Adults Should Read Adult Books

[Haven]

Distracts--I just kept on nodding my head saying "Amen!" while reading your post. So, I agree.

I sort of feel bad for the people who look down on any type of reader, or any kind of book. That seems to be a sign that they're missing out on one very important fact about the subject: that reading is magic.

Doesn't that make you sad for them?

 

[ksinger]

I'd rather re-read "The Hobbit" (written for 9-year-old boys) than plough through Arendt's The History of Totalitarianism".

I finished "The Hobbit" (multiple times) but only made it to page 122 of Arendt. Remember more of "The Hobbit" too.

I like some children's and young adult literature. Loved Harry Potter, because they started out fun, childlike, and charming - while never talking down to the reader - and grew up into complex characters dealing with ambiguity and real life. But I admit I was like, "Seriously??" when I went in a local B&N and saw that they had a "Paranormal Teen Romance" section. How many "I'm isolated/outcast/different/special but some supernatural being will see how unique and fab I am and help me show the world that" books can a person read? An entire section spun off of Twilight? Yeesh.

 

[packrat]

I love Sci-fi and Fantasy, Piers Anthony being a favorite, and also the Dragonlance books..I dig Star Trek (I'm "younger" tho, so I like the movies best and the Next Generation series). I cheesed out at the Star Trek Experience while my husband rolled his eyes and spent the whole time red faced, trying not to burst out laughing. I even got my picture taken w/two Ferengi and my husband put his head in his hands and moaned "How did I marry someone who likes THIS???" Ohhh and I forced him under penalty of life long celibacy to have our pictures taken and superimposed into the cast picture! I'd get a uniform and go to a convention if I could. If I met my favorite authors I'd be giggly and stutter like a moron, my celebrity tour of homes would be..Stephen King, Robert R. McCammon etc, and that would be the thrill of a lifetime for me. I spent some time in my early 20's (before internet made it to the boonies) wondering if there was a Klingon-English dictionary so I could learn Klingon.but I can't get to the obsessive Star Wars fan-level over..well, anything. I don't get the obsession w/sports teams either, and I think that's just as weird..weirder even.

However..I would rather people freak out and obsess and wait in line over a book or a tv show like Star Trek that has become its own culture, than like...Justin Bieber.

 

[AGBF]

From a NY Times Room for Debate: "The only thing more embarrassing than catching a guy on the plane looking at pornography on his computer is seeing a guy on the plane reading “The Hunger Games.” Or a Twilight book. Or Harry Potter. The only time I’m O.K. with an adult holding a children’s book is if he’s moving his mouth as he reads. "

I have another comment to make after having read this thread again. As I have said on Pricescope before, although I am not a professional teacher, I did a stint a few years ago teaching middle school French and English. I taught English to fifth, sixth, and eight graders, which gave me exposure to books (which I had to teach) which I might otherwise not have read.

Some of the books I was supposed to teach were classics which I had, of course, already read (like To Kill A Mockingbird). Others, however, had been either been written since I was of an age to be interested in them, or were not so famous that they had come my way. I was enchanted to find many new books intended for young people that I, too, got to read! (And I sometimes moved my mouth, since we took turns reading outloud!)

Deb/AGBF

 

[packrat]

I'd rather re-read "The Hobbit" (written for 9-year-old boys) than plough through Arendt's The History of Totalitarianism".

I finished "The Hobbit" (multiple times) but only made it to page 122 of Arendt. Remember more of "The Hobbit" too.

I like some children's and young adult literature. Loved Harry Potter, because they started out fun, childlike, and charming - while never talking down to the reader - and grew up into complex characters dealing with ambiguity and real life. But I admit I was like, "Seriously??" when I went in a local B&N and saw that they had a "Paranormal Teen Romance" section. How many "I'm isolated/outcast/different/special but some supernatural being will see how unique and fab I am and help me show the world that" books can a person read? An entire section spun off of Twilight? Yeesh.

If I go in there and there's a "Sparkly" section I'm going to be really agitated.

It kinda reminds me of the movies..the gawky unpopular girl somehow catches the eye of the star football player and she transforms into a swan..

 

[rubybeth]

I am glad to read so many comments on the 'other' side of this issue. I believe his opinion is an attempt at a type of censorship, in trying to embarrass people into reading what he thinks they should. Nancy Pearl (librarian who they made into an action figure) has her Rule of 50 which states "If you still don't like a book after slogging through the first 50 pages, set it aside. If you're more than 50 years old, subtract your age from 100 and only grant it that many pages." I wholeheartedly agree with this; life is too short to read things you don't enjoy unless it's assigned.

In library school, we also learned Ranganathan's five laws:

Books are for use.
Every reader his [or her] book.
Every book its reader.
Save the time of the reader.
The library is a growing organism.

The bolded part is especially true.

Reading this writer's opinion that certain books are embarrassing or childish just makes me cringe, because he clearly has a bag full of issues and I feel embarrassed for him and his childish opinion.

 

[rosetta]

Ok I wasn't a big fan of JK Rowlings prose but it's spot on for her target audience and the story is cracking.

