Guilty (Reading) Pleasures
Cross-posted from Deadline Dames, where there are reader contests and giveaways. Go take a look!
Guys, I’m sorry. My brain is a big smooth billiard ball inside my noggin. I’m pooped. A big in-depth post about writing today? Forget it. Instead, I’m going to give you a Bulleted List. Because a List is what I do when I’m too tired to tango, you know.
Five Guilty (Book) Pleasures
You read that right. Five books I love, that I feel a little bit guilty when I read. Maybe because they’re pulpy, maybe because I enjoy them so much…maybe for no good reason. They’re not quite Cheeto reads, but they’re still guilty pleasures.
* Stephen King’s It You know, it just doesn’t get any better than this monster. I really think this is King at the top of his game, even if I stop reading the moment Bill puts Audra on the bicycle. For me, this read is all about the Losers growing up, and I love every minute of it, even the terrifying parts. You know, it probably says something if this is one of my comfort reads. I’m just not quite sure WHAT it says.
* Nancy Price’s Sleeping With the Enemy Forget that silly movie with Julia Roberts. The book is seven different flavors of awesome. I think I love it for some of the same reasons I love Frankie & Johnny–not so much for the main characters as for the glimpses of life that go on around them, and the characterizations of the secondary and tertiary people in the story.
* Charles Bukowski’s Factotum On nights when I can’t sleep, Bukowski helps. Yes, the book is about the adventures of a misogynistic, alcoholic, ugly, and emotionally stunted individual. It is also one of the most searingly honest looks at poverty and wage slavery around. And even though I hate Bukowski’s attitude toward women, I also think he was terrifically talented as an honest writer. Oh, and Post Office kicks major ass too.
* LJ Smith’s Forbidden Game series I love LJ Smith’s YA novels, specifically the Forbidden Game and the Dark Visions series. I loved them like candy and read them over and over again. Her Vampire Diaries series is enjoying a resurgence, but it didn’t set me on fire the way the other two did.
* Last but not least in any way, Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow, quite frankly one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. From the very beginning (I can quote bits of the opening chapter from memory and get a chill each time I do) to its inexorable conclusion, to everything in between–it’s just gorgeous, and Smilla herself is one of the best female characters in fiction. Hoeg’s other stuff hasn’t really impressed me the way Smilla has, but I keep coming back to this book over and over again–and, like White Oleander, I buy copies to give to people.
There you have it, five of my guilty pleasures. Some of them are books that I enjoy and luxuriate in so much it feels, well, sinful. (There’s the Puritan in me struggling against the chains of reasonable hedonism. I like to sip a mint mojito while I watch that struggle.) Others are books that just feel like eating junk food, but won’t make me feel slightly queasy afterward. (Much better than junk food.) And all of them, I think, are worth a try.
So, what’s your guilty reading pleasure?
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Tags: about me, books, deadline dames, Friday Writing, pretty shinies
March 20th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
I struggle with the concept of guilty-pleasure books. Why do I feel that way? Is it a reflection of society’s condescension toward certain genres? Is it an elitist attitude I harbor as a writer that “I could do better” (whether true or not)? Your line “Others are books that just feel like eating junk food” particularly struck me. What gives it that quality? Because it doesn’t require as much thought to “digest” as other books? Does that make it less worthy somehow? And we circle the wagons back to my original question.
For the record, I’m not a fiction re-reader.
March 20th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Well, right off the top of my head, I’d say my guilty reading pleasures are:
Dennis Lehane’s “Kenzie&Gennaro series”
Anne Bishop’s “Black Jewels Trilogy”
Jorge Amado’s “Dona Flor and her two husbands”
There are others that are candidates for the role of guilty pleasures, but they’re too recent right now, I still have to read them again. Though I have a feel it’ll happen sooner rather than later.
March 20th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
When Stephenie Meyer became popular all I could think of was L.J. Smith was ahead of her time.
March 21st, 2009 at 7:42 am
Sharon Green “silver princess, golden night” I like a lot of her books, but would hate for anyone to know that I like her books…
Julie Garwood. I reread her about once a year.
Johanna Lindsey. I love her set on the Mallorys.
I want to say others, but I haven’t gone back to them yet…
March 21st, 2009 at 1:54 pm
La petite Fadette from G.Sand ,i read it when i was probably 12 y old and was blown away .
It still give me butterflies in the belly every time i re-read it.
So i know it’s a kids book ,i know it’s a bit “simple” and *gasp* champêtre but you know what ?
i don’t care! My four year old has a stinky Teddie ,me i have this book.
March 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 am
smilla’s sense of snow is probably one of my all-time favorite books — it is just perfectly constructed, down to each sentence, and smilla is so frustratingly real that i feel like i could bump into her at the grocery store. i just tried reading hoeg’s “the quiet girl” and it was not nearly as soul-sucking as smilla. translator, perhaps?
five books i read over and over: mystic and rider by sharon shinn, the one hundred and one dalmatians by dodie smith, charlie and the chocolate factory by roald dahl, deerskin by robin mckinley, and a great and terrible beauty by libba bray. and smilla. always smilla.
March 25th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
Okay, a little behind on checking blogs, but I sooo loved L.J. Smith’s Forbidden Game Triology and the Vampire Diaries were good too, I devoured those each in a day a piece and I just finished reading the brand new one that came out last month and it was pretty good. Considering there was a major time gap from the original publishing date to the present, some changes were made, like the characters having cell phones! and mentioning that it was the 21st century even though it was the 20th century when they first came out and the teens graduated in 92!
Another series that I loved for whatever reason was Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie’s Wicked series which was canceled in 02-03 ish, very upsetting, especially since there was a cliffhanger ending, no worries! Nancy and Debbie are picking the series up again due to recent sales and the new book comes out this summer! Was extremely happy about that!
I guess reading any YA book, since I am 21, and getting so engrossed in it, like L.J. Smith’s books, makes it my gulity reading pleasure. I feel like since I am so grown up (old doesn’t feel right) that I should be reading at my given age level, such as Lilith’s books here!