I don’t care which community it is, there is always a bit of snobbery. Specifically, in the book community, I have occasionally seen statements critiquing the types of books that people choose to read. And let’s not be “holier than thou,” we’ve all done it to some extent, even if we just thought something.
If you briefly scroll through my IG and look at the books I chose to read, one may assume that I mainly read “high-brow” literature. Well… I do. That is my preference. I gravitate towards chunky classics, books rich in so much symbolism they can be analyzed for a lifetime and literary fiction that I often seen deemed as “pretentious.” This is just my preference. I don’t tend to gravitate towards lighter reads.
But this is what bothers me: every now and then I’ll see comments from other readers who think that they are lesser readers because they prefer “lighter” fiction.
Read what you want to read.
To me, it is a privilege to have access to books, to be able to read, and be able to read any book I want to read, when I want to read it. There are people who would do anything to have access to books or be taught how to read.
If you want to read light, feel-good romances and cozy mysteries all the time - go for it! If you want to read 1000 page classic novels and then analyze every square in - do it! What’s most important is the experience the reader is having with the text.
Do you enjoy reading the books you select? Then proceed. It’s your time that you’re investing, so you might as well like who you’re reading. Other people’s perceptions on what you’re reading is irrelevant. If you’re excited and passionate about the books you decide to talk about, that’s all that matters and that will attract people to the conversations that you like to have around the books that you read. You are not a “lesser reader” because you don’t want to read a major work of fiction that is considered “the best.”
This also works the other way - if you’re a person, like me, who spends most of their time reading these really complex and heavy novels and a “lighter” read is appealing to you, READ. THE. BOOK.
I can’t say it enough: read what you want to read! Don’t read to make yourself look a certain way. Don’t read to “fit in” with what everyone else is reading. Don’t read to make yourself seem relevant if you really don’t want to read that book.
I advocate for reading books out of your comfort zone, because you never know what you may end up liking and it may open up more books for your to explore. If a book is appealing to you for whatever reason, then just go for it. If you end up liking it, then you’ve hit the jackpot and you’ve diversified your literary palette. If you didn’t end up liking it, then you’ve just fine tuned your preferences. Seems like a win-win situation to me…
And if someone is judging you for the books you’re reading, tell them to exit stage left. If you’re judging yourself for the books that you are (or aren’t) reading, then you should really ask yourself why you’re putting unnecessary pressure on yourself for a HOBBY! It’s highly likely that you’re too concerned with what you think other people are thinking about you.
News Flash: Most people aren’t thinking about you as much as you think they are (and I mean this in a good way)!
So go on - read the fairy-tale romance, the cozy thriller, the lush historical fiction, the philosophical classic, the dramatic fantasy. Life is too short to care about what other people think about your reading choices.
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