My guilty pleasure is some of the better older children’s and ‘young adult’ books. A Wrinkle in Time and The Phantom Tollbooth are too good to count as guilty pleasures, and The Thirteen Clocks and Many Moons, two other personal favorites, were written by James Thurber.
But then you get to something like The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford, which, despite being a very good book, and having been turned into a movie twice in the 50+ years since it was written, is still not a very well-known book by a not very well-known author, and it’s about two dogs and a cat. So a borderline guilty pleasure.
I kind-of like these books; but, oh dear Lord – and the more so, the longer the series continues – they are just so voluminous and so complicated, and such a great slew of minor characters and so many sub-plots and general goings-off-the-track: I’ve read the more recent ones, mostly with pleasure, but admit to having done a good deal of skipping. I’ll probably stay with the series – feel eager to know, do Jamie and Claire come out OK at the end of the War of Independence, or does their strategy go wrong and they end up put to death, or exiled? – but will probably continue to do much skipping.
Also – I’m a 66-year-old male, never married, but have a bit of a weakness for “chick-lit” novels – a rather guilty pleasure, if you like… though rationally, and re all guilty-pleasure reading, “what harm does it do to anyone else?”
Clive Cussler novels are what I thought of as soon as I read the post title. So comfortingly formulaic- always that first chapter set in some exotic place in the past, with some catastrophe that causes a McGuffin to be hidden away or forgotten, to be rediscovered in the present and made the basis for a world-endangering crisis and battle between the bad guys and our heroes. With the as mentioned over over-the-top cartoonish action. My favorite is The Oregon Files series.
I also burned through the Reacher novels- when I first got a Kindle I found a lot of Lee Child and Cussler titles on my library’s online lending site.
But I feel most ashamed of myself after reading a Dean Koontz novel- terribly written dialogue, ridiculous premises. I always feel like the mental equivalent of having binged out on a huge plate of chili fries or something after finishing a Koontz novel. But as with the chili fries, sometimes I just can’t help myself. The Odd Thomas series hasn’t been too bad, though.
I haven’t read a book in quite a while, but I used to, and I read anything and everything from an early age. I NEVER was embarrassed at whatever I read, nor cared who thought what. I read a LOT and most of my friends didn’t. And it’s not like I’ve hung out with snooty interlectules all my life! … For a while, I was hooked on Weekly World News (that tabloid featuring Bat Boy), and I did take pains to hide it when anyone came over, lol.
I second Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon and add in his other fantasy-world-with-a-magic-blue-stone-and-snarky-characters, the Elenium and Tamuli. Great litracha they ain’t, but I love those characters like family. Distant cousins, but family.
My guilty pleasure: Mercedes Lackey’s Valdemar books. Full of angsty youths who are inherently noble and good at heart, who usually eventually get to have a “special magical horsie to be my friennnnnnd!”
The most recent addition, the first book in the “herald spy” subseries, was worse than usual in this way.
I should note that my “list” is only begun. Add Lackey to it. Also Piers Anthony, although I’m less enthusiastic about him as time goes on. He’s revealed levels of creep that have kept me from even opening the latest Xanth books.
The Outlander books, when I discovered them, absolutely commanded my complete attention as I tore through the first five or so. Laundry? Um relax, I will just buy everyone a new meg- pack of undies and socks, next time I am near Cosco! I actually started taking the bus more than driving so I could read on my commute. I actually hit a point where I said I’m good, I don’t need another book, and stopped reading, but there are new ones out… so…And joined a chick-lit book club, where I have discovered other guilty pleasures, plus some amazing books too.
I can read anything by Lawrence Block like eating popcorn, although the Matt Scudder novels are amazingly well crafted. His Burglar series is fun though, the dialouge crackles and I want hang out with the book store owner, and his best friend the dog groomer. But I wouldn’t call it a guilty pleasure. I’ve turned a few people on to Lawrence Block.
I don’t really get embarassed about reading stuff, but The Dresden Files are probably the stupidest, most “bubble-gum for the mind” type thing I read every instalment of.
Heh. My loyalty to the series kept me going for a while despite the sad pedo stuff. I think the one where the 10-year-old princess sleeps with the adult man because they were fated to be together and it was the only way to save Xanth was the final bell for me. I don’t think I even know if he’s still writing them.
I don’t feel “guilty” about it, but I love the Poldark series by Winston Graham. I think most people would look upon them as just glorified Harlequin novels, but they’re not. They’re incredibly well-written and throughly researched, something that I as an amateur historian greatly appreciate. (I also spent some of the happiest times of my life in Cornwall.) You really, really feel as though you’ve been transported back 200+ years to England (at least I do), and you can’t wait to find out what happens to everyone in each book.
I remember when I was back in college, my dad came to town for the first time in years, and I accidentally left a copy of The Four Swans in the back seat of his car. A couple of nights later, I went out to dinner with him and one of his buddies from the old days; as we were walking across the parking lot, my dad handed him the book and said (jokingly) “I think this belongs to you.” (I suspect he thought my plain-Jane, dumb-bunny stepmother left it in his car.) When I said “No, that’s mine,” they both looked at me in open-mouthed shock, as though I had just admitted to being a flaming homosexual! :eek:
I love the Dresden Files. Just finished the last one a couple of weeks ago, and I’m anxiously awaiting the next one. No guilt at all!
I guess maybe my guilty pleasure series would be the Flowers in the Attic books (the original five or so). I first read them back some time in the 80s and I reread them occasionally even though I know they’re trash. Creepy trash, though, and that’s the best kind.
I while ago I reread a bunch of Tarzan and Barsoom books I got on my Kindle for free.
Y’know, Tarzan is weird. On the one hand, you’ve got these cartoonish racist caricatured ooga-booga cannibal savages. And on the other hand, you’ve got these noble black warriors who are exactly as good as white people–no, better, because they live according to the primeval laws of the jungle without the hypocrisy of the effete white man. It’s like ERB couldn’t make up his mind whether he was a racist or not.
I guess it’s a simple formula. Is this character a villain? Then pull out all the racist tropes you can think of. Is this character a hero/sidekick? Then none of that applies.
Not sure if they’re a *guilty *pleasure or not, but a lot of Bernard Cornwell’s novels feel that way- they’re half well-researched historical fictions, and half lurid potboilers, with plenty of violence, sex and intrigue to go around. In particular, the “Saxon Stories” grab me this way. The Grail Quest and Warlord Chronicles were a little less pot-boilerish.
