I've just abandoned the worst literary "masterpiece" I've ever had the misfortune to start reading.

Ken Follet - The Pillars of the Earth

Are so many people REALLY such great fans of juvenile writing style/bad grammar/dimensionless characters/lack of dialogue/colourless descriptions/telegraphed plots/condescenscion towards the reader?

Absolute drivel!

Forget Ken Follett. Try Madame Bovary

Too late!

I hadn't read anything meaningful or interesting for ages, I was getting more fun reading cookery books
So over the holidays I re read Catcher in the Rye and Of Mice and Men which admittedly I wouldn't class as 'seasonal' but are none the less classics.
So I feel happier now
But thats now filled me with American Lit so I think I will dig out Hereward the Wake, possibly the last great thing to come out of East Anglia
Either that or Delia Smiths Winter Classics

Catcher in the Rye is one of my best favourites.

I've read Mme Chollet's cookery books, never read anything by Mme Bovary.

I read it when I was 13 and thoroughly enjoyed it. I re-visited it about 5 years later and I felt exactly the same as you. It's absolute toss.

I'm splitting my time at the moment between Charles Spencer's excellent biography of Prince Rupert and Hardy's Jude the Obscure.

I read Of Mice and Men about 3 years ago as well as The Catcher in the Rye last year.

"I don't even know what I was running for - I guess I just felt like it."

Living "on the fat of the land".

Tom Wolfe - A Man in Full.

Greatest novel of the last 50 years.

I liked her in The Wombles.

She was class and she never put up much of a fight in the Gents cubicles either.

Hardy's Jude the Obscure.

When I lived in Wessex it was wall to wall Hardy, not a bad read if I say so myself.Tess of the d'Urbervilles was my favourite.

just reading marcus trescothick's autobiography - brilliant and touching

Of Mice and Men goes down well in prison. They seem to find relevance in it.
Best books I've read in the last three months:
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Gods Own Country - Ross Raisin
Kicked Out - Richard W Hardwick (trade copy as not out til April)

Last book I read that really grabbed me was I Walked Out One May Morning by Laurie Lee. I was with him every step of the way.

I read Of Mice and Men a couple of years ago, one of the lads was 'doing' it at school or college. Having waited so late in my life to finally read this 'classic', I must admit to being seriously underwhelmed by it. Maybe I was expecting some sort of epic novel, when it's not much more than a short story.

Jude the Obscure is probably the most depressing film I've ever seen. The only high point is a bit of rumpy-pumpy, but apart from that it's wall to wall grim.

I urge you all to read The Ascent of Rum Doodle, a true masterpiece and a real 'laugh a minute' book, no really it is !!!

Great book! I know exactly what you mean, it still makes me want to give it all up and head to Spain. I love the fact Hartlepool gets a mention, who would have thought Spanish prostitutes would have been up on their geography of England?

I've read quite a few lately, many of them very good.
But the one whose memory lingers most is a collection of HP Lovecraft stories. It's not great literature but there's this undescribable atmosphere he seems to have had the knack of creating.

I don't like Steinbeck, either.
Don't agree with your implied slur on short stories, tho, Mr B, as I've been reading lots of excellent ones lately and have begun to regard them more than most modern novels. Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Saul Bellow, for three.

i'm still trying to read slaughterhouse 5


not a great reader me

I'm afraid I gave up trying to read that a long time ago. A book with a great reputation but it got the better of me

That is one film version of a book I actually enjoyed. Mind you, if I'd read the book first maybe things would have been different.

I know what you mean, I think but thats the reason I like it Most plays are notoriously difficult to read yet Steinbeck manages to produce a play within a play in the form of a short story or novelette. It was instantly ready for book, stage or film in a condensed form without loosing the powerful emotion of the subject, using only a very small 'cast' and brilliant scene setting.
I loved it, but there again I loved the Little Red Hen

I read a couple of Steinbecks. For Whom The Bell Tolls, another Spanish civil was story for which I seem to have an affinity for great narrative which I got totally involved with.

Grapes of Wrath which doesn't stay in my mind as a great read and why did he drown himself in the end?

Not a great reader of fiction these days, I'm afraid the drama of life working in Liverpool was more than anyone could make up.