We had a teacher who wrote a book about Simenon (I'm a French speaking Belgian, by the way).

He pushed Simenon on us for two years. EVERY required book was a Simenon. And when it wasn't a specific book, we still had to pick one of Simenon's books. I HATE the author, I hate the topics of his books, and I will never willingly touch anything he wrote again XD