well, THAT was the worst book ever!

[VorFemme]

This might be a fun premise for a tongue-in-cheek fairytale.

However, if the author intended it to be read as an actual history taking place in a culture that actually existed at some time on planet Earth, the mind boggles. Did it appear she actually thought that this was the real origin of the title "Countess"?

Near as I could tell, yes.  It was set in real-world medieval Europe.  The rest of the details have mercifully gone blank, however.  Googling for it does not turn up anything that seems to be the same book, so it's probably looooooooooooooong out of print.  It was a library paperback and no longer on shelf.

On Barrayar, the "Counts" got their titles as "accountants" to the first emperor (and the  equivalent to the American military's Judge Advocates are called "Imperial Auditors" - which makes sense, in that universe). 

But a "countess" keeping track of how many times a princess was alone with any man?  ONCE was enough to cause problems in the world history that I learned in school.  Seven times......would have had the princess in a convent for the rest of her life or married off to the first nobility that the king her father or brother could find who would take her and her reputation away from court.

Some people must have flunked history and so wrote novels based on what their imaginations had filled in when they didn't understand the history teacher.....

[Cami]

I can't believe I haven't posted about this one yet!

A bodice-ripper of such appalling badness that it has stuck in memory for a good 15 years or more: The Princess and the Pirate.

The author's main premise was that the attendant of a princess is called a 'countess' because it is her job to count how many times the princess was alone with a man overnight.   ("One!  One overnight with the Pirate!  Two, two overnights with the Pirate!  Ahaha!" *lightning crashes*)  If the count reached 7 with any one man, the princess would be forced to marry him.   And then, of course, the author tortured the plot until the princess reached the requisite number of nights with the Pirate in the title.

What, diplomatic marriage, you say?  Betrothal while the child is still in the cradle?  Piffle, mere piffle.  We'll just handwave that away.  After all, if a betrothal existed, no prince would want her after the pirate had 7 chances to boink the poor girl, so we'll just pretend things like that never existed. 

I really want to read this book. Do you have any idea of the author's name?

The oldest book with a similar title is this one: http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Princess-Constance-OBanyon/dp/0821727265/ref=sr_1_47?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348261803&sr=1-47&keywords=princess+and+the+pirate

A more recent publication date is this one:
http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Her-Pirate-ebook/dp/B000TU16RM/ref=sr_1_28?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348261892&sr=1-28&keywords=princess+and+the+pirate

[Piratelvr1121]

I can't believe I haven't posted about this one yet!

A bodice-ripper of such appalling badness that it has stuck in memory for a good 15 years or more: The Princess and the Pirate.

The author's main premise was that the attendant of a princess is called a 'countess' because it is her job to count how many times the princess was alone with a man overnight.   ("One!  One overnight with the Pirate!  Two, two overnights with the Pirate!  Ahaha!" *lightning crashes*)  If the count reached 7 with any one man, the princess would be forced to marry him.   And then, of course, the author tortured the plot until the princess reached the requisite number of nights with the Pirate in the title.

What, diplomatic marriage, you say?  Betrothal while the child is still in the cradle?  Piffle, mere piffle.  We'll just handwave that away.  After all, if a betrothal existed, no prince would want her after the pirate had 7 chances to boink the poor girl, so we'll just pretend things like that never existed. 

Ahahahaha!

That made me giggle too!  I always loved the count!!

[BarensMom]

But a "countess" keeping track of how many times a princess was alone with any man?  ONCE was enough to cause problems in the world history that I learned in school.  Seven times......would have had the princess in a convent for the rest of her life or married off to the first nobility that the king her father or brother could find who would take her and her reputation away from court.

I'm reminded of what happened with Heloise and Abelard.

[Shea]

But a "countess" keeping track of how many times a princess was alone with any man?  ONCE was enough to cause problems in the world history that I learned in school.  Seven times......would have had the princess in a convent for the rest of her life or married off to the first nobility that the king her father or brother could find who would take her and her reputation away from court.

I'm reminded of what happened with Heloise and Abelard.

That would be a twist ending for a romance novel .

[VorFemme]

But a "countess" keeping track of how many times a princess was alone with any man?  ONCE was enough to cause problems in the world history that I learned in school.  Seven times......would have had the princess in a convent for the rest of her life or married off to the first nobility that the king her father or brother could find who would take her and her reputation away from court.

I'm reminded of what happened with Heloise and Abelard.

That would be a twist ending for a romance novel .

Ouch......not a romance novel that would igve the reader very pleasant daydreams....

