"But it gets them reading."

[Daedalus1942]

True, but the general idea is that most people these days consider reading to be "gay" (for lack of a better adjective) or in some other way to be a completely uninteresting or unrewarding activity. So to get somebody to willingly read anything is a step in the right direction for society. The hope then, is that the person who reads something subpar, will eventually get the idea to read something good.

I urge anyone who thinks reading is gay to read a book called Roadside picnic.
You may recognize the plot of it being similar to a certain fps/rpg by a little company called THQ that was released back in 07. It is not merely coincidence. Still a good book.

 

[notsosavagemessiah]

True, but the general idea is that most people these days consider reading to be "gay" (for lack of a better adjective)

I'm sorry, but seriously, for lack of a better adjective? Stupid, nerdy, geeky, for losers, boring, useless, dumb, lame...damn and those are just off the top of my head. You see, people who read, even when they're reading bad books, develop a better vocabulary and don't have to insult a percentage of the population for lack of a better adjective.

Would I rather a kid read Animal Farm or Cider House Rules than Twilight or Harry Potter? Sure. But I would also rather they read Twilight than simply not read at all.

Yeah, i agree, but i should've clarified, these are the responses i usually get when i tell somebody to read a book. It's "gay". Honestly though, you're right, should've used a better adjective, but too tired to think of anything else. I had no intention of insulting anybody, you took my words out of context.

 

[Jirlond]

Literature and English is going down the drain.

The young people (10 +) all communicate in text speak and have somehow magically got some schools to allow is to be used for exams etc. Some of it I get the others I don't for example what is the difference between boy and boi? Its an unnatural evolution of language that will leave our youth stupid and uncultured.

 

[ShadowStar42]

A ridiculous comment, attitudes like this are allowing children to leave school as functional illiterates.

*blink* *blink* Reading the wrong kind of books makes you a functional illiterate...wow this thread if full of gems. Very few people start by reading good books. You may be the guy who's first book was The Prince but most people start with entertaining trash like The Tripod Trilogy or The Dark is Rising (well those were me, an early fascination with sci-fi fantasy). Also reading 'good' books doesn't necessarily mean you will continue to do so. People will read what they enjoy, for the majority of people that will be stuff that the average person on these boards would consider 'trash', perhaps we should not make the mistake of believing our own opinions are more valid than those of others.

 

[pirateninj4]

It's all a distraction to take our focus away from the grim reality of Space Monkies and their inevitable invasion of the US. We'll be too busy falling in love with Edward "I'm a prick" Cullen and Hermione to notice when they burn down our way of life and usher in the new age of Slavage.

 

[Dramatic Flare]

Alright, as a challenge to those who argue that starting on weaker books might push them into harder books, give me examples. I don't see it. I know it happens as you get older, I mean from 5 to 15 you go from not reading at all really to writing dissertations on what you read. But what about those who regularly stick to low quality books? When are they going to switch to trying a harder book and stay? your view is very optimistic but I can't really see where you are coming from.

 

[Hybridwolf]

True, true. Though I suppose someone who reads shit is less of a danger to society than an idiot driver.

Sorry, you were saying? [http://twilightsucks.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=fangirls&action=display&thread=5175]

If you have anything else you'd like me to prove wrong in a totally manly fashion, just go ahead and bring it up now.
I'm due for my hourly pec flexing.

Thats just disgusting, some of the things people have had done to them for, god forbid, not liking a book you adore. You'd try to kill someone for disliking a book which most people avoid?

OT: If someone gets used to something, they rarely change. Teaching kids that reading rubbish is good will mean they will keep reading rubbish and will more then likely avoid good books because they won't see it as a story or whatever, they'll see it as a wall of text. A good book is often the biggest.

 

[Pyotr Romanov]

I never had people go "it's subpar but at least he's reading" cause i started reading english books since i was like 9 and started "learning" english at school at the age of 11... Obviously i don't natively speak english.

 

[EchetusXe]

So what are you saying? We should ban books YOU don't like? Or just act snooty and look down on anyone reading a popular book?

This thread is so middle-class it ain't even funny.

 

[Supraliminal]

Why people should read? I do, but why?
Is it somehow mandatory to read just to be a better person or to grow as a human?
That's something what the old authorities claim to be the truth.

If something is important for us, it's to think and use our imagination.
It's true that books provoke ideas and make us to ponder the deeper meanings that the author has included, but reading is not the only way.
I prefer talking. Having a conversation, not just about football (for instance) or small talk

 

[Dramatic Flare]

So what are you saying? We should ban books YOU don't like? Or just act snooty and look down on anyone reading a popular book?

This thread is so middle-class it ain't even funny.

No. I'm saying they shouldn't be marketed for profit only, when publishers know damn well its a bad book. I'm saying it should not be blithely accepted. I'm saying that teachers, the people we look to educate the next generation, should not lower the bar because of popular materials.
I'm saying there should be as much fluffy crap books written as anyone damn well wants, and it should remain fluffy crap. There are plenty of quality books that I don't enjoy, and likewise there are quality books that I enjoy that others won't. That's natural.

Phenomena such as, say, twilight, aren't natural.

 

[Xojins]

This seems kind of elitist; you shouldn't force people to read books they won't understand, like, or have any interest in just because they're 'more sophisticated.' People are supposed to enjoy reading.

 

[Dramatic Flare]

This seems kind of elitist; you shouldn't force people to read books they won't understand, like, or have any interest in just because they're 'more sophisticated.' People are supposed to enjoy reading.

Why do people keep insisting I'm using force here? At what point have I argued that people should be forcibly kept away from stupid books? At what point did people not notice the obvious link to Good Fairies of New York which is a mushy comedy book with nary a difficult idea?

