Ursula K. Le Guin: “I keep Asking You Not to Buy Books from Amazon”

[jgaiser]

So... Ms. Le Guin has another rant about Amazon and it's BS (Best Seller) Machine. "Literature" is being destroyed.

The readability of many best sellers is much like the edibility of junk food. Agribusiness and the food packagers sell us sweetened fat to live on, so we come to think that’s what food is. Amazon uses the BS Machine to sell us sweetened fat to live on, so we begin to think that’s what literature is.

I believe that reading only packaged microwavable fiction ruins the taste, destabilizes the moral blood pressure, and makes the mind obese. Fortunately, I also know that many human beings have an innate resistance to baloney and a taste for quality rooted deeper than even marketing can reach.

So remember boys and girls -- Only organic, free-range literature from now on.

[arjaybe]

Or two-star restaurant literature or better.

[mrscoach]

But, but, if I capture the free-range literature then it is no longer free-range. I'll be compromising its very essence! I cannot let that happen.

I didn't realize that Amazon doesn't sell actual literature, if I was so inclined to want to buy it. Hmm, news to me. All the English teachers I know that say that any reading is good for you, no matter what you are reading, are evidently wrong, too. I'll have to let them know to limit their own personal reading to literature, too.

[fjtorres]

And I keep telling her to take a flying leap.

Old fogey denigrating people who buy the "wrong" books and the authors who make a living writing them.

Feh.
Somebody should remind her that genre fiction and (especially) bestseller readers are the ones that keep the doors open at the B&M store she idolizes. And that Amazon's business model actually undercuts the bestseller-only model she decries.

[patrickt]

And the irony is that Le Guin's books are peddled on Amazon. I wonder if she rejects the royalties?

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by patrickt

And the irony is that Le Guin's books are peddled on Amazon. I wonder if she rejects the royalties?

Ah, but *her* books are the right kind of organic, free-range literature. Not that sugary stuff we plebes enjoy.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And I keep telling her to take a flying leap.

Old fogey denigrating people who buy the "wrong" books and the authors who make a living writing them.

Feh.
Somebody should remind her that genre fiction and (especially) bestseller readers are the ones that keep the doors open at the B&M store she idolizes. And that Amazon's business model actually undercuts the bestseller-only model she decries.

Our local B&M store, which is a Books a Million ( ), is again cutting space for actual books and replacing them with toys and other things that I do not want. And they and certain nameless authors, wonder why they are no longer relevant.
Apache

[Turtle91]

hmmm... without becoming offended...and actually listening (reading?) to what she said...it does make a certain sense.

I dare anyone to argue that there is NOT a lot of crap being peddled at these self published sellers - Amazon being a huge one. And, no, I'm not saying there isn't good stuff too...but one apple amidst a crate of candy bars doesn't belie the point she makes.

Yes, any reading is good reading: when you are trying to teach a child to read...and to love reading. But an adult reading the equivalent of "The rat sat on my hat", and thinking that what they read is true literature....well, come on.... and no, she is not talking about whether someone ENJOYS what they read...she specifically made the point that people become accustomed to the low standard and think that is what it should be. I do believe people ENJOY eating junk food...kinda hard not to with all the chemicals and drugs added to it to make you THINK it tastes good...(but that's another subject).

There is definitely something to be said for the days when publishers would filter what they published...what came out of the other end of that process had a much better chance of being a higher quality of work...and worth the money spent on it. Yes, there were rejected books that later became best sellers - and any number of other examples someone could point to...but generally speaking, the process kept the standards much higher than the depths to which they've fallen recently.

Cheers,

[Calenorn]

Here's the thing. Bookstore options in my town are severely limited. amazon.com has enabled me to find great books I didn't even know existed and purchase them from brick-and-mortar stores in places I'll never be able to visit in person. If Mom&Pop Books wants to stay in business they need to move inventory via internet orders. If amazon was truly evil they wouldn't permit other vendors to use their site to sell books.

[Section8]

This kind of thing is nothing new and certainly not limited to books & amazon. There has always been hand wringing that high quality works are being crowded out by lowbrow best sellers.

But I can't recall a time when it was ever the norm that bestsellers were highbrow literary novels. When I was a kid, it was television that was rotting our brains. I wouldn't be surprised, if in Victorian England, the literary types were worrying that all those magazine serials by popular authors like Dickens were killing literature.

[doubleshuffle]

Isn't Le Guin a SciFi and Fantasy writer, a peddler of genre fiction? And she feels qualified to speak about literature? O tempora, o mores...

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by Apache

Our local B&M store, which is a Books a Million ( ), is again cutting space for actual books and replacing them with toys and other things that I do not want. And they and certain nameless authors, wonder why they are no longer relevant.
Apache

Don't worry.
They'll rename themselves books-a-thousand in a year or two.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Isn't Le Guin a SciFi and Fantasy writer, a peddler of genre fiction? And she feels qualified to speak about literature? O tempora, o mores...

Don't you *dare* call her that!
If you do, her fans will jump all over you and remind you she wrote litfic for years and years before ACE published her. Even got one volume published in 1959.

Never made any real money at it, but it does qualify her to look down her nose at genre and bestseller readers and writers.

Much as I enjoyed EarthSea I'm kinda sorry she made even a couple nickles off me.

[DiapDealer]

You cannot sell books at Store A (and accept money for selling your books at Store A) and ask readers not to buy books at Store A. Well you can, but can't do it without sounding like an ass.

Put up or shut up.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Ah, but *her* books are the right kind of organic, free-range literature. Not that sugary stuff we plebes enjoy.

Wel... Mrs. Le Guin wrote some nice fantasy works, that's for sure; but if 'the critics' even refuse to see Lord of the Rings as a classic (because it's fantasy, and fantasy can never be literature, blablabla....), then what would those same critics think of her books? They're nice, certainly, but they don't hold a candle against LotR and its world.