[matzo33]

I don't care for Pat Conroy because his books are dark and depressing and I can't read one without having an unabridged dictionary on hand.

The one that ended up in the trash without being finished started out well.  A New England Native American tribe is raided and two young hostages are taken.  The girl manages to escape but the boy decides to stay because he is treated better and is quite curious and quick to learn about their captors.  The raiders are some type of matriarchal society and they decide to raid down in the Caribbean.

They climb in the live turtle  that had windows cut in the shell and submarine off to the islands.  At that point, I skimmed toward the end and figured out that the boy was going to be used for breeding purposes and in the trash it went.

[violinp]

I don't care for Pat Conroy because his books are dark and depressing and I can't read one without having an unabridged dictionary on hand.

The one that ended up in the trash without being finished started out well.  A New England Native American tribe is raided and two young hostages are taken.  The girl manages to escape but the boy decides to stay because he is treated better and is quite curious and quick to learn about their captors.  The raiders are some type of matriarchal society and they decide to raid down in the Caribbean.

They climb in the live turtle  that had windows cut in the shell and submarine off to the islands.  At that point, I skimmed toward the end and figured out that the boy was going to be used for breeding purposes and in the trash it went.

South of Broad is, without a doubt, the worst book I've ever read. By the end, I hated everyone in that awful, awful book, and haven't picked it up in two years. That was really disheartening, because I loved The Water Is Wide - was crying laughing half the time - and I thought that it would be the same level of intelligence and humor. Oh, how very wrong I was - hearing some of the stories my dad had from working with the cops for years weren't half as disturbing.

[Miss Misery]

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper--Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell, a sloppy, insulting,  character assassination of artist Walter Sickert written by a raging egomaniac. Just what is wrong with this book? Lets see....


* Patricia Cornwell is not a historian, detective, art expert, or even a forensic scientist (she worked in the office of a Chief Medical Examiner as a technical writer and computer analyst), yet seems to believe she's an expert on everything.
* Cornwell ignoring evidence from several sources that puts Sickert in Paris during the Ripper murders.
* Cornwell stating as fact that Sickert's manhood was mangled by a fistula, therefore was impotent and childless. There is plenty of evidence that Sickert's manhood was in fine working order and he possibly fathered several illegitimate children.
* Cornwell whines about there were no blood tests or blood spatter analysis done for a murder victim in 1888. (1) The fact that human blood has different types wasn't discovered until 1901. (2) Tests to distinguish human blood from animal blood didn't come around until 1901. (3) The earliest reference of blood spatter analysis was written in 1894, and the meaning of blood spatter patterns wasn't studied until 1939.
* Jean Overton Fuller wrote a book about Sickert being Jack the Ripper back in 1990. The theory was debunked back then too.
* Cornwell laughably claims that Sickert wrote *all* of the Ripper letters (around 600!) while disguising his handwriting spelling on some of them and has DNA evidence on one of them. Ripperologists consider all the letters to be hoaxes and her so-called is mitochondrial DNA. Even if Cornwell did manage to get rock-solid DNA evidence, it would only prove that Sickert wrote a hoax letter.
* The book is sloppy and badly written. Cornwell can't seem to a train of thought for more than two pages before changing the subject.

I could go on and on, but read Caleb Carr's skewering in The New York Times or Stephen P. Ryder's problems with the Cornwell's conclusions on Casebook.org.

The only thing this book proves is that Patricia Cornwell is full of herself. Case Closed.

[Auntie Mame]

Worst books I ever read?

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.  Ugh, I will never get my life back and that poorly written Buffy rip off drivel is forever in my head.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert.  Goodness gracious, I love Dune, but that man is the misogynist to end all misogynists.

The Land of the Painted caves by Jean M Auel.  I have been reading her books for decades.  yes, they've gotten gradually worse and more poorly written as the series (and the dullest, I mean DULLEST scrabble playing ever, she's been copying and pasting the same few pages since the mid 80's).  But that last, wow, I mean...I just...that was just, I can't even find words for how beyond awful that piece of garbage was.  If you haven't read the book yet, for the love of the Mother Goddess herself, don't, just don't don't don't. 

[ScubaGirl]

Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper--Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell, a sloppy, insulting,  character assassination of artist Walter Sickert written by a raging egomaniac. Just what is wrong with this book? Lets see....


