# Booksnobbery **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 21, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196 "2012-08-21T19:17:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![mage-girl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/cc9497/32.png) [@mage-girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mage-girl)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/61 "2012-08-26T04:35:02Z")
I am over forty and enjoy YA books, along with your standard “adult” lit. I have read both _The Hunger Games_ trilogy and the\* Twilight\* series and I can assure you there are huge differences between the two. - In Twilight, the main female character, Bella, is passive. In The Hunger Games, the main female character, Katniss, actually does stuff. - In Twilight, once Bella finds Edward and falls for him, she really doesn’t care about anything else (like making other friends). Except for Jacob, but everyone knows she’s not going to end up with him, right? In The Hunger Games, Katniss is also torn between two guys, but it’s not the sole focus of her existence. She cares deeply about her family and about some of the people she meets in the course of the story. - In Twilight, the author can’t write an actual combat scene to save her life. She literally knocks Bella out at one point and recaps what happened (the fight) later. In The Hunger Games, the author shows us not just the violence, but the consequences. - But, it is not really fair to compare the two. Twilight is YA supernatural romance. The Hunger Games is YA dystopia fiction with romance thrown in. - In my opinion, The Hunger Games is better overall than Twilight. Don’t avoid it just because it’s popular! Popular does not equal “sucks”. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/62 "2012-08-26T12:27:53Z")
> [@Bozuit](#): > > Before getting snobby about _what_ people read it’s worth getting them to read _something_. > > I have a friend who doesn’t read. The only books I’ve ever known him to read are Harry Potter books, apart from what he had to read in English lessons at school. He’s an absolutely terrible speller. You know when you know what letters go into a word, but you’re not 100% sure of the order, or maybe if a letter should be doubled up or not? If I have a problem with spelling a word it’s almost always one of those things. But he often has _no clue_ even what letters are supposed to be in the word if it’s not obvious. Because he reads nothing. > > What makes it even weirder is he wants to make films, but I think he’s going to really struggle to tell stories if he never reads them. Have you considered he may be dyslexic? ---
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/63 "2012-08-26T15:05:39Z")
It used to be that if you saw me when I wasn’t at work, there was a 90% possibility that my nose was stuck in a book. Then I just… stopped reading. The problem is that a book has to grab me in the first few sentences. I just don’t have the patience for slow build-up. I recently finished the first two Hunger Games books, but lost interest in the third after a few pages and just looked up the summary on wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/64 "2012-08-26T16:27:36Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > It has its flaws, but The Hunger Games is better than most of the turgid dreck that’s published as serious fiction these days. That’s why people read it. This seems like a lazy thing to say. What “turgid dreck” are you referencing, specifically? ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/65 "2012-08-26T22:46:07Z")
> [@jordanr2](#): > > This seems like a lazy thing to say. What “turgid dreck” are you referencing, specifically? It is indeed lazy, so I’ll just [point to this](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/). I’m being facetious. But I do think that there’s a lot less to literary fiction than is often assumed. You’ll easily find a good story well told in genre and YA fiction. In serious fiction, once you scrape off all the pretension and affectation, there’s often not much left. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/66 "2012-08-26T23:23:06Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > It is indeed lazy, so I’ll just [point to this](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/). > > I’m being facetious. But I do think that there’s a lot less to literary fiction than is often assumed. You’ll easily find a good story well told in genre and YA fiction. In serious fiction, once you scrape off all the pretension and affectation, there’s often not much left. Just lyrical prose. ---
**Author:** ![jordanr2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/838e76/32.png) [@jordanr2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jordanr2)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/67 "2012-08-27T00:03:54Z")
> [@tellyworth](#): > > It is indeed lazy, so I’ll just [point to this](http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/07/a-readers-manifesto/302270/). > > I’m being facetious. But I do think that there’s a lot less to literary fiction than is often assumed. You’ll easily find a good story well told in genre and YA fiction. In serious fiction, once you scrape off all the pretension and affectation, there’s often not much left. that Myers essay doesn’t really hold water - he points to a few not-so-great authors (none of whom, except for Auster, I particularly like either) while overlooking the truly bewildering range of other genuinely good ones out there. I have to wonder what you’ve been reading, or what you _haven’t_ been reading, that makes you feel this way toward the near-entirety of “serious fiction,” whatever we take that to mean. ---
