News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on A woman who went to the library and read every book on the shelf (2014). Parent comment

Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by omaranto on Sunday October 15, 2017 @12:11PM (#15477734)
That idea that reading is inherently virtuous has bothered me my whole life! I read a lot (well, at least I did before I had children) and have always been complimented on it which annoyed me to no end because I knew much of what I read was pretty trashy. I've had to explain to people so many times that a good portion of the books I read are no better than the movies or TV shows they watch, I just happen to like reading to relax.

And by the way, I don't believe in giving up on junk books. I think a good mix of fun but trashy and serious books is better. Just like anything in life: I wouldn't want to have only deep meaningful conversations or eat only fine dining or only write computer programs that do something useful or stop playing basketball just because I'm terrible at it or learn only prestigious fields of math... I think it's OK to do something just for fun, not everything needs to be edifying.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by Grustaf on Sunday October 15, 2017 @02:22PM (#15478367)
Reading even a bad book is better than watching TV. Apart from the content the act of reading itself is very wholesome. You need to conjure up an entire world out of thin air, imagine what all the characters look like, how they sound etc.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by gozzoo on Sunday October 15, 2017 @03:33PM (#15478843)
Can you give some examples of 'fun but trashy' books?
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by KGIII on Sunday October 15, 2017 @05:22PM (#15479372)
The Destroyer Series, about Remo Wlliams, Chiun, and the martial art known as Sinanju. They even made a movie and a tv pilot.

They are absolutely horrible. They give you nothing of value, not even education. They were mostly written by two authors who grew to despise each other,

They take a couple of hours to read, maybe a little more. They are the pinnacle of pointless time wasting. I read most of them while in the service.

They are perfect in every way.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by omaranto on Sunday October 15, 2017 @05:59PM (#15479555)
I'm not sure I'd still recommend them now, but when I read them many, many years ago I really enjoyed David Morrell's [1] novels about highly trained assassins. They had titles of the form The $GROUP_OF_PEOPLE of the $THING: The Brotherhood of the Rose, The Fraternity of the Stone, The Covenant of the Flame, The League of Night and Fog (and maybe a few others whose titles didn't match that pattern, I think Testament was about the same characters, but can'lt really remember).

------------

[1] David Morrell is probably best known for First Blood, the novel Rambo is based on.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A woman who went to the library and read every book on th... by chis on Sunday October 15, 2017 @11:06PM (#15480587)
Ready Player One is probably the peak of this genre
[ Parent | on HN ]