I love to read. I’ve written before about my history and love of reading here: WHY I LOVE MY AMAZON KINDLE. For the record, now I have an ipad, and I read all my kindle books on that. I’ve still got literally dozens of books that I have yet to read, I haven’t controlled my impulsed-buying yet. But one thing I am not is a book snob, and this is something I am seeing more of these days.

First, I will admit, that I find it odd when I encounter people who don’t read for pleasure. Y’know, folks who just don’t like reading, and so they don’t do it unless they have to (like for school), not counting celebrity magazines. To me, reading a good book is just such a wonderful experience, that I can’t even relate to the mentality of those who don’t do it. But what I am NOT, is a book snob. I don’t judge people for what types of books they like to read, as long as they’re reading something. I remember when R.L.Stine’s Goosebumps series became popular. Kids were snapped up these books as quick as they could be published, with a new one every months. I thought that was fantastic, and checked out some of the books myself. I recall that there were some reports from a few educators and librarians about the books, complaining that they used bad grammar or just weren’t very good. But I thought that concern was mis-placed, I just thought that it was a great thing that young kids were exciting about reading books.

Similar attitudes happened, of course, with the Twilight series. Three years ago I was @ a Dr. Who convention, and there was a panel on horror, with several horror novelist and writers on the stage, and it seemed like everyone wanted to hate on the Twilight books. “Real vampires” don’t sparkle! The girls who read these books are getting a warped view of what horror should be! Blah blah blah. But, once again, I just loved that so many readers, especially the teenage girls who made up the key demographic of that series, were enjoying reading. As they grow older, they may advance to Anne Rice or whatever, but leave them alone for now. And, speaking of Twilight, now it’s all about the 50 Shades of Gray series, and everyone wants to be an expert on what’s wrong with those books, even though most of the folks doing the talking haven’t read any of them.

I keep seeing it dismissed as cheap trash, or “mommy porn”, as if that’s a bad thing. So what if it’s cheap? So what if it’s not high literature? Does everything have to be War and Frakking Peace?!? Can’t someone just enjoy a silly little book now then, even if it doesn’t have any redeeming social value? Hey, my all-time favorite book is AMERICAN PSYCHO by Bret Easton Ellis, and I make no bones about that. I’m also a lifelong fan of reading superhero comic-books. So I don’t judge anyone on the content of their reading choices. Whether it’s a complex murder mystery or a quickie little Harlequin romance novel, just enjoy yourself, and read what you like. But JUST READ.