By now much fanfare has been made over the New York Times Book Review article that appeared yesterday entitled "It's Not You, It's Your Books". (You can find the link to the article here) While as an avid reader, I found it hilarious, I also found part of it mildly appalling.
Are we really such snobs that we will chuck a person like stale leftovers into the trash just because they'd rather read The Historian over A Prayer for Owen Meany? While it's true that what a person chooses to read can be a strong indicator of their tastes, personality, and character, I think that what this article didn't take into consideration is the type of reader an individual might be.
Here's what I mean...a close friend of mine is a brilliant, independent, and logical chemistry professor at an East Coast university, who in her spare time happens to love reading what I like to refer to as "bodice rippers". You know, those cheap scintillating paperbacks that you find little old ladies hoarding piles of at the weekly library book sale. Now if someone saw her reading one of these say in a coffee shop, they'd probably look her up and down, raise their perfectly tweezed eyebrows, smirk, and walk away with their $4 frappachino, relishing in their supposed intellectual superiority.
Sometimes people purposely read things that are outside of their comfort zone, so to speak. Exposing oneself to new genres, authors, and subjects is not only how we grow as readers, but as human beings.
So as we're taught in kindergarten not to judge a book by its cover, I think that we shouldn't necessarily judge a reader by their books.
After all, in this fast, fast, fast, get-it-to-go society, shouldn't we simply appreciate the fact that someone is taking the time to take a seat, slow down, and let themselves be carried away by a nice story?
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