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I haven’t listened to the podcast.
Did the snob in question say that only or mostly genre readers read ebooks (which I’d say is false) or that most ebooks are genre fiction (which I’d say is true and Ezra Klein at the NYT agrees). In part because a book does not equal a book, necessarily; someone can read 10, 20 romance novels to one academic history. This is one of my issues with libraries in general, that they buy a lot more romance and chicklit than other fiction and serious nonfiction. It’s because of circulation, of course, but it’s not really fair on the person who likes doorstops and only reads one or two a month.
My other issue is the quibble between judgmental comments about the quality of books read and judgmental comments about readers based on what they read. I don’t think it’s as often the latter (although I’d not say never) as people claim.
To what extent are people really being judged on what they read? And yet, I think there’s justice in a qualitative assessment of books. Some books are “better” in the sense that they’re more informative, lead to greater engagement, exercise the critical facilities, etc. than others. That doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with lighter reading and I think perfect taste is suspect anyway.
Essentially I think distinctions are being fudged and positions misstated and a lot of fighting words applied injudiciously.
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