* Patricia Cornwell is not a historian, detective, art expert, or even a forensic scientist (she worked in the office of a Chief Medical Examiner as a technical writer and computer analyst), yet seems to believe she's an expert on everything.
* Cornwell ignoring evidence from several sources that puts Sickert in Paris during the Ripper murders.
* Cornwell stating as fact that Sickert's manhood was mangled by a fistula, therefore was impotent and childless. There is plenty of evidence that Sickert's manhood was in fine working order and he possibly fathered several illegitimate children.
* Cornwell whines about there were no blood tests or blood spatter analysis done for a murder victim in 1888. (1) The fact that human blood has different types wasn't discovered until 1901. (2) Tests to distinguish human blood from animal blood didn't come around until 1901. (3) The earliest reference of blood spatter analysis was written in 1894, and the meaning of blood spatter patterns wasn't studied until 1939.
* Jean Overton Fuller wrote a book about Sickert being Jack the Ripper back in 1990. The theory was debunked back then too.
* Cornwell laughably claims that Sickert wrote *all* of the Ripper letters (around 600!) while disguising his handwriting spelling on some of them and has DNA evidence on one of them. Ripperologists consider all the letters to be hoaxes and her so-called is mitochondrial DNA. Even if Cornwell did manage to get rock-solid DNA evidence, it would only prove that Sickert wrote a hoax letter.
* The book is sloppy and badly written. Cornwell can't seem to a train of thought for more than two pages before changing the subject.

I could go on and on, but read Caleb Carr's skewering in The New York Times or Stephen P. Ryder's problems with the Cornwell's conclusions on Casebook.org.

The only thing this book proves is that Patricia Cornwell is full of herself. Case Closed.

This was very timely - this book is my book club's selection for this month.   I agree with every single bullet point.  I simply gave up on it.  Even the person who selected it stopped reading it.

[nuit93]

Worst books I ever read?

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.  Ugh, I will never get my life back and that poorly written Buffy rip off drivel is forever in my head.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert.  Goodness gracious, I love Dune, but that man is the misogynist to end all misogynists.

The Land of the Painted caves by Jean M Auel.  I have been reading her books for decades.  yes, they've gotten gradually worse and more poorly written as the series (and the dullest, I mean DULLEST scrabble playing ever, she's been copying and pasting the same few pages since the mid 80's).  But that last, wow, I mean...I just...that was just, I can't even find words for how beyond awful that piece of garbage was.  If you haven't read the book yet, for the love of the Mother Goddess herself, don't, just don't don't don't.

I though Auel gave up on the series about a decade ago?

[Moray]

Worst books I ever read?

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.  Ugh, I will never get my life back and that poorly written Buffy rip off drivel is forever in my head.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert.  Goodness gracious, I love Dune, but that man is the misogynist to end all misogynists.

The Land of the Painted caves by Jean M Auel.  I have been reading her books for decades.  yes, they've gotten gradually worse and more poorly written as the series (and the dullest, I mean DULLEST scrabble playing ever, she's been copying and pasting the same few pages since the mid 80's).  But that last, wow, I mean...I just...that was just, I can't even find words for how beyond awful that piece of garbage was.  If you haven't read the book yet, for the love of the Mother Goddess herself, don't, just don't don't don't.

I though Auel gave up on the series about a decade ago?

I can't help but think she "gave up" about 1/2 way into the second book. Seriously though, there's a sixth book that just came out a little over a year ago. http://www.amazon.com/The-Land-Painted-Caves-Children/dp/0553289438/ref=pd_sim_b_8

[Winterlight]

Worst books I ever read?

Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.  Ugh, I will never get my life back and that poorly written Buffy rip off drivel is forever in my head.

The White Plague by Frank Herbert.  Goodness gracious, I love Dune, but that man is the misogynist to end all misogynists.

The Land of the Painted caves by Jean M Auel.  I have been reading her books for decades.  yes, they've gotten gradually worse and more poorly written as the series (and the dullest, I mean DULLEST scrabble playing ever, she's been copying and pasting the same few pages since the mid 80's).  But that last, wow, I mean...I just...that was just, I can't even find words for how beyond awful that piece of garbage was.  If you haven't read the book yet, for the love of the Mother Goddess herself, don't, just don't don't don't.

I though Auel gave up on the series about a decade ago?

She did- and boy does it show in the last book, which came out in 2011. Don't bother with it. Really, don't.

[BB-VA]

Speaking of Dune - every one of the Dune books past "Children of Dune".  I did faithfully read all the ones that Frank Herbert wrote but liked them less and less.

And then his son started writing them. I read 2.  That was 2 too many.  Yeesh.