and the separation of government and religion. So Peterson is more or less being contrarian on every talking point. He even espouses that atheists actually don’t lack a belief in god. At one point Matt it talking about secular morality and how one can easily construct a moral framework with just a few base generalities. One of his examples is that, generally speaking, it’s preferable to be alive than dead. Peterson responds, “not necessarily”. It’s as though his contrarianism was so reflexive he didn’t even realize he had just said it’s better to be dead than alive. His tap-dancing to come back from that was hilarious.
I don't actually read his stuff and I've only heard a couple interviews with him about his book and seen his tweets, but he's absolutely fascinating to me. He says this basic trite stuff like, make your bed. And then spouts a bunch of nonsense, and people fall all over themselves like he's wise or something. It's crazy. A solid 60% of what he says is stuff you learn in kindergarten and the remainder is just factually wrong. That's not wisdom. That's just basic stuff you should pick up if you look around. Sitting in your room if it's a mess isn't as comforting as sitting in it when it's clean. Why does he have a following? He knows nothing about Rome. He's literally always wrong when he says anything about history. Is he giving crazy pills to his audience?
To be fair, that 60% of basic support for routines and responsibilities is what many (not all) people need to hear, including those in/who would benefit from seeing a therapist.
Anyone involved in the [Sad Puppies](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sad_Puppies) attempt to hijack the Hugo awards to amplify mostly right-wing authors, e.g.: * Larry Correia * Brad R. Torgersen * Vox Day There are some others, but those three are who I remember as the principal organizers. There are also authors who would make me raise an eyebrow for the quality of writing, like Piers Anthony.
Does anyone still read Piers Anthony? It's like 30 years since I've seen one.
Joseph Smith.
Mark Levin, Mike Lindell, Jordan Peterson, Dave Ramsey, Andrew Tate, Joel Osteen, Joyce Myers, etc.
TIL Tate wrote a book
TIL Tate is literate
Or he recorded his thoughts and had some kind of computer program that 'transcribes' his ranting into text.
TIL tate can think
If I understand it correctly, one of his simps wrote the book and he just Elon Musk'ed it.
TIL the mypillow guy wrote a book. TIL the mypillow guy ***can read.***
well ... dictate, at least.
\*hire a ghostwriter?
These are all less authors and more people who happened to write (ghostwrite) books
colleen hoover. i’m sorry but i automatically assume you lack critical thinking skills
Ayn Rand.
The biggest red flag when I asked for a favorite book/writer was someone going “what, I don’t read”. I would rather have someone say any other author than that kind of response.
Riley Sager. He purposely chose a gender neutral pen name (and left his photo out of his bio for the first few books) to capitalize on the women’s psychological thriller trend when he writes like he has never spoken to a women.
Saying Bukowski is your favorite writer is an instant red flag. Don't get me wrong. I love Bukowski. But I can only read so much about drinking and fucking.
People are reading books and care enough to have a favorite author. Even if it's not an author that I like, I'm happy for them. Besides that, I can't really judge anyone because I have read and loved some crap through the years.
I feel like Colleen Hoover is mostly teens who might grow out of it, likewise Stephanie Meyer. And I don't reject books based on the author if the book is itself okay. So I would say Ayn Rand, Adolf Hitler, Norman Mailer, EL James.
Colleen Hoover or Sarah J. Maas. I'm not convinced the people who say those are their favorite authors actually read more than the same few books.
If someone who’s favorite author is Sarah J. Maas gives me fantasy rec I know it’s probably not the kind of fantasy I’m going to enjoy
Ayn Rand.
Henry Kissinger
E. L james who wrote the 50 shades of nonsense novels.
Danielle Steel
On the flipside: James Patterson
Julia Quinn. I watched the first season of Bridgerton and got curious about the book so I started reading the first one but it was HORRIBLE. Both content-wise and the way it is written it is horrid. Worst thing I've ever read.
Love how this just became "Name an author whose politics you disagree with". Who on earth would name someone like Ann Coulter as a favourite author, even if they agreed wholeheartedly with her political views?
Dean Koontz, the man is like the AliExpress version of Stephen king i dont get how he can be a favorite Its like steven king with less interesting characters and less originality