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That idea that reading is inherently virtuous has bothered me my whole life! I read a lot (well, at least I did before I had children) and have always been comp
by omaranto 9y ago
That idea that reading is inherently virtuous has bothered me my whole life! I read a lot (well, at least I did before I had children) and have always been complimented on it which annoyed me to no end because I knew much of what I read was pretty trashy. I've had to explain to people so many times that a good portion of the books I read are no better than the movies or TV shows they watch, I just happen to like reading to relax.
And by the way, I don't believe in giving up on junk books. I think a good mix of fun but trashy and serious books is better. Just like anything in life: I wouldn't want to have only deep meaningful conversations or eat only fine dining or only write computer programs that do something useful or stop playing basketball just because I'm terrible at it or learn only prestigious fields of math... I think it's OK to do something just for fun, not everything needs to be edifying.
- Grustaf 9y agoReading even a bad book is better than watching TV. Apart from the content the act of reading itself is very wholesome. You need to conjure up an entire world out of thin air, imagine what all the characters look like, how they sound etc.
- gozzoo 9y agoCan you give some examples of 'fun but trashy' books?
- KGIII 9y agoThe Destroyer Series, about Remo Wlliams, Chiun, and the martial art known as Sinanju. They even made a movie and a tv pilot. They are absolutely horrible. They give you nothing of value, not even education. They were mostly written by two authors who grew to despise each other, They take a couple of hours to read, maybe a little more. They are the pinnacle of pointless time wasting. I read most of them while in the service. They are perfect in every way.
- omaranto 9y agoI'm not sure I'd still recommend them now, but when I read them many, many years ago I really enjoyed David Morrell's [1] novels about highly trained assassins. They had titles of the form The $GROUP_OF_PEOPLE of the $THING: The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fraternity of the Stone, The Covenant of the Flame, The League of Night and Fog (and maybe a few others whose titles didn't match that pattern, I think Testament was about the same characters, but can'lt really remember). ------------ [1] David Morrell is probably best known for First Blood, the novel Rambo is based on.
- chis 9y agoReady Player One is probably the peak of this genre