The Ugly Truth - Reading Snobs

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Fat Abe

Otherwise a monkey with a typewriter would be the norm.

It is. As it just hits random characters, at some point, a copy of each of the classics has to roll out of that typewriter. That's inevitable.

Just have to find an immortal monkey and a very robust typewriter, that's all...

I have never run into anyone expressing any sort of snobbery towards the books I read. Usually it is more surprise expressed by those who know how many books I read that I have not read any of the latest best sellers or much talked about titles. Now television is another matter. It has been years since I have watched television, and so run into instances like having nothing to say about the apparently shocking ending to Downtown Abbey because I have never even viewed a moment of that.

Originally Posted by CWatkinsNash

I read AND watch Survivor. Often at the same time.

I must admire your ability to manage that. When I read I soon cannot even hear music that I might have been playing. I've been told that once I really get into reading mode a bomb could go off and I would not notice that.

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

And how many books with those types of covers have you read?



Covers like this are soooo much better than man titty covers

Yes, pot calling the kettle black. I recently read an online article about that. Romance covers featuring shirtless young hunks of men versus Science Fiction covers featuring nubile young women in skimpy clothing. The comments were interesting in how those pro and con comments broke down in the sex of the people making the comments.

[Dr. Drib]

I don't know about monkeys on typewriters, but I know for a fact that I've read some stories written by monkeys on computers.....but I'm not going to name any names.



Don

[Prestidigitweeze]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

Sleaze is not genre-specific.

I'd have liked to be alive when paperback publishers were able to sell Faulkner and Aldous Huxley by littering the covers with decolletages and phrases like Shocking! . . . Bold!

If every publisher still did things like that, we wouldn't be having these discussions about the supposedly exclusive strata of literature and genre fiction. A professor's reading list is not necessarily more dry or devoid of grunting than anyone else's.

[Prestidigitweeze]

One other thing:

It's valuable to make a distinction between assessing books and judging the people who read them. If someone wishes to assert that The Ape-Gland-Enhanced Tusk-Hunting Cyclopes of Glagnia 12* is better than the complete works of Wallace Stevens, I might take issue with that evaluation. What I would not question is the validity or "level" (I hate that word) of the person who offered it.

§*§*§*§*§*§*§

* Readers of all kinds of '50s-'70s writers will be familiar with the ironic use of pulp titles and conventions -- a practice which has engendered entire modes of genre and meta-genre fiction. Without writers like Angela Carter and Philip K. Dick, '90s shows like BtVS and films like Ginger Snaps would not exist.

[voracious71]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

The sparkle. Glitter is such a pain, you know?

Seriously, I love vampire fiction but I just couldn't get into Twilight. I actually tried reading it before the hype started but I just couldn't get into it. I'd always fall asleep or get distracted. Nothing against Twilight readers (unless you happen to be the screaming fangirl who blasted my eardrums).

I would like to think that I am completely free of snobbery myself, but I'm not. I despise Twilight, 50 Shades, and books of that ilk. I wouldn't tell someone not to read them, or make fun of them out loud for reading them. I admit, I do form a not flattering mental picture of the reader in my head.

Teen girls who like Twilight don't bother me so much, it's the grown women who squeal over it that worry me.:

[xg4bx]

Originally Posted by voracious71

I would like to think that I am completely free of snobbery myself, but I'm not. I despise Twilight, 50 Shades, and books of that ilk. I wouldn't tell someone not to read them, or make fun of them out loud for reading them. I admit, I do form a not flattering mental picture of the reader in my head.

Teen girls who like Twilight don't bother me so much, it's the grown women who squeal over it that worry me.:

And any grown man who squealed in delight over Twilight or The Hunger Games would be looked at like a weirdo lol. Grown women drooling over Edward or Jacob=normal. A 35 year old me drooling over Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games or Kristin Stewart= call the authorities.

[CWatkinsNash]

Originally Posted by voracious71

I would like to think that I am completely free of snobbery myself, but I'm not. I despise Twilight, 50 Shades, and books of that ilk. I wouldn't tell someone not to read them, or make fun of them out loud for reading them. I admit, I do form a not flattering mental picture of the reader in my head.

Teen girls who like Twilight don't bother me so much, it's the grown women who squeal over it that worry me.:

I can keep my snobbery aimed at the book rather than the reader. Sometimes I even envy their ability to get past bad writing enough to enjoy the story, as that's often more than I can manage.

[travger]

Sparkly vampires are easy on the eye! Will take them over ordinary kind any day. I believe I'd look much more favorably on zombies too if they'd sport some occasional sparkle... or at least some glow-in-the-dark.

Actually, I have quite a lot against people who declare "I don't read romance! (crime, fantasy, etc.)" and when you ask which one they didn't like, they tell you proudly that they have never touched the genre.
If I meet that person often, I'll keep pestering until they read at least half of the (carefully chosen by discussing preferences) book and can tell me why it was boring. Then we can try try another author...

I'm rather bored by crime and detective mysteries (tv fills that need better), nowadays only crime author I will give my time to is Dick Francis.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

The sparkle. Glitter is such a pain, you know?

Glitter just gets all over the place and you never can get rid of it.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

Great writing doesn't always make great reading.

I very much agree with this. Hence why a lot of the eBooks nominated for Classics in the MR Book Club are just so very dull.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Dr. Drib

I don't know about monkeys on typewriters, but I know for a fact that I've read some stories written by monkeys on computers.....but I'm not going to name any names.



Don

ME! ME! ME!!!!

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by xg4bx

And any grown man who squealed in delight over Twilight or The Hunger Games would be looked at like a weirdo lol. Grown women drooling over Edward or Jacob=normal. A 35 year old me drooling over Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games or Kristin Stewart= call the authorities.

I've never squealed with delight over a book. I can't recall the last time I've squealed with delight over anything. A friend of mine who is about 40 tried to tell me I just had to read Twilight. I just nodded and smiled. If he's a fan of Twilight, I'm not going to try to deprogram him.

I thought Hunger Games was OK, but I wouldn't gush over it. But as far as drooling goes, Hollywood's business model would be severely impacted if it weren't for men drooling over women half their age.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

I've never squealed with delight over a book. I can't recall the last time I've squealed with delight over anything.

I squeal with delight over books all the time but I am a girl.

Just two days ago my Library pre-order the next Cat DeLuca Mystery and I am in first in line to get it. *squeals* That saves me $10. Saving money makes me happy.

My two favorite cozies are Stephanie Plum and Cat DeLuca series.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I enjoy giving my girlfriend things that make her squeal partly because I've been conditioned not to make that sound myself. I probably don't know how.

She, on the nether hind, has been taught to believe that squealing is entirely appropriate.

Gender anthropology is largely arbitrary, yet social adaptation sometimes depends on it. We ought to get that fixed.