No sooner had I written about why readers shouldn’t write off the classics any more than selectors (be they librarians, educators, booksellers, or whoever) should write off popular or genre fiction, than another reason to check them out came my way via reviewer Colleen Wanglund. An article from the excellent science fiction website iO9 shared the incredible, horrifying illustrations that appeared in Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. Thinking back, it seems like the first volume of Poe’s short stories that I encountered had at least some of these illustrations in them. What a compelling way to seize a reader, to get pulled into the story before ever encountering the possibly frustrating tone, style, pace, and vocabulary of books written a hundred years ago. Yes, it IS worth it to try the real thing, to have it in your hands. Even if you just choose to find it for the pictures.
The Best and Worst of Stephen King
I think we can all agree that Stephen King is such a part of American pop culture that it’s hard to have gotten through the past forty years without experiencing at least one of his stories in book, graphic novel, television, or movie form. Even people who don’t read horror may have read Stephen King- my sister, for instance, who has complete disdain for genre fiction, loved The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. It’s actually one of the few books that she and my dad, who has much different reading tastes, will both discuss enthusiastically with each other.
King is a huge draw for reluctant readers. One King-obsessed guy I knew in college had never read anything until he discovered and devoured King. The Stand is the ONLY book I know of that my best friend has read cover to cover twice (she also brought the audiobook of Nightmares and Dreamscapes with her on an endless car trip we took together one summer to the Pennsic War. King in audio is pretty awesome).
Still, I am really pretty darn impressed that someone took the time to read everything he’s ever written and rank the books in order (click here to see the rankings). I know there are people who have read all of his stuff, but I certainly can’t claim to have done so. The rankings, as rankings always are, are pretty subjective and open to debate, but my gosh! It takes perserverance to get through some of those books (ahem, IT), and for the very reason that many non-readers of horror have found a King book they like, it’s hard, I think, to find someone who will find that all of his books will be personally appealing. I think that actually makes it hard for librarians to know which of his books to recommend. If someone comes in looking for another King book, is it because they loved Lisey’s Story, or because they were scared out of their wits by The Shining? I’d love to know if Becky Siegel Spratford, the RA queen of horror, has a list of read-alikes for them, since so many of them are so different in nature.
I will admit that I haven’t read a lot of the books that made the top ten. Some I had no desire to read, others I had no access to (a lot of the King I read was stolen from my dad’s bedside table). And my favorites, with the exception of Misery, didn’t make the top ten on this particular list. Carrie is right there at the top for me. When I read it in high school (which is the best time to read it) I literally jumped out of my seat when the bell at the end of study hall rang.
So, King. What are your top picks? Do you agree with the author of the rankings list?
Fifty Shades of Shame
I haven’t read Fifty Shades of Grey, but I am outraged by the media’s assumption that women are reading it on ereaders because they’re ashamed for the world to know what they’re reading. While it’s true that most of the copies sold have been ebooks, some of that is probably because print copies have been scarce. I can’t speak for all women, of course, but the last time I checked the catalog in the Indianapolis library system, there were 77 holds. That’s 77 people, probably mostly women, who are okay with marching up to the circulation desk to check it out- 77 people who aren’t ashamed to read a physical copy with a cover that other people might see, even though Dr. Drew announced his disapproval, the media has anointed it “mommy porn”, and many reviewers have not been kind (Jesse Kornbluth at the Huffington Post called it “a sad joke”). The point is, it’s turning a lot of people on to books. Those people are not hiding their taste in reading, they’re celebrating it. Good for them. It’s fine to keep your taste in reading private, of course. But no one should be made to feel that they need to justify or defend it. Why do I read genre fiction on my ereader? It’s not because I’m worried that someone might see I’m reading a book without the Oprah seal of approval. It’s because I read so damn much of it that if I bought physical copies of everything I read I’d be buried in them, and sometimes I’m too impatient to wait for the library.
Whatever you read, be it Fifty Shades of Grey, gory zombie novels, steampunk with parasols, witty Regency romance, or all of the above… here, we stand by your right to read what you want, the way you want to, regardless of what anyone else says, does, or thinks.
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