I'd rather be somewhere else.

From Shelf Awareness…

1. Lackluster graphic novel/comic book adaptations
2. “Self-help” guides doing more harm than good
3. Bandwagon-jumping
4. Self-indulgent celebrity memoirs
5. “Revolutionary” diet plans
6. Celebrity authors who just can’t write
7. “Women’s literature” with reductionist views of women
8. Remixing the classics
9. Assuming genre fiction has nothing to say
10. Dismissing all self-published literature

I’m not sure #4 and #6 should be separate, and #2 should just be “Self-help guides”. But I am particularly vehement about #8 - as hilarious as I’m sure “Android Karenina” is, and as explicitly interesting “Pride and Prejudice: The Wild and Wanton Edition” might be, the fact is that they’re watering down classics so that people will be enticed to read them for the explosions, battle scenes, and bodice ripping.

And there is plenty of raunchiness in Victorian literature - you just have to know how to read it. There’s no appreciation for subtlety anymore.

Which brings me to #9. Fiction doesn’t get much appreciation…in fact sometimes it gets condescension. But fiction allows authors to present an every day world with recognizable characters without using real people, which could bring preconceived notions about their personalities to the work. It allows authors to make statements about the human condition (especially in short stories) that are incredibly insightful (when well written). And it is the genre that supports the first argument that most of us heard for reading - it will take you to other places, other worlds, and provides an escape.

tl;dr - all the most profitable forms of writing are also the most insipid and brain-draining, and the ones that encourage imagination and intelligence are either being buried under an avalanche of “books” like this, or looked down upon because they don’t take place in the real world.

tl;dr - Read. For the love of God, read. And read things people in bookstores suggest to you. We know what we’re talking about.