**Author:** ![Skypist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skypist/32/169_2.png) [@Skypist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skypist)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/68 "2012-08-27T03:05:01Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > I’m a book snob. > > I’m not proud of it, but I judge non-readers pretty harshly. There are people out there who say things like “I don’t read”, and _they don’t seem to think that it’s a serious hole in their lives_, which I cannot grok. > > Books are, for me, a necessity. Since the day I was able to read **Grover At The Farm** all by myself, I have been reading. I have a quick link to my library’s website on my Firefox toolbar, and I choose new purses based primarily on their size, because they must have enough space for an average hardcover. I have read hundreds of books, from classics to “chick lit” to non-fiction on almost any topic, and I’ve got a “to-read” shelf (currently growing online at [Goodreads.com](http://Goodreads.com)) that never seems to get any shorter. I deeply regret that I only have one lifetime during which to read, because I’ll never be able to read everything I want to. > > I think more people should be regular readers. The digital world is slowly chipping away at our attention spans and encouraging us to absorb written words in small, manageable paragraphs, instead of pages and chapters, so I smile when I see people at bus stops or in coffee shops, holding an open book. So why, then, do I feel such hostility towards adult readers of tween-and-teen-targeted “literature”? See, right there, I used sarcastiquotes without even thinking about it. I get all sorts of annoyed when I see a grown person paging through Twilight. Why would anyone other than a 12-year-old girl voluntarily read about angsty sparkling vampires (unless they’re the parents of teens and tweens who want to be familiar with what their kids are reading)? My parents weren’t standing in line at the store, waiting excitedly for the next Babysitters Club book to be released so they could discuss it with their friends at work, so what changed over the past 20 years? Did young adult (YA) literature get more complex and adult along the way, blurring the lines? > > It sounds sort of rhetorical, but it’s a question I’m honestly asking of the Dope: has there been a shift in the complexity of YA books over the years, making them closer to adult books? > > I’ve done a lot of thinking about my hostility towards the YA stuff. My conclusion is that there are so many wonderful books out there that I want to share with people, and when I get “ **Hunger Games** ” as a response when I ask what someone’s reading, I automatically file the person under “doesn’t actually like to read”, and I put away the recommendations I was going to share with them. Someone reading “kids’ books” isn’t going to want to read Asimov, or John Irving, or a history of the life of Henrietta Lacks, right? > > The more I think about it, the more I think it’s not necessarily a hostility against YA in particular, but against bullshit fluff literature, against people who choose to read badly-written junk when there are so many other options. But then again, I’ll admit to having enjoyed the Harry Potter series, and if I’m being honest, I have to say they were better written than Sophie Kinsella’s “Shopaholic” stuff, which was aimed at adult readers. So where’s the line? What’s a “good” YA novel and what’s a “fluffy” grownup novel? > > Do most readers of YA or otherwise fluffy literature stick to those genres or do they dabble in all sorts of books? I tend to classify these readers right next to the non-readers, but maybe my perception is off. > > Why should it matter? It’s not my business what people read, and on a conscious level I know that, but I see someone on the bus reading **Fifty Shades of Grey** and I die a little inside. I’m sure there are folks who will look down on my collection of science fiction and medical memoirs and declare that I’m not a real reader if I don’t know Tolstoy and Dumas by heart, and I’m just passing on the scorn to people who read fluffier literature than I do. Is that just human nature? > > I’d like this to open up into a discussion, if anyone’s game. I need help pinning down what it is that bugs me about YA and fluff, because otherwise I don’t see how I will ever change that prejudice. I read all the time and have always been a reader, but I tend to read for fun, even though I was an English major. My favorite genre is fantasy. I do read some YA and enjoy some of it. “Twilight” was awful, and I couldn’t get through the first couple of chapters of the first book. I thought I’d like it since it’s in the fantasy stable, but it was just too baaaaaa-ad. Love me some Harry Potter. I’ve read all of the Hunger Games and liked it better than twilight, but it was just mediocre in my opinion. The reading level was very basic. OTOH, I recently read “Seraphina,” which is also a YA fantasy story, and the reading level is much higher and I had to whip out a dictionary to get through it. I think the burgeoning of the YA book industry has to do with the Internet. The younger generation has money to spend, and marketers are going to go for that if they can. They see “Twilight” doing well, so any other books that appeal to YA readers in similar ways are probably going to get a lot of promotion. The younger generations are also on You Tube, doing book reviews. You Tube’s book reviews are in large part YA focused. It gets a little old sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![tellyworth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/977dab/32.png) [@tellyworth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tellyworth)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/69 "2012-08-27T05:10:06Z")
> [@j666](#): > > Just lyrical prose. I see what you did there. > [@jordanr2](#): > > I have to wonder what you’ve been reading, or what you _haven’t_ been reading, that makes you feel this way toward the near-entirety of “serious fiction,” whatever we take that to mean. I plead no contest. It was unfair to dismiss an entire segment of fiction based on my estimation of a small sample. I guess I’m a bit of a snob. ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/70 "2012-08-27T07:51:38Z")
