Read Any Good Books Lately? Here Are A Few You'll Loathe

A poll of Nieman Fellows shows that they consider these 19 books the worst they have ever read:

Katherine Coman's "Economic Beginnings of the Far West" ("A hash of names and dates"), two votes.

Ernest Hemingway's "Across the River and into the Trees," three votes.

Channing's "History of the United States" ("As dry as Wheaties without cream, but not as filling").

Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" ("Unutterably dull").

Cooper's "The Deerslayer" ("Utter-ably but unprintable dull").

Melville's "Moby Dick" ("Overrated as a novel").

Proust's "Swann's Way" ("Badly written").

"Any how-to-write book which implies that writing is easy."

John Millett's "The Planning Process in Government" ("Dull, repetitive and valueless, yet it is required in at least three courses").

John Keynes' "General Theory of Economics and Money" ("Absolutely incomprehensible").

St. Augustine's "Confessions" ("Dull, opaque").

John T. Flynn's "The Road Ahead" ("Need I explain this nomination?")

Kathleen Winsor's "Forever Amber" ("Banned in Boston, but in this case, that didn't guarantee merit").

Harry Overstreet's "The Mature Mind."

Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans."

Karl Marx's "Das Kapital" ("Not only is it dull but it is troublesome, and practically nobody ever reads it").

Andrei Y. Vishinsky's "The Law of the Soviet State" ("Fascinating footwork in the field of Soviet gobbledegook, but uhgl hardly an enthralling best seller type").

"Paul Bowles, "The Sheltering Sky" and "The Delicate Prey" ("No moralist, I nevertheless feel crawly after reading stories in which a good healthy sexual relationship with a goat would be considered normal to the point of humdrum").

The Best

Excluding the Bible and the classics, the Nieman Fellows thought these the best books they'd read:

Parrington's "Main Currents in American Thought."

William Faulkner's "Light in August."

Reinhold Niebuhr's "The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness" ("Most thought-provoking analysis of will take for democracy and searching idea of what it will take for democracy to survive"), three votes.

James Michener's "Tales of the South Pacific" ("There's a book I really loved").

Harold Tappen Wright's "Islandia" ("Best book to read upon coming home from war").

James Boyd's "Drums" and "The Long Hunt" ("Historical novels which are factually correct and written with exciting artistry").

Stephen Vincent Benet's short stories, "The Bedside Book of Short Stories," and "Fairy Stories" ("Collections of short stories every writer should own").

Van Praag's "Combat" ("Least appreciated good war book").

V. O. Key, Jr., "Southern Politics" ("The best explanation and diagnosis of deep South politics I've ever read").

Tolstoy's "War and Peace" ("I'll go along with the critics on this").

Samuel Butler's "The Way of All Flesh" ("A wise, sad, and witty book").

James Gould Cozzen's "Guard of Honor" ("Much book").

William J. Lederer's "All the Ship's at Sea."

H. G. Wells' "The Outline of History."

Mark Twain's "Huckleberry Finn" ("Anybody who doesn't like Huck would suck eggs").

John P. Marquand's "So Little Time" ("The best novel to come from John Marquand").

Webster's Dictionary ("I can't spell").