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Guilty Reading

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Reader Twicerandomly asks:

One of my guilty pleasures is novels by Arturo Perez-Reverte. I suppose I don’t take them seriously because they are historical adventures with dashing heroes and beautiful women. What do you think of his novels?

I understand Twicerandomly’s feelings very well. I’m also kind of ashamed of my love for mystery novels. I never managed to get into Perez Reverte because the mix of historical novels and mystery writing is not my cup of tea. However, Perez Reverte is generally considered one of the better mystery authors today, and deservedly so. He writes well and tries to be very conscientious about his research. I’m not personally into him but I understand people who are.

My favorite mystery writers are Ruth Rendell, Elizabeth George, Michael Connelly, John Lescroart, and Peter Robinson.

Do you feel guilty about any of your reading preferences?

21 responses to “Guilty Reading”

  1. Vanessa Sosa Avatar
    Vanessa Sosa

    Does this count, I read and write hockey fan fiction 😀 I also read romance novels from time to time and children’s geography books with lots of pictures, the Lonely Planet guides and such are for my writing research but sometimes I need my brain to take a break 😉

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      Hockey fan fiction?? I didn’t even know that existed! It sounds like something I need to check out.

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      1. Vanessa Sosa Avatar
        Vanessa Sosa

        Yeah, there’s fan fiction all over the place and a ton of websites and forums for it. And there’s fan fic for everything, movies, bands, sports,and with both straight and gay pairings. I post mine on my Blogger account and on the Mibba website, it’s a huge site with original stories, fan fiction, articles, poetry and whatever, I’m Ladyfiaran on that site. And these are some links if you don’t mind: http://www.mibba.com/Stories/Read/448634/Drifting-Into-Deep-Waters/
        http://www.mibba.com/Stories/Read/476247/Higher-Than-Hope/ If you have any time, you ought to check out the site, it can be a bit addictive 😀

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      2. FD Avatar
        FD

        Rule 34 predicts the existence of hockey Facebook fic, but I have to admit, it’s a new one to me.

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  2. FD Avatar
    FD

    Nope not at all, and I suspect that many people would expect me to, given how ahem, catholic my reading tastes are. They encompass novels and genre fiction of all kinds, including the much derided romance, sf and f genres. Some of which is absolutely and unremittingly schlock, and I don’t care. After all, I don’t judge other people for eating chocolate or McDonalds. 😀

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  3. zinemin Avatar
    zinemin

    Oh, I wish I had seen this earlier. I was just in the bookshop today precisely looking for very entertaining, but not stupid guilty reading because my brain needs a break. I find this really hard to find since I easily get annoyed with books. Currently I finish only about half of the books I buy.

    For my past guilty reading, I loved reading “Shantaram”, the “mostly autobiographical story” of an escaped prisoner although the author has some pretty idiotic views and some of it is very schmaltzy. But it is such an exciting story and I enjoyed myself reading it. I also feel kind of guilty for liking Wilkie Collins. I was trying to find “no name” today but of course the bookstore didn’t have it. I also liked “Pushing Ice” by Alastair Reynolds, which is extremely exciting SF.
    And also feel guilty about having read the Hunger Games trilogy, especially given that book 2 and 3 were actually quite bad.

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    1. bloggerclarissa Avatar
      bloggerclarissa

      I read Hunger Games, too, so we can feel guilty together. 🙂

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      1. zinemin Avatar
        zinemin

        You did? I would love to read your analysis analysis of these books. Did you post it and I missed it? I thought they were extremely weird. The heroine seemed to become more and more passive and helpless, and the ending was really strange.

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  4. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I quite enjoy Henning Mankell’s mystery novels. His others, where he’s trying to be “serious”, tend to fall flat.

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  5. Z Avatar
    Z

    Can’t stand Pérez Reverte but for that kind of reading James Lee Burke and no, I do not feel guilty.

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  6. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    I’m writing a novella called SUGAR RUSH IN THE INFANTRY STAGE. It promises to be a killer.

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  7. Sarah Avatar
    Sarah

    I don’t feel guilty about my reading at all. At the moment, it’s totally guided by what falls into my email box from the couple of sites I’m registered with which tell me which Kindle books are free today.

    I read so much I’d be bankrupt if I had to buy all my books, but in return I try to remember to leave a review on Amazon. At the moment I’m reading ‘World War I in an Hour’ because I never got the big picture when I studied it at school and I’ve never understood it as a result.

    I love a good thriller, and have read, and enjoyed, many of Perez-Reverte’s books. He was first recommended to me in a bookshop in Dallas when I went in to ask for a book I’d like to read. The book seller had me sussed after just a couple of questions and handed me the book. I loved it.

    On Saturday I went to a book reading of ‘White Lies’ by the author Lynn Michell who is also the director of Linen Books. She was a brilliant speaker and her reading of a couple of excerpts of her book prompted me to buy it. It’s set in Kenya during the Maui Maui uprising which she lived through.

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    1. Sarah Avatar
      Sarah

      I meant Mau Mau. 🙂

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  8. musteryou Avatar
    musteryou

    I’m currently rereading Georges Bataille’s INNER EXPERIENCE, which I was scared to read again, because of the traumatic nature of his postulates. He’s got this kind of Roman Catholic Nietzschean thing going, where everything necessarily has to end in a bloodbath.

    Mike says, “Oh, it’s just the era he was writing in. He was trying to wake people up.”

    So this is the opposite of guilty reading, although not in the outcome, which always makes you feel like you need to save the world. Or kill it. Or save it. or…

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  9. n8chz Avatar
    n8chz

    I’ll admit to enjoying Mary Higgins Clark, who I suspect is the “real estate novelist” referred to by Billy Joel. Many of her protagonists and some of her miscreants seem to be in real estate.

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    1. Sarah Avatar
      Sarah

      Oh yes, I like her too. I got a windfall of a pile of books by her when my old boss left to go back to the US and his wife couldn’t take her books. I kindly took them off her hands. 🙂

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    2. twicerandomly Avatar
      twicerandomly

      I went through a Mary Higgins Clark period. In many ways, she is not a good writer, and yet I found her books hard to put down. At the moment, I am reading “Narcopolis” which is not guilty reading, but did give me nightmares.

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      1. Sarah Avatar
        Sarah

        Absolutely right. Not well written, but compelling all the same, real page-turners.

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      2. bloggerclarissa Avatar
        bloggerclarissa

        Now I can also confess that I had a Mary Higgins Clark period too. 🙂

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      3. twicerandomly Avatar
        twicerandomly

        That makes me feel much better!

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    3. B Avatar
      B

      Are you refering to the song ‘Piano Man’? The line in that song is:

      Now Paul is a real estate novelist
      Who never had time for a wife

      I somehow doubt Ms Clark never had time for a wife or ever went under the name Paul

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A conservative literary critic and college professor

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