Book 'Snobbery'

[julie]

Claire

Thank you for the star. I don't pay attention to the people who frown on ereaders. It doesnt  make sense to me, we are reading the exact same book they would in paper . It all depends on what each person prefers to use I think .  

As long as we read,that is the most important thing . 

[pontalba]

Whoa!  Great stats Julie!   Def GOLD STAR worthy! 

 

It's true though, many people I know don't read that much.  Some because of long work hours, but some just don't bother. 

 

Chesil...do people really give you the "fish eye" because of the ereader?????  Hah, someone that did that to me would get the evil eye right back at ém!

[Athena]

Those are some interesting statistics, julie ! You get a gold star from me too .

 

I haven't met anyone (that I know of) who frowns at ereaders. I know people who prefer them, and people who prefer paper books. But no one who frowns at people who use them.

[Peahen]

I agree with the comment that those who do have this snobbery are insecure about their reading. They tend to see a list on some 'you must read' site and stick to that with narrowness of vision and then do not deviate from that list of what is accepted, as they are very keen to impress others rather than branch out in their own reading.  I think as long as people are reading, it does not matter what they are reading.  I do understand what you are saying, whilst I do though love Tess of the D'Ubervilles, I often am scorned for my dislike of Lord of the Flies by Golding.  It is the same in regards to movies, i HATE the Godfather and yet as of a personal opinion, then am relegated to not having a valid opinion despite fact I consume movies constantly

[chesilbeach]

Chesil...do people really give you the "fish eye" because of the ereader?????  Hah, someone that did that to me would get the evil eye right back at ém!

Yep, I'm sure I've had "the look" from someone who was carry a very large (and dreary if you ask me) textbook of some sort - perhaps I misread it, and it was jealousy that they were carry a huge doorstop with them!

[julie]

Thanks for the gold stars Kate & Athena .

 

I'm with the majority of you here. It doesn't really matter to me what type books people read. We all like different things,so that would carry over into our book tastes too. What one person loves,another person dislikes .

I  think with an ereader, your reading taste is pretty well unknown from the rest of the world,which is only bad for one thing in my opinion :

 

I'm nosey about what book someone is reading. If I see a person sitting someplace in public reading, I will go out of my way, walk around behind them,make another trip around in front of them,pretty much do anything to see what book they are reading .

Ereaders have made that task impossible ,unless I literally come close enough to touch them . I don't do that,since I dont want to be arrested as some type of perverted old lady ,but I am a NOSEY Reader ...If I can see the title, then I'm happy .

 

Sometimes I'll ask people,which is easier than standing on my head to find out,but it depends on the person.

 

Some look approachable,while others look like they would't want you in their business .

[bobblybear]

Gold star from me too, Julie! I don't understand how some people can only read one book a year. You couldn't tear me away from books, no matter how hard you tried!

 

I think reading any kind of book can only be a good thing, and perhaps some can be 'gateway' books into getting more people on the reading bandwagon.

[julie]

Bobbly

Yea I agree,anything to get someone to read . It's a little worrisome to me that the books in the recent past that seemed to stir up more of a reading frenzy were the 50 Shades books ...It was odd, I'd even hear little old Grandmas talking about reading those books when they hadn't read in decades . Strange,that those books would bring the "Closet Readers " out .

 

I'm really wondering it it's today's world ,which would definitely affect people's TIME to read . If I go back to my younger years, we only had 2 housewives on the street who worked outside the home . All of my friends had both parents in their homes,their moms all stayed home and cleaned houe,their dads all went to work all day .

 

Today,it's hard to find a family that started out together --you know,the mom,the dad and the kids are all together in the same house . I'd say the majority of families have only one parent, or they have step-parents or live-in parent figures. I know hardly ANYONE who stays home as a housewife .My street is deserted in the daytime because every lady on the street works except me and a lady in her 80's .

 

So MAYBE it's the fact that life has changed so much and people just dont have the time to read as they once did .  If I worked full time and still had the family all at home, I wouldnt have nearly the free time I do now. But when I look back to my younger days when I was working and did have the family home, I still read as much as possible. I remember reading a book while cooking supper every night .

 

Weird how some people like it and some don't No one else in my house enjoyed reading . My mother used to tell me to put the books down and go out and play.Put the book down and eat supper .She said it was bad manners to read at the supper table. I just put the book on my lap and kept reading .

 

It wasn't very many years ago that my dad asked me what do you GET out of these things ? Looking at books like they were porno magazines or something bad . I told him I LIKE to read and I like to learn .

 

My sister would rather have her fingernails yanked out than to read one page of a book .

 

I heard once that kids who have their nose in a book constantly like that,do it to escape (mentally) from their lives. I used to think that was stupid, but have thought more about it recently ,and that would have probably been true for me .. If you read, you take yourself someplace else for awhile .   

[willoyd]

Interesting discussion. Just a few thoughts to throw into the fire:

 

At the risk of being labelled a book snob, I think it does matter what people read, and no, I don't subscribe to the idea that any reading is necessarily better than none: never mind the quality, feel the width! What's "better" for instance - reading a piece of pulp fiction, or watching a high quality drama on television or in the cinema, playing sport, baking a cake, or any one of a myriad of other activities? What is more likely to be a gateway (to use Bobblybear's eminently suitable expression) to more challenging/advanced/etc reading? It's not such a straightforward equation, I would suggest.