I think literary snobbery is silly. When I was a kid, I read everything that wasn’t nailed down. Dime-a-dozen romance novels, Agatha Christie mysteries, Sherlock Holmes, Poe, Harry Potter, Shakespeare, Stephen King, Dickens, the back of cereal boxes, shampoo bottles, Asimov, Douglas Adams, Roald Dahl, Madeleine L’Engle, the articles in my dad’s _Penthouse_ collection when I was home alone, Dan Brown, A Clockwork Orange, et farking cetera. I have partaken of practically every possible kind of fiction/fantasy literature in existence, and I firmly believe they ALL have something to offer. Even Twilight. While I may not indulge in the same idealization and fantasy as the author herself, I still think it’s better for teens to be reading Twilight than nothing. At least they’re _reading_! I would classify myself as a very light reader these days, partly because my Kindle Fire is too heavy to function as an e-reader, and partly because I prefer the interactivity of online forums. But I’ve read Hunger Games, and I loved it. I read trashy romances occasionally and love them. I reread my Douglas Adams anthology on an annual-ish basis and love it. I still love the Wrinkle in Time series. I love it all, it just doesn’t feel like there are enough hours in the day anymore. Anyway, quit being a book snob. If you saw me reading Hunger Games or a trashy romance in public and assumed I was a fool who wouldn’t touch Asimov, \*you \*would be the fool in that scenario. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/71 "2012-08-27T08:33:45Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > That’s what I would say. Sure, maybe that person is reading what I consider junk. But I read plenty of stuff that other people probably call junk. So who am I to judge? Fuck, I read things I call junk…sometimes a little intensely-over-the-top melodrama can be FUN, even if it’s barely competently written and incredibly formulaic. ---
**Author:** ![Beastly\_Rotter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/45deac/32.png) [@Beastly\_Rotter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beastly_Rotter)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/72 "2012-08-27T10:24:46Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Books are, for me, a necessity. Since the day I was able to read **Grover At The Farm** all by myself, I have been reading. I have a quick link to my library’s website on my Firefox toolbar, and I choose new purses based primarily on their size, because they must have enough space for an average hardcover. I have read hundreds of books, from classics to “chick lit” to non-fiction on almost any topic, and I’ve got a “to-read” shelf (currently growing online at [Goodreads.com](http://Goodreads.com)) that never seems to get any shorter. I deeply regret that I only have one lifetime during which to read, because I’ll never be able to read everything I want to. [If you struggle to get through a book a week](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15035392&postcount=1), perhaps you aren’t quite as devoted as you profess to be. ---
**Author:** ![Seanette](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/seanette/32/9139_2.png) [@Seanette](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seanette)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/73 "2012-08-27T10:51:36Z")
> [@Beastly\_Rotter](#): > > [If you struggle to get through a book a week](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15035392&postcount=1), perhaps you aren’t quite as devoted as you profess to be. Or maybe has so many other demands on time and energy that carving out reading time is a challenge, maybe favors longer works, etc. ---
**Author:** ![Antigen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/848f3c/32.png) [@Antigen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antigen)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/74 "2012-08-27T11:01:14Z")
> [@Beastly\_Rotter](#): > > [If you struggle to get through a book a week](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15035392&postcount=1), perhaps you aren’t quite as devoted as you profess to be. Well, aren’t you helpful and sweet! Look, I knew I’d get flamed to a certain degree for admitting to some prejudice. I’m trying to be more open-minded about different kinds of books, and I came here for some help getting over it, which many people have offered me. I need to quit being a snob and let people enjoy what they enjoy. I’m human, and I have prejudices - this thread shows I’m not alone in this particular one. Just because I don’t read _quickly_ these days doesn’t mean I don’t like reading. I _miss_ having more time to read. Since I started the thread you linked to (in May) I’ve been able to find more time to read on weekend mornings, and I’m happier with my new routine. But you’re right, I’m not as “devoted” to reading as I used to be, or as much as I would like to be. I listen to audiobooks on my long commute, I read on weekends, and I have a book with me all the time so I can read in waiting rooms and on breaks at work. It’s not as much as I would like, but it’s what works for me right now. If that level of dedication is insufficient and makes me unqualified to start threads about reading, it’s news to me. ---
