The Worst Hundred Books

 Last night I came across a copy of a letter that Oscar Wilde wrote to the editor of the Pall Mall Gazette in February 6, 1886. You can find a full copy of the letter online, but I want to highlight the paragraphs that I found the most amusing:

Books, I fancy, may be conveniently divided into three classes:-- 

1. Books to read, such as Cicero's Letters, Suetonius, Vasari's Lives of the Painters, the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, Sir John Mandeville, Marco Polo, St. Simon's Memoirs, Mommsen, and (till we get a better one) Grote's History of Greece. 

 2. Books to re-read, such as Plato and Keats: in the sphere of poetry, the masters not the minstrels; in the sphere of philosophy, the seers not the savants.

3. Books not to read at all, such as Thomson's Seasons, Rogers's Italy, Paley's Evidences, all the Fathers except St. Augustine, all John Stuart Mill except the essay on Liberty, all Voltaire's plays without any exception, Butler's Analogy, Grant's Aristotle, Hume's England, Lewes's History of Philosophy, all argumentative books and all books that try to prove anything. 

The third class is by far the most important. To tell people what to read is, as a rule, either useless or harmful; for, the appreciation of literature is a question of temperament not of teaching; to Parnassus there is no primer and nothing that one can learn is ever worth learning. But to tell people what not to read is a very different matter, and I venture to recommend it as a mission to the University Extension Scheme. 

Indeed, it is one that is eminently needed in this age of ours, an age that reads so much, that it has no time to admire, and writes so much, that it has no time to think. Whoever will select out of the chaos of our modern curricula 'The Worst Hundred Books,' and publish a list of them, will confer on the rising generation a real and lasting benefit.

When I read this, I was pleased to see that I had already read many of the books that Wilde has on his "books to be read" list - although perhaps this makes me a bit of a nerd, since I actually put forth the energy to read things in a category that seems to be a place where one keeps their "good intentions" that don't come to fruition.

I was amused, though, at the thought of simply recommending that people not read books in printed reviews. I don't know if I have read enough horrible books to compile a list of "the worst hundred," but I do have a list of books or authors that I avoid. My latest addition would be Wuthering Heights. I would put the Master and Commander series on there (sorry Zillah!). I also didn't like The Dogs of Rome from the Commissario Alec Blume series, despite a recommendation from someone. I also haven't enjoyed what I've read by Terry Pratchett. And I avoid anything written by Stephanie Meyer or Dan Brown. I did read The Da Vinci Code, just to be informed with the hype, but that was plenty for me.

There are other books I could add to this list, simply as books that I avoid because others have recommended that I not read them. Madame Bovary would go on this list - I remember ixoj slogged through that book for some time and I've mentally decided to not undergo such torture. I have a horrible habit of needing to finish every book that I begin, even if I'm miserable the whole time I'm reading it from cover to cover. I don't think it's because I have a secret hope that such books will improve as I turn each page; I more so want to make sure that I'll be able to finish the book and cross it off my mental list of books that I've read. If I set the book down, then I can't truly say that I've read it, right?

What books do you avoid or recommend that someone not read?