 

The problem comes though, to my mind, when people mix up their judgements on books with their judgement on people: thus, whilst I think Dan Brown is an absolutely dreadful writer, just because someone reads his book doesn't make them some sort of lesser person for reading his books. It might say something to me about that person as a reader, but not as a whole person (I say might. I've read Dan Brown, and will have been seen reading Dan Brown. That doesn't mean I'm a Dan Brown fan).

 

We also have to be careful as to how we measure the state of reading. For instance, all the members of my family are avid readers, both immediate (wife, offspring) and further afield (brother, sister-in-law, nieces etc). Yet, from discussion, not one of us have been inside a library to borrow a book in years. Libraries have had an important role, and may continue to do so, but there are many other ways to access reading, some far more convenient and hardly more expensive.

 

So, how about this for another statistic, which may also say something about the state of reading in the US and UK in relation to other countries? The USA and the UK are the two largest book publishing countries in the world; the UK has consistently been the largest per capita publisher of books in the world. In 2009, according to Neilsen, UK book publishing reached a fifteen year high (I think they've only carried out their survey for the past 15 years). Nothing definitive; all I'm saying is that it's very easy to estimate that the here and now is worse than elsewhere and as it was - it may, in fact, be just be the opposite.

Edited March 13, 2013 by willoyd

[pontalba]

I think it does matter what people read, just not to other people.  Only themselves.  People read for all sorts of reasons. Pure escape. Learning. To fill some time. To look "smart", or any certain way. I have no desire to either be judged for my reading material, or judge another for theirs. 

 

I come from a family of readers, on both side, in every direction,  and I think that's great.  IMO, those that do not read are really missing out on some good stuff.  My opinion.  Maybe they think I (readers in general) am a/are stuffed shirts.  /shrugs/ So what.  It's a free country.

[julie]

Willoyd

Great statistics --- would you say that Reading and Authors are much more in the public spotlight over there ?

You see, here , I really don't see authors being interviewed rarely EVER on say, a tv show.

 

I DID see them interview Stephen King once in the Today Show. And they have interviewed maybe one or 2 others in the past . It bugs me when they DO interview the author about a new book they have written,and you can tell the interviewer hasn't read the book . They are bumbling through the interview,not knowing a blooming thing about the book . READ THE BOOK if you are going to interview the author about it .

I've been watching some old black and white clips from tv shows thaqt were on here in the 50's and 60's,and they have auuthors on them soemtimes,and people are clapping and cheering for them . They seem to get such a big response,compared to today .

 

I guess I'm wondering if authors over there get more PUBLIC EXPOSURE ? It seems to me as if England is more of a Reading Country .

Do any of you over there know if that is true ? Say if you were riding a bus to work, wouldn't you see a large number of the others on the bus reading ? 

[ian]

 Say if you were riding a bus to work, wouldn't you see a large number of the others on the bus reading ? 

 

I find it's a bit random with reading in public. Where I live (Birmingham), you don't see a lot of people reading on buses or trains - although there are a lot of people playing with their phones. Some could be reading, I suppose.

 

But last time I was in London, there were plenty of people reading on the tube.

 

But I do notice that I only ever see books advertised with billboards at train stations. Assuming the marketing people have done their homework, that must mean they know that train passengers read more than other public transport.

[pontalba]

For a decade or so I took the bus into town to work every day, and I don't recall seeing that many readers. Some of course, but not enough for a baseball team.   I carried a book and a spare in case I finished the current book on my lunch break.  On a few of my jobs I was fortunate enough to be able to read at my desk if not busy. 

Nowadays I don't even see that many people reading in, for example, Starbucks.  Most are on their laptop.

We always bring books when we go out, never know when we might have a chance to read.

[Cumberbabe]

In some respects I'm a total book snob. But that is only because most of the mainstream YA fiction is terrible, and people find the need to defend the books even though they are terrible.

But I would never ever voice these opinions to anyone. That's not who I am, but when someone tells me that Twilight is well written and interesting, I have to disagree with them. I've read them, the story had so much potential, but failed to live up to it.

 

I'm quite a well read person, mostly because of my degree, but I enjoy nothing more than reading Harry Potter. I often feel like people are judging me when I read it on the bus because it probably looks weird to see and adult reading a kids book.

But I don't care.

[Athena]

Today I was on the train and saw several people reading, two were reading an English book too (and one of them was reading a book I have on my TBR). So not all is lost (though the majority of the people either do nothing or use their phone).

[Peacefield]

Like other cultural pursuits such as film, music and art, I really just view book taste as subjective.  I read what I read because I want to and I know that what I like is important to me, not anyone else, just like what someone else reads doesn't affect me.  I'm open to reading any kind of genre and love to get recommendations from people.  It has widened my tastes and if I see someone reading an author I've not heard of or haven't read anything by, I'm curious and will ask.

