Peg Herring's Blog - Posts Tagged "prejudice"
Guilty of Book Prejudice?
I will admit that I am. If I've somewhere along the line decided I don't like an author or a book, I cannot make myself give him/it another chance. Classics that I should read (THE BROTHERS K, for example) turned me off and I can't get over it. Authors I find preachy, silly, shallow or overly dramatic may have other series, other books than the one I read, but my expectation is that I won't like their work.
Last night I took a copy of a VERY famous author's newest book (given as a freebie at Malice Domestic) and tried to read it. I had read her stuff long ago and disliked it, but it's been years. She's probably gotten better; I've probably gotten over it. Right?
Conditions were right: I had nothing else to read, the evening was long, and I was relaxed. On the first page, I hit a sentence that reminded me of what I didn't like before, and that was it.
There's an opposite to this which shows that some people are better than I am. (Maybe better readers, maybe better people!) Last week a woman admitted to me that someone had recommended my book to her, but she'd been reluctant to read it. "I don't like history," she told me. "I was never interested in the past, and I don't like stories about dead famous people." What, then, makes her a better person than I am? Her final sentence. "But I tried your book and I have to tell you. I couldn't put it down." Now there's an unprejudiced reader (Applause, applause, applause).
Last night I took a copy of a VERY famous author's newest book (given as a freebie at Malice Domestic) and tried to read it. I had read her stuff long ago and disliked it, but it's been years. She's probably gotten better; I've probably gotten over it. Right?
Conditions were right: I had nothing else to read, the evening was long, and I was relaxed. On the first page, I hit a sentence that reminded me of what I didn't like before, and that was it.
There's an opposite to this which shows that some people are better than I am. (Maybe better readers, maybe better people!) Last week a woman admitted to me that someone had recommended my book to her, but she'd been reluctant to read it. "I don't like history," she told me. "I was never interested in the past, and I don't like stories about dead famous people." What, then, makes her a better person than I am? Her final sentence. "But I tried your book and I have to tell you. I couldn't put it down." Now there's an unprejudiced reader (Applause, applause, applause).