Who cares how old the person reading it is? If it was around when I was a kid, I'd have read it. But it wasn't so I'm reading it now. Ya boo sux to the naysayers.

 

[iheartscience]

I think this topic can be summed up as such:

Or, for the fancier types like Mr. Stein:

 

[princesss]

Distracts--I just kept on nodding my head saying "Amen!" while reading your post. So, I agree.

I sort of feel bad for the people who look down on any type of reader, or any kind of book. That seems to be a sign that they're missing out on one very important fact about the subject: that reading is magic.

Doesn't that make you sad for them?

Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes.

I lived with a book snob once. She turned up her nose at anything that wasn't award-winning, or being hearlded by her super-secret-book-snob club as "it". Now, don't get me wrong. I love good books. I love books that make me question life and the world around me and the thoughts hiding in the deepest, darkest corners of my mind. But when I'm overwhelmed and stressed out and just need something predictable where everybody is going to end up together and I can just turn my brain off, I have a stash of romance novels. This (to her) made me a person of lesser intellect who did not have to be listened to or respected. But it always made me sad, and not because she was being so judgey, but because isn't the point of reading to take yourself out of wherever you are at the moment and be transported?

Anyways. I think this guy is trying to get his name in popular consciousness so that more people buy his book. No more, no less. He may actually believe what he's saying, but his motive for saying it is fairly clear.

(Btw, this reminds me - I need to see if I can post pictures from my trip to England a few weeks ago. BF brought me to the most amazing used bookstore and all I wanted was to find a little corner and move in and live amongst the books forever and ever the end.)

 

[Madam Bijoux]

Sometimes reading an "adult" book in public can get you unwelcome attention, especially if it's the book about that nice Mr. Christian Grey. So far, they've backed off when I roll my eyes and glare at 'em over the top of my glasses.

 

[Magpie09]

Sometimes reading an "adult" book in public can get you unwelcome attention, especially if it's the book about that nice Mr. Christian Grey. So far, they've backed off when I roll my eyes and glare at 'em over the top of my glasses.

One of the reasons the Kindle was born, i'm sure.

Damn, I missed the debate. Anyway, I'd have more respect for an adult reading a "YA" or "Romance" novel than seeing them read some of the books on the best-seller lists. Many have better plot and character development than the latter.

I like any book/ genre as long as it's well-written. Most nights after work chick-lit can be bliss compared to struggling through a chapter of a heavy novel.

 

[Meezermom]

I loved all the Harry Potter books (and the movies too). I'm for anything that relaxes me and written so well that it's a great escape, and would never look down on someone about their choice of books/reading. The bottom line is that that people are reading and that's a good thing.

 

[Imdanny]

I should add that I have no use for snobbery when it comes to anything, but particularly when it comes to reading.
As soon as someone turns his nose up at a certain genre, that tells me he isn't as widely read as he ought to be. And he never will be.

I'm a great fan of this C.S. Lewis quote:
“Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence... But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.”

I agree. I feel the same way about music. As to this guy minding what anyone else is reading- get a life.

 

[JewelFreak]

Well put, Danny. "Adult" is in the eye of the beholder anyway. On a plane once I was reading Oliver Twist because I'd never read it & Dickens is wonderful. A guy sitting next to me, in his 20s I think, said, "Isn't that, um, a little young for you?" Say what? Dickens? In that case, I'll take young forever.

--- Laurie

 

[Imdanny]

Laurie, thanks. His bias was probably "that's assigned in high school" or some such. Dickens is one of the greatest novelists in the history of the genre. His loss.

One thing I cannot stand and never could is people telling me what music I should listen to, what I should read, etc. I decide.

 

[asscherisme]

My learned response as a professor of children's literature: misogynist douche.

It's no surprise that almost every series he chooses (aside from Harry Potter, which, lets face it, as hard to avoid when talking about the genre) is aimed at female readers. And it's no surprise that his unappealing self-help memoir is allllllllllll about masculinity.

My guess? High level trolling. He's trying to get his name in the press for a little more name recognition when his book comes out, and he knows that bagging on a popular series that's just made a mint at the box office is a good way to do that, right or wrong.

Bottom line: a good book is a good book. Some of those books happen to feature protagonists who are young (which is, at the end of the day, the bright line between YA and mainstream fic, not the vocabulary, syntax, or even subject matter). I'd be delighted to see more adults, and particularly more adult males, devoting time to texts that humanize young women.

Because, also, let's face it - enthusiastic regular readers are voracious, and read everything. These popular series? They attract masses of people who, for whatever reason, haven't been attracted to the written word. And a lot of them are male (see also, the fact that boys are doing badly in schools now). If we can shame them out of reading The Hunger Games, it's not like they're necessarily going to turn around and pick up War and Peace. More likely, it'll just feed into the idea that reading is for geeks and girls ANYWAY and turn them right back to the X-Box and the continuing anti-intellectualism of contemporary society ....

ETA: Crossposted - glad to see we're all on the same page about his motivations!