 

Some of the lack of readership might be due to the current economy as well, at least here in the US.  Some people don't have extra money for books or are working 2 and 3 jobs so don't have time to read at all.  It puzzles me though why people don't utilize the library as often, since books there are free.

 

When I was working 2 jobs last year I know I hardly had time for anything, plus I have other interests that take my attention too so unfortunately reading suffered.

 

I agree with what Willoyd said about judgements against people - that to me is so sad and I can't understand it at all.  Yes I read the Twilight books and liked them, not for the writing but for the story.  People probably judge me all the time for that.  My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo - can it be possible that a fan of Dumas can also be a Twilight reader?  Hell yes!  It's my choice .

[frankie]

I agree with what Willoyd said about judgements against people - that to me is so sad and I can't understand it at all.  Yes I read the Twilight books and liked them, not for the writing but for the story.  People probably judge me all the time for that.  My favorite book is The Count of Monte Cristo - can it be possible that a fan of Dumas can also be a Twilight reader?  Hell yes!  It's my choice .

 

Exactly! It's your choice, it's everyone's own choice.

 

Before I go on a rampage, I confess that I do sometimes unwillingly and unwittingly judge people by what they read before I think about it. But it's always people I don't know and who I see with some book I would never read myself. Which is definitely not okay, because I love books and I'm predisposed to like people who read books, period. I know I would not like it if I was judged by what I read.

 

But then again, if some stranger judged me by the book I'm holding in my hands, it wouldn't be such a big deal. They don't know me as a person, and I don't know them, and I don't really care about what they think. It's the people who are close to me who would hurt me if they judged me by what I read. I'm fortunately blessed with friends who never do that.

 

I did have one acquaintance yap about how I read Twilight. We were at a friend's house and someone said their dog's name is Merry, and I thought the dog was a she. The owner then said that 'um, no, it's after Merry from LotR...' and this girl rolled her eyes and started giving me crap about not having watched the LotR movies or not having read the book, and how it's sacrilegious that I don't know Merry but I read the Twilight series. The girl has such a strong personality and she's one of those who can't keep their opinions to themselves, ever, and who cuts people off and talks on top of others. So I let her rant and I didnt' tell her that I actually have LotR on my TBR pile and I'm going to read it at some point. Not that it matters, though. I couldn't really care less what books she thinks I read, but obviously it got to me, because I can still remember the occasion!

 

But I think it was more telling of her person, than mine, the way she went on and on.

[bobblybear]

I'm really wondering it it's today's world ,which would definitely affect people's TIME to read .

 

Could be, but I think if you are that passionate about something, you can always find some time somewhere. For example, I always make sure I'm in bed by 9:30pm, so I can have at least 30 minutes reading time. Even though I have lots on in the day, I try to keep that small window of time for myself. Most nights it works, but sometimes it doesn't, and those times that it doesn't work is usually when I'm not reading a particularly good book.

 

Mind you, having said all that, I don't actually have children, so that could be why I have free time.

 

 

Weird how some people like it and some don't No one else in my house enjoyed reading . My mother used to tell me to put the books down and go out and play.Put the book down and eat supper .She said it was bad manners to read at the supper table. I just put the book on my lap and kept reading .

 

It wasn't very many years ago that my dad asked me what do you GET out of these things ? Looking at books like they were porno magazines or something bad . I told him I LIKE to read and I like to learn .

 

Ditto, Julie. My mum reads the odd science non-fiction book, but never fiction. Same with my dad, and he made the same comment yours did, along the lines that I need to stop wasting my time with books. So, I don't know where my love of reading came from, but mum tells me that I used to read the same book (a dog book, Spot perhaps?) over and over again when I was very young. I can remember going to the library and returning with my bags just bulging because I had checked out as many I could. 

 

I certainly wasn't encouraged to read when I was growing up, but it was still something that I loved all on my own. Even with books chosen for school, I was always one of the first to finish reading them, while my friends always struggled, and I'm sure a lot of them probably didn't finish them even.

 

The problem comes though, to my mind, when people mix up their judgements on books with their judgement on people: thus, whilst I think Dan Brown is an absolutely dreadful writer, just because someone reads his book doesn't make them some sort of lesser person for reading his books. It might say something to me about that person as a reader, but not as a whole person (I say might. I've read Dan Brown, and will have been seen reading Dan Brown. That doesn't mean I'm a Dan Brown fan).

 

I think this is what I had trouble separating in my mind (until you articulated it just now) - the difference between judging a book and judging a person for the books they read. I guess I subconsciously thought they were one and the same. I do judge some books harshly, but hopefully I don't judge the person for reading them!

 

 

[risingdawn]

I think everyone judges people why what they read. It's the same with fashion and everything else. I always feel like a lesser person in my English Literature class when there are people who have read Jane Austen novels or other classics that either a) I haven't got round to or b) never heard of because I only started taking English Literature for A-Level. It's even harder when you have a literature teacher doing his Masters who incorporates what he learns into our lessons and brings up critics etc thinking that we have heard of them.

 

I guess I just judge that those who have read Austen etc are better read than me in that they have read the classics and can appreciate them. But I do appreciate the one's I have read in my own way. And I'm just well read in my own way