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Originally Posted by Harmon
Don't worry. You haven't be en aff$ected as lo8ng as y2!ou can scimblel erbig twiffle l*> thig72.
I think that Steve Jobs is right - the majority - vast majority - of people don't read. Of those who do, probably the majority read for the story, not the writing. A story can be good without being well written. So those who understand and appreciate good writing are a small minority, even of those who read.
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I certainly have nothing against a good story. It just annoys me to no end that "popular" is conflated with "good" on today's book scene. It means that good writing will become harder to find, because it won't pay as well as the pablum.
And I think Jobs was wrong if you take his remarks about reading in context. When he said that people don't read, he was justifying his disdain for the Kindle. Clearly, things have worked out better for the Kindle than he imagined.
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Originally Posted by Harmon
But your fear is a cogent one - I don't think there ever was a time, before this time, when adults read adolescent books for pleasure in any great numbers. (Which is not quite the same thing as adolescent books like that Code thing being written for adults...) But maybe I'm wrong - the audience for Horatio Alger books must have included a lot of adults. Same for the Tarzan novels. The more things change...
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I'm not sure. I just don't recall adults reading kids' stuff (unless they had kids) when I was growing up. But the more disturbing thing to me is that these days, there doesn't even seem to be the recognition that these books
are for kids. They're treated as if they're adult reading. I've had people (some close to me) suggest that I read HP as if they were suggesting an adult book.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Harmon
On the other hand, there are some good books targeted for adolescents here & there. True Grit comes to mind immediately, because I just saw the new movie (good, but gory.) I read the book about ten years ago, and was surprised at how good it was. I'm not even sure how I wound up reading it - I think it was a recommendation by some writer.
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I think there's a lot of good writing for adolescents. It's not a genre I pay attention to, because I don't have kids, but I'm sure there's some great stuff out there.