I totally agree with you. I read these series to see what my kids were so obsessed about. Twilight was hard to get through and I did not finish those, found the writing a bit hard to take. However, iwoudl not judge tsomeone who wanted to read them. My oldest hated the twilight books, my second oldest loved them. Reverse for Harry Potter.

I have only read the first of the Hunger Games.

Geez, I don't car if someone wants to judge me for beign a 40 something adjult being out in public with these books in my hand.

Not my problem.

Don't we have enough issues getting along without judgeing others for what they read?

And I love, love that my 2nd child now would rather read that watch T.V. And if the book snobs judge what she chooses to read, again. Don't care. Seeing her turn down her younger sibling asking her to watch TV so she can stay curled up one the couch with a book is fantastic.

 

[AGBF]

And I love, love that my 2nd child now would rather read that watch T.V. And if the book snobs judge what she chooses to read, again. Don't care. Seeing her turn down her younger sibling asking her to watch TV so she can stay curled up one the couch with a book is fantastic.

I agree in principle, but I found, when put to the test, that I cringed when people saw what my nineteen year-old daughter was reading. It was after a suicide attempt a couple of weeks ago and she was in a general hospital where people didn't know she had psychiatric issues because she was being monitored for her heart. She had asked me to bring her a book called Nasty Girls or some such thing. I mean, I had offered to bring her a book since she, having been raised by her father and me, doesn't watch television...knowing what she reads! And I really wasn't happy. I didn't feel, "Oh, all books are equal". My inner snobbery came out!!! But I still buy her these books. She writes like an angel and has the most beautiful grammar on earth. Reading something is better than reading nothing (in my opinion) and if this is all she can focus on right now, so be it!

Deb/AGBF

 

[asscherisme]

And I love, love that my 2nd child now would rather read that watch T.V. And if the book snobs judge what she chooses to read, again. Don't care. Seeing her turn down her younger sibling asking her to watch TV so she can stay curled up one the couch with a book is fantastic.

I agree in principle, but I found, when put to the test, that I cringed when people saw what my nineteen year-old daughter was reading. It was after a suicide attempt a couple of weeks ago and she was in a general hospital where people didn't know she had psychiatric issues because she was being monitored for her heart. She had asked me to bring her a book called Nasty Girls or some such thing. I mean, I had offered to bring her a book since she, having been raised by her father and me, doesn't watch television...knowing what she reads! And I really wasn't happy. I didn't feel, "Oh, all books are equal". My inner snobbery came out!!! But I still buy her these books. She writes like an angel and has the most beautiful grammar on earth. Reading something is better than reading nothing (in my opinion) and if this is all she can focus on right now, so be it!

Deb/AGBF

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's suicide attempt. I can see your point of view. I admit cringing at some stuff my daughter chooses to read, and I often read or skin through it so we can discuss it. I can definately see where you are coming from, having lost my own parent to suicide

 

[Black Jade]

I'm sorry to read about your daughter's suicide attempt also. I will say a prayer for you.
I assume that she has clinical depression or something of that, which is hard on a parent. One of my sons has bipolar disorder and it has been hard for all of us. Your daughter is very young and I believe things will get better. It is better to find out young and lots of things can be done nowadays for issues of this kind. But it can be a bit of hard road.
They're not themselves right after something of this kind. especially with some of the drugs they put them on. My son is highly intelligent (in fact, he tests as a genius) but after some of his problem episodes he can't think. I remember one episode that he just did Sodoku puzzles for a few months afterwards--that was all he could do. he likes to read also,though.
I'm learning that there's but so much I can do for him. It's been a hard road, but I believe he will be fine.
One hard thing to learn was that it was not nurture problem but a genetic problem. He has done all kinds of things that he didn't learn in our house, much worse than wanting to read a book I might not approve of. Its been an education on how much of our brains are dependent on the right chemicals and the right interactions to see how he's 'not himself' and then with a medication goes back to 'being himself' as they get those brain chemicals in control. I know this is not scientifically said, but you know what I mean.
Unfortunately its not cut and dried with the medications and they can also stop working.
But I'm going on too long.
Thinking of you, that's all. I'm glad she's still with you and she certainly knows you love her, even if she doesn't always show it right now.

 

[HollyS]

I'd rather re-read "The Hobbit" (written for 9-year-old boys) than plough through Arendt's The History of Totalitarianism".

I finished "The Hobbit" (multiple times) but only made it to page 122 of Arendt. Remember more of "The Hobbit" too.

I like some children's and young adult literature. Loved Harry Potter, because they started out fun, childlike, and charming - while never talking down to the reader - and grew up into complex characters dealing with ambiguity and real life. But I admit I was like, "Seriously??" when I went in a local B&N and saw that they had a "Paranormal Teen Romance" section. How many "I'm isolated/outcast/different/special but some supernatural being will see how unique and fab I am and help me show the world that" books can a person read? An entire section spun off of Twilight? Yeesh.

Pretty much what I think. Harry Potter, yes. Twilight and Twilight wannabes, no.