Seriously, my point is in relation to the educator's acceptance of poor material as standard, not that poor material is the worst thing ever. At most, I have stated that poor material has no right being movie-making popular.

 

[Fire Daemon]

I think that reading (and writing) should be easy available to everyone. I don't think that books should be kept to a particular standard that only a small faction of people can enjoy them. The truth is that if people aren't reading their Dan Brown and Stephanie Meyer novels because their 'in' at the moment than it is most likely that they will not be reading. It is unfortunate that people act this way but no matter how flooded the market is with sparkling vampires, there will always be great new books being written and the classics will always remain.

I really would rather that more people read better books, I hate how the majority (if not all) of my friends read very little or none at all. If they do read it is most likely Twilight and it's sequels. I would very much rather that they read what I consider to be good books but I'd rather that they read some, rather than none. A society were very few people read is not one I want to be a part of. I don't want to live in a word were I have trouble getting my hands on books, were Libraries don't exist and the most popular book is the Bible because trashy novels are not allowed. Certain series being insanely popular makes the world a better place, in my humble opinion. It's still really annoying to see Twilight at the top of the charts in Angus and Robertson but if novels like Twilight didn't exist than it may be possible that Angus and Robertson wouldn't exist with it either and the written word was secluded from the plebs.

I would rather that the classics were more widely read but, what are you going to do?

War and Piece

Now that sounds like a complex jigsaw puzzle

 

[Arkham]

I don't mind very much when a third party says "but it gets etc..." It's when the person reading says "At least I'm reading." The people I've met use this as an excuse to read something consider poor while admiting they rarely read.

Ironicly I wielded this phrase when I started reading H.P. Lovecraft because my hometown thought that needing to learn vocabulary to visualize a story made it a bad one.

 

[BladeOfAkriloth]

So you're saying that giving an 8 year old porn books is ok, because it gets them reading?....... if the overall opinion is that the book is bad, and the only pro someone might bring up is the reading material one, then no.........

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Very good sum up Ninjablu. I especially like some of the hidden hypertexts.

I think the real problem is that a lot of people fail to see the hidden proselytism within these books. I'm quite a devourer of "genre fiction", but most still follows a basic Disney-esque morality of "Do unto others" etc.

Even Dexter is hardly selling the idea of the Dark Passenger.

The books mentioned though all carry some rather insidious messages (before you get into the fanfiction which makes Furries go "Ok, now that's just too far!")

Twilight is Mormon Abstinence Vampire Pron (And worse, boasts at this : Meyer's reaction to the Mogul's who didn't want to make the Twilight Movie was telling as she believed herself to be a Messiah of all young girls)
Harry Potter is a terribly Blue Peter-y look at boarding school with major areas of waffle, warfare between the "normals" and the "geeks" and generally projection issues.
Eragon is a copy/pasta of LotR and even Tolkien is not the most fair-minded of writers. (Any female characters in LotR??? Elves don't count)

And then you add in the fans.

Now, I loathe HALO. No excuses, no arguments, but I've no problem with people being fans of HALO because they just run around making PEW PEW noises and saying that HALO invented FPS's.

But the fans of these books are book terrorists. Not since the heyday of Star Trek have I seen people who are willing to cut you (no metaphor) to defend their book.

That's not what genre is about. That's religious belief.

This is where the real problem lies. Not in the "It helps them read" argument, but "It helps them find fanaticism".

If they just want to read, start them on "A Very Hungry Caterpillar" and work through "The Gruffalo", "Where The Wild Things Are" until you reach the heights of Shakespear, Austen or even Mick Foley.

Because I'm pretty sure that Jane Eyre could have Bella in a fight anyway.

 

[klakkat]

Well. There's a couple things at play.

First, there is nothing inherently 'great' or 'sacred' about reading. Just because it's a book doesn't make it fundamentally better than, for example, a movie. The medium a story is presented on only limits the presentation, it doesn't add anything to the story itself, which is the only truly important thing. It is important to be literate, of course, but beyond that there's nothing special about reading.

Second, there is only one effective way for people to punish a shitty writer: don't buy their stuff. Until mind-control becomes prominent (and it would pretty much remove any point to doing this...) there is no effective way to prevent people from buying the works of hacks. Reviews and the like help, but the only ones most people read are on the book itself, which are always good reviews.

Finally, I hesitate to say any form of communication makes us weaker as a country. There will always be idiots; there will always be idiots who think they're great, and both will want to talk your ear off or vomit on paper and try to sell it. Regardless, it's worth it to weather idiocy to keep freedom of speech and thought strong, even if it does mean many people start developing unhealthy tolerances to aspirin.

 

[Blurbl]

"Good" books and "Bad" books is a subjective term. What I don't understand is why everyone assumes that "bad" books are going to turn our society into a brainless husk. They're books that are popular because people like them, they are easy to read and deal with popular themes in a typical way.

Sometimes I feel like a provocative, stimulating novel such as 1984, Animal Farm, and (the goddforsaken) Catcher in the Rye. Sometimes I just want to read about dragons and supersoldiers and whatever.

Reading is a hobby, not an essential aspect of life as most of you seem to think. Not everyone is cultured enough as you lot to want to read "good" material, or deal with the themes they present.

Now, I loathe HALO. No excuses, no arguments, but I've no problem with people being fans of HALO because they just run around making PEW PEW noises and saying that HALO invented FPS's.

But the fans of these books are book terrorists. Not since the heyday of Star Trek have I seen people who are willing to cut you (no metaphor) to defend their book.

Woah woah woah woah. Thanks for calling me a retard, you generalising asshole. So it isn't possible for a mature reader to like a book, simply because of it's branding?