Five Things That Make Book Lovers Cringe

What are your literary pet peeves and page turn-offs? A recent edition of Open Book featured a lively discussion with the literary critic Peter Kemp and historical crime novelist and editor Antonia Hodgson, about the literary devices that make them cringe. From flashbacks to animal narrators; bad pop lyrics and poetry in stories to long character lists and glossaries.

But what are YOUR literary pet peeves? Here are our top 5...

Remember poor book buff Tony Hancock? He spent all that time reading a murder mystery, only to get to the last page and find it missing? So deflating! Equally, no one wants to put in all those hours to get to a disappointing or confusing ending. Have you read a novel and found yourself even more baffled at the end than you were at the start? Or maybe it felt like a cop out, or left you feeling angry or at odds with the author?

Tony Hancock and Sid James in The Missing Page, from Hancock's Half Hour (BBC)

Critic Peter Kemp told Open Book of his pet peeves, which include a recent vogue for stories told with hazy memories coming gradually back into focus, to reveal what has happened. Listen to the clip below to find out who he named! He did preface his selection by saying that the writing can be excellent - but in some cases could it not just be a short story rather than a drawn out novel?

I do flinch when I see novels with titles like...

Pet peeves: Critic Peter Kemp skewers a few recent bestsellers

Mariella's pet peeves include novels with no chapters - how on earth do you know when to stop reading or how to measure your progress?

How would you cope with, for instance, Will Self's new novel, Phone ? Written with no paragraphs or chapter breaks, the novel's a stream of consciousness story and returns to one of his previous characters, the psychiatrist Dr Zack Busner. This was recently discussed, along with other experimental fiction, on Radio 4's Front Row.

Front Row: Will Self
Will Self talks about his new novel Phone, the third and final instalment of his experimental trilogy which started with 2012's Man Booker nominated Umbrella.

Do you enjoy a nice, straightforward, linear narrative? Or perhaps you prefer to jump around in time in place. The Time Traveller's Wife would surely be missing something if it didn't. And would you enjoy The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentlemanif it was a convenient, birth to death, story of a man's life?

Dr Who (Peter Davison) - BBC

Now this is controversial. Some of the best loved classics feature creatures telling their stories. However, does the idea of a first person (or first dog) novel annoy you as much as it did our Open Book guests?

Mariella argued the corner for Andrew O'Hagen's novel The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of his Friend Marilyn Monroe, which takes as its subject a fictionalised life of the dog belonging to Marilyn Monroe, given to her by Frank Sinatra.