An Open Letter to Book Snobs

image via an internet auction site I’d prefer not to be seen to be endorsing.

Dear Book Snobs:

Stop.

Just.  Stop.

I know you’re proud of your degree in English or literature or lit crit.  I know I’m very proud of mine in religion, theology, and nursing.  You should be.  But having that piece of paper, even having informed opinions, doesn’t give you the right to be judg-y about what other people read.  Not all books are For Whom the Bell Tolls or Madame Bovary or Great Expectations.  And thank Apollo for that because if they were, we would all be very, very bored.  Also, Madame Bovary is annoying.  I mean, the whining and the sex in carriages and the whining.  Holy crow, the whining.  Flaubert, you’re flauboring as hell and have an understanding of neither the female mind nor the female libido.  Go French yourself.

B.S., you may enjoy some of the aforementioned novels and their brethren (I like For Whom the Bell Tolls).  If you do, all the power in the word verse to you, but that is your way.  Not mine.  Not anyone else’s.

B.S., your cannon does not have to be my cannon.  In fact, brace yourself, I don’t really consider myself to have a cannon.  I’ve read The Iliad and The Odyssey several times, not because someone told me I should, but because I enjoy them.  Same with Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (3), The Satanic Verses (2), and In the Name of the Rose.  I started A Tale of Two Cities three times, however, and got bored.  I finished Anna Karenina, but spent most of my reading time wanting to throw myself under a train (and I as on vacation.  In Spain).

B.S., many of you (though not all) are young.  Unencumbered.  You don’t have kids or day jobs though, like me, you are probably trying to write a novel.  You, however, are likely attempting to write the GREAT AMERICAN one, where as I am trying to write something people will enjoy reading.   You have all the time in the world.  I do not.  Not having all the time in the world means my reading time is also limited.  And having limited reading time means one doesn’t pick up a massive tome just because someone tells her she should; she picks it up only if she wants to read it.

What I want to read is a good story.  I don’t care if it’s plausible in this reality, only in the reality of the book.  I want characters who, even if they’re orcs and elves, give me a glimpse of the human psyche.  I want a story I can lose myself in, that will allow me to forget this world for a while and wrap me up in the world of the story.

If you continue to scorn me, I will point out to you the novels you prize that suck.  Jeckyl and Hyde (boring), War of the Words (as novelization, boring), Wuthering Heights (boring), Gulliver’s Travels (poorly disguised allegory), The Fountainhead (WTF), and Clan of the Cave Bear (who cares).

Let me give you some suggestions: Kameron Hurley.  Stephen Blackmoore.  Joanne Harris.  Mary Robinette Kowal  Genevieve Valentine.  John Scalzi.  Chuck Wendig.  V.E. Scwab.  Ed Brubaker.  Greg Rucka.  Benajmin Constable.  Roddy Doyle.  Gillian Flynn.  Joe Hill.  Jim Hines.  Kristopher Jansma.  Richard Kadrey.  Frances Knight.  Sergei Lukanyenko.  Matt Ruff.  Mary Doria Russell.  Daniel Prince.  Dough Sharp.  Will Storr.  Helene Wecker.  Andy Weir.  And those are just appetizers.

If you don’t like them, at least you gave it a shot.  Then, you can do your reading and I’ll do mine.

Now, begone.  Before somebody drops a house on you.