Yes, here it is, the much promised book snob post.
I have decided there are 3 kinds of readers.
1. Those who don’t. I call them lost souls who don’t know what they are missing.
2. Those that do because they love to read. These good hearted book-a-holics will read anything just so long as they are reading.
3. And then there are those that do it because because it makes them look intelligent. Harsh, I know, but it seems true. Take Jonathan Franzen. A bigger book snob never walked this earth! His head is so big he couldn’t even appear on Oprah because she was beneath HIM. This woman has done more for reading (besides JK Rowling) than probably anybody else in the last 50 years, yet he can’t give her an interview because he can’t get his big head through the door.
Book snobs almost ruined reading for me. First there was college; where I was forced to these books called “classics.” I hate classics, but was always afraid to say so because my classmates would look on me as dumb. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some fantastic classics out there, I just didn’t read many in college.
Then, when I first started joining book clubs on the net (on yahoogroups.com) I so wanted to impress people with my literary expertise so I read what seemed to be the “in” thing to read.
Gradually I started to hate reading. I dropped out of my groups (except my 2 favorites!) and I almost ceased reading.
I was miserable. I went from 82 books one year, to 26 the next.
Then about 3 or 4 months ago, realized just how much I missed reading. I started getting active in my two groups again. And now I realize why I love these groups so much. These are the groups where anything goes! Everyone wants to hear about what you read; they don’t care if brain power was required or not because they are doing the same thing – reading what they want! We, the reader, are supposed to read what moves us, what makes us think, what makes us dream, what makes us want to LIVE. It doesn’t matter what other people think, it matters what YOU think. And if a Nora Roberts romance is what gets your juices going, then by all means, read it!! I’ve read several and you know what, the writing ain’t that bad and the stories ain’t either 
What is important to reading is the enjoyment of it and I think if more people realized that there would be more number 2s and less number 1s.
Okay, off my soapbox and boy do I feel better.
Brava!!!! Great post, and I totally agree. When I was teaching high schoo., especially, I always told my students that there was a book for everyone, they just had to figure out what they were interested in. For one of my boys it was Huck Finn, for another it was The Inferno, and for many of the girls it was Anne of Green Gables or a Nicholas Sparks. I always tried to tell them that we learned classics for a reason, but that other books were great, too!
Your post reminds me of one I was going to do. Beatrice ran an interesting article about English PhD's that ended up writing chick lit. Very interesting the dualing forces that drew them to contemporary fiction while their teachers and peers told them they were schlock. I'll get around to that post soon.
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Well I agree with most of your post, but it doesn't always hurt to evaluate what you read. After all if you are just reading the same book over and over again then why bother spending money on new books when you can simply reread.
I'd fall in category no 2, I read everything, but I don't love everything. And I think that is where a lot of the problems begin, people are eithe way too snobbish and dismiss an entire genre, or they are too accepting and say "well it wasn't my cup of tea, but maybe someone else would like it." I tend to say stuff like that, even when I know the book was full of bad writing, simply because it can be offensive to tell someone the book they praised is crap, and of course do I have the right to make such a value judgement? For my reading, yes, for other peoples? I don't know.
But does it matter if "you are just reading the same book over and over again" if you are enjoying it? Does that make it right for others to look down on you because you do?
It just annoys me when someone looks at an author and says "oh she writes…chick lit and I don't READ chick lit." How do they know there isn't some…I don't know…enjoyment to be had from it?
I guess I just don't like many critics in general anyway
I don't want their opinion, I want my own – and occasionally someone who's opinion I value. Shoot, once I start reading a book I don't even read the liner notes because I don't want something given away.
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