Books that are too stupid to have been published.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

Literary license is one thing. But getting fundamental things wrong is another.

Earlier today I got all of 45 pages or so into a book before putting it down in disgust. Someone connected to the editing of the book should have known that AP exams are NOT given in the fall of the year. All AP exams for a specific course are given on the same day across the country. In May. Not in November or December of perhaps January (it was hard to tell for sure, other than a high school football playoff game was at stake).

And DO NOT try to say, Oh, it's okay, no biggie. Or I'll write a novel in which Election Day is in May.

Oh, and the book in question is "The Rising" by Heather Graham and Jon Land who between them both have supposedly written and published a bunch of novels. I'd had a problem with the prologue that was using a bunch of fake science gobbledygook to set up some sort of scientific danger. Okay, so I was going to pass on that until the idiocy about the AP exam. Plus, someone's cell phone that has some sort of important information on it is swiped, and I strongly suspect exists ONLY on that cell phone, which is total bullshit since digital information never exists in only one place, although I don't know because as I said, I gave up after 45 pages or so.

Sigh.

[thbobby]

1. I love Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughter House Five is a great novel. I used to read novels with my kids to encourage them to like literature. So, I got another of his books, Willard and His Bowling Trophies. Sometimes a book's title will genuinely reflect the book. This was horrible. And it was about a guy named Willard and his bowling trophies. We still laugh about it.

Another book I never got was Magister Ludi by Herman Hesse. My kids and I loved Hesse. And this book got great revues. But I could not get through it. Read some 300 pages. All I remember is Glass Bead Game being repeated over and over.

Magister Ludi probably is a good book and I just did not get it. But Willard and His Bowling Trophies is as bad as the title suggests and should probably have never been published.

Is Heather Graham the same Heather Graham the actress? If so, all her movies seemed really bad to me and I cannot imagine her being a good novelist.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

2. The Heather Graham of the title is

described on the back flap as being "the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author." She's apparently written about 100 books. Jon Land, the co-author, has himself written some forty books. Neither name is familiar to me, and looking at the titles that are listed for them, I don't believe I've read anything else by either person. And I doubt I will be willing to start anything else either one of them has written.

We all have different taste in books, of course. Something one of us thinks is the best book every, someone else just doesn't like. Not a big deal. And this book is the kind of thriller that I often enjoy reading. I am willing to overlook some relatively small errors of fact, but relocating the AP exam to the middle of the school year is unforgivable.

I see stuff like this a lot in both movies and books. The author or film maker needs something for the suspense of the plot, and just throws in something as if whether or not it could possibly happen that way is unimportant. It's sheer laziness not to find something that would be factually correct. There's also an arrogance in thinking that no one would no and no one would care.

[PennyK]

3. I don't think so

I just Googled that title and it appears to have been written by Richard Brautigan, someone quite different from Kurt Vonnegut (who is one of my heroes).

[thbobby]

4. You are correct

I do not know how I confused this.