More Snobbery
I came across this article satirizing book clubs on Jezebel. The article had me chuckling, but the comments are even better, and are in the same vein as my “Book Snob” post the other day. Hunger Games, Twilight, Fifty Shades; it’s all there. And Franzen, who I seem to talk about a lot, judging by my “most used tags.”
My feelings are summed up by an article title, referenced in the comments: “Can 35 Million Book Buyers Be Wrong? Yes.” It’s a review of Harry Potter by Harold Bloom, full text here. A great moment in book snobbery!
I had better finish The Idiot if I want to have any book snob cred. I ordered a Kobo reading light which should help that cause considerably. In the meantime, I added the full list of the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (see “The List” tab up top), with the ones I’ve read crossed off, for your perusal. I love crossing items off lists, so pressing Alt-Shift-D one hundred times (to format the strike-throughs) was quite enjoyable!
Reading in Bed 
Ha! I love those book club questions! I only belong to one book club and it’s held at my local library. The books we usually get are whatever book club kits the library has and I really haven’t liked a lot of them. Personally, I like the idea of reading something fun and talking about it over wine.
As for the Harry Potter article, I just don’t get it. I loved reading Harry Potter. Now, I was an English minor, so I did analyze books and write critical essays on classic novels, but I don’t feel that all reading should be like that. I like having a book that’s fun and more of an escape than something I’m going to be jotting down notes about, or obscure words, or similes, imagery, or the like. To me, reading should be fun. That’s not to say that the classics shouldn’t be read, but for the most part, if you’re going to enjoy reading and if you’re going to read during the course of your lifetime, you’re only going to do so if you read books you actually like.
Great post!
I think part of my obsession with the classics is that I didn’t take English in university. I really wanted to, but went for the practical BCom instead. Maybe if I had spent years writing critical essays I wouldn’t be so keen!
I agree it comes down to what you like. Sometimes I want a fun book, and sometimes I want something denser and heavy and with history… I like the idea of reading something that’s respected and that has influenced writers and arista today. I am unreasonably excited about all the literary movies coming out this year, for example- Great Gatsby, Les Miserables, and Anna Karenina! That’s a while other post 🙂
I love literary books! Regardless of the genre. 🙂
I think my issue with the classics is that they take so long … I’m a person who prefers to read one book only, so to pick up something like Anna Karenina, I feel slightly terrified — I want to finish it in a few days, rather than weeks!
I wasn’t an English major, thank goodness. I can still pick up a classic book and enjoy it. 🙂
Oh I know! The Idiot took me three months. So did The Magic Mountain. So there’s half a year of reading for just two books.
When I look at what you’re reading, and how fast you finish books, I’m astonished!! Even a short book takes me SO LONG. I just finished The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul and it took me an entire month, and it’s not long at all. We are having sleep issues with the kids so it’s hard to stay up and read 🙂