**Author:** ![amanset](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8dc957/32.png) [@amanset](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amanset)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/75 "2012-08-27T11:04:35Z")
> [@EmilyG](#): > > I don’t understand non-readers either. > > I tend to have sleeping problems if I don’t read in bed before I go to sleep. I don’t know how non-readers do it. > > I like to read at other times of day too. Jesus, another thread where people get all “aren’t we ace” about reading (and no, that isn’t the same thing as being a book snob, so this is thread drift)? For fuck’s sake, it has only been a matter of days since the last one. Hell, that other one is probably ongoing. Look people, book reading isn’t unusual. Book reading happens a lot in this world. This forum isn’t full of the upper echelons of the literary elite, we swoop from there all the way down to people that obsess about boy bands, their own shit and how to pop blackheads. You want to know how non-readers do it? By being not you. Different people like different things. Some people love books, some people love internet porn, some love to run naked in the woods and stuff their faces in stinging nettles. Once you understand this you’ll realise there is nothing to understand about why other people do other things, they just do because we are all different. You are not special for reading. Man, this place irritates me sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/76 "2012-08-27T11:55:39Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Someone reading “kids’ books” isn’t going to want to read Asimov, or John Irving, or a history of the life of Henrietta Lacks, right? Wrong. I read quite a few children’s books as well as having read all of those authors, and most of the major authors of the 19th and 20th Centuries. I read a pretty good number of kids books mixed up with the weighty important grown-up books now (David Mitchell, Don DeLillo, etc.) I know plenty of other people who include some kid lit in their literary grazing. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/77 "2012-08-27T12:24:43Z")
(Correction: I actually haven’t read Henrietta Lacks, and don’t know who she is.) ---
**Author:** ![yellowval](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/919ad9/32.png) [@yellowval](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowval)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/78 "2012-08-27T13:30:26Z")
> [@Antigen](#): > > Well, aren’t you helpful and sweet! > > Look, I knew I’d get flamed to a certain degree for admitting to some prejudice. I’m trying to be more open-minded about different kinds of books, and I came here for some help getting over it, which many people have offered me. I need to quit being a snob and let people enjoy what they enjoy. I’m human, and I have prejudices - this thread shows I’m not alone in this particular one. > > Just because I don’t read _quickly_ these days doesn’t mean I don’t like reading. I _miss_ having more time to read. Since I started the thread you linked to (in May) I’ve been able to find more time to read on weekend mornings, and I’m happier with my new routine. But you’re right, I’m not as “devoted” to reading as I used to be, or as much as I would like to be. I listen to audiobooks on my long commute, I read on weekends, and I have a book with me all the time so I can read in waiting rooms and on breaks at work. It’s not as much as I would like, but it’s what works for me right now. If that level of dedication is insufficient and makes me unqualified to start threads about reading, it’s news to me. Eh, don’t let him bother you. Obviously he was just here for a one-line threadshit, and had no real point to make. I don’t take how many books you can read a year as a sign of how much a person reads. While I do set goals for myself on Goodreads, I generally start out low (20 or 30 books) because I don’t want to choose books based solely on length so I can meet a goal. Some books take me a month or two to read because of length, difficulty, or lack of time. On a busy week (such as the past one for me), I might only get through 100 pages of a book. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want to read, it means that I can’t. So I can totally relate to what you’re saying. And, for the record, I do think audiobooks count. As I said before, it’s hard to set these prejudices aside. As you said, you’re only human and you recognize this fault in yourself and are trying. That’s more than a lot of people can say. ---
**Author:** ![carnut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnut/32/3531_2.png) [@carnut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnut)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/79 "2012-08-27T15:29:16Z")
> [@Rachellelogram](#): > > Anyway, quit being a book snob. If you saw me reading Hunger Games or a trashy romance in public and assumed I was a fool who wouldn’t touch Asimov, \*you \*would be the fool in that scenario. Instead, we can be happy because you are reading instead of watching TV. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196/80 "2012-08-27T16:40:35Z")
> [@carnut](#): > > Instead, we can be happy because you are reading instead of watching TV. 😃 Not to sound like a snob myself, but the last time I watched tv was when I was too sick to sit upright at my computer desk, and too miserable/in pain to fall asleep. Which would be about… 6 months ago? Forums are the poison I’ve picked. 🙂 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/booksnobbery/632196.md?page=5)