Quote:
Originally Posted by oggelbe2007
I wonder how many fans/readers consider an authors personality when they decide to read a particular book? If an author is really a jerk how likely are you to actively seek out their work and spend the time/effort reading it? Does that factor in at all? I'm not implying anything about this particular author but just authors in general.  |
It factors in for me, if I do know something about an author that crosses my aggravation/annoyance line. I don't research the authors' lives before I read their books, and what usually ticks me off doesn't have to do with how they live their personal lives - it's more a response to the tone of a book, usually if I feel that I am being condescendingly preached to, or if the protagonist is just too obviously a Mary Sue.
I won't bother to read L. Ron Hubbard at all just because of the whole Scientology thing. Harlan Ellison is just too cranky a person that I don't even want to bother reading him, even though I know he's a good writer. John Ringo is starting to annoy me with the right-wing polemics he keeps inserting into his books. And don't even get me started on Laurell K. Hamilton.
It's all highly subjective though - e.g. I won't read Norman Mailer but I will read Gore Vidal, just because I have a visceral dislike of Mailer as a person - without any factual basis, I might add. I've never yet read anything by Saul Bellow, mainly because everyone always recommended him. Get a Nobel Prize in Literature? Kiss of death in my book.
I obviously have a very strong contrarian streak.
