The fun of this is to skirt the slippery slope. I have read many books I have hated or disliked or disagreed with, but note how few I would consider burn-worthy, and I have given it a lot of thought. I am challenging you to consider which books would you burn, if any. If you aren't even the least bit tempted to burn something then you haven't given it enough thought.

Not burning anything is the camp I live in personally in real life. I still have my copy of Sphere, I don't want to donate it to goodwill and leave it to chance that someone might stumble onto it, but I haven't burnt it.

But this is a thought experiment, and the reasoning behind why some of us choose to consider a book burnable is the whole point.

You have to prove it, by writing an essay to that effect.

The Celestine Prophecy. biggest bunch of drek I ever read.

You never said how long the essay had to be. Mine is 7 words long.

Shawnee--ALL SF should be burned? Shame on you! Just because you personally don't like the genre, does not mean it deserves to be burned.

There's lots of great stuff there--thought provoking, cutting edge, and fun. There's a lot to be said for expanding one's horizons, imagination, and --fun? did I mention fun?

I agree with Sundae Girl when she says the idea of burning a book can be cathartic because it wasted one's time.

I would go a little further and say that sometimes (rarely I hope), reading a book might be personally harmful. I have one book, Ask and It Is Given: Learning to Manifest Your Desires by by Esther Hicks, Jerry Hicks, that I consider to have been personally harmful to me in that I read it at a vulnerable time in my life and some of what they taught or implied in the book really was damaging to me. Burning my copy of it would be a catharsis and a statement that I now believe that what they wrote is not at all what I believe now, and also that I just HATE them for writing it.

Monster by Frank Peretti.

I was messing with what I know are a ton of SF fans here.

At least I didn't want to kill everyone or puke for having read any.

I know there is a lot of SF out there that is well-written and highly clever. Don't take me too seriously. Negative responses have become my goal...if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Besides, me not liking the genre doesn't mean I don't expand my horizons, or have an imagination. Those things do not just exist in SF.

Negative responses here are your goal?

:(

I'm just being cynical Cloud...it's what I get so it's what I expect. Please don't be offended, I'm not feeling well and I'm tired of mean people (which turns me into what I hate.)[/whining threadjack]

I think we've had this conversation about SF before, Shawnee. We can disagree. Sorry you're not feeling well!

It's okay - it only made me retch, not puke :greenface
Ditto me - I only acknowledged you in my post because you like the book and you know I hate it and it felt worse not to say so.

But completely each to his (or her) own, and sorry you're feeling grim.

Yeah. I'm gonna have to burn that essay. Justification: my one-word essay entitled "Because."

Philistine.

The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman - Laurence Stern (had to read it for a college class, I'm still scarred.)

Anything by Nora Roberts, including all of her pseudonymous tripe.

The Lineage of the Code of Light - Jessie Ayani (which is a load of new age hoo hah that's been put in a blender and frapped. Ascended masters, Christ Consciousness, mystical vibrations, and pseudo-herstory abounds. Only reason I can't burn it is that it belongs to a friend who was very anxious that I read it. I don't know if I can make it beyond the one and a half chapters I've already finished.)