Overrated and Underwhelming: Books to Avoid

Once one gets beyond the academic and critical adoration, the hefty sales and subsequent best-seller listings, the publishers' hype, and the movie adaptations, one is left with the simple truth that these 50 books aren't very good. Or so says our maverick English Teacher and contrarian, who was once chastised at a department meeting for suggesting that Dashiell Hammett was a better writer than F. Scott Fitzgerald. (He is, by the way. Read "The Glass Key" and "The Thin Man" and you'll see.)