Veeky Forums Guilty pleasures

No shame here, I love me some King

Never read it in English but I enjoy the Latin translation.

The whole British boarding school setting is super comfy, not to mention the friendships between Harry and co.

I own every single Irvine Welsh and Chuck Palahniuk book. I live vicariously through their degenerate characters, especially Welsh's.

I have quite a few star wars books.

What the fuck is wrong with liking King?

It's popular so the hipsters on here hate it

I enjoy asoiaf.

Veeky Forumssters dont like him because he is simple. His books and themes are very accessible and he's popular with teens and moms alike.

i have about 100 pages left in "It", my first king book. I really enjoyed it. what should i read next?

I read Gene Wolfe when I'm tired

There ain't no guilty pleasure in that. Gene Wolfe is a fine writer.

Sickboy?

I love your dog eared copy of The Stand, both my mom and my brother have severely dog eared copies at home

pleb.

big difference between chuck palahniuk and stephen effing king

>Dreamcatcher
>The Tommyknockers

Didn't King disown those books?

true crime

I buy most of it online because I feel like a fucking jackass walking up to the counter with some schlocky-looking Green River Killer book or something.

The very hungry caterpillar is my favourite work of non fiction

Sorry I thought Palahniuk was considered edgy teen genre trash on this board. That's why I thought he'd be a guilty pleasure in the eyes of lit.
Basically the whole heroin crew. I especially love vignettes and plot lines that involve Begbie or Juice Terry. Mostly Juice Terry for his sex life.

heyoo mate

I"ve just finished Porno last week after reading Skagboys and Trainspotting. I own other 3 Irvine's books aswell

Complete Richard Blade series (dimension-hopping ubermensch Bond spy becomes Conan in other realms).

Oh, and Brian Lumley's Necroscope series.

You people do not like literature. Please leave the board, you cannot not contribute anything useful here.

no u

Bridget Jone's diary was pretty good

I have all the Tintin and Asterix books.

nothing to be ashamed of there
me too

top-tier shitpost, lad

For me its James Bond and Conan books no matter the author. Also, fucking Star Wars novels.

Do you know the difference between you and these people?

These people probably enjoy reading.

They probably get more out of it than you because they're reading simple and accessible works that one can absorb deeply and easily and put wonder on the brain.

You read inaccessible works by authors that are popular based on the obscurity of their works, and I'll bet you get very little to show for it in the end despite your immense sense of superiority over your fellow literates.

You know what? I think you are afraid to read Stephen King, Agatha Christie, Ray Bradbury, or Charles Dickens. I think you're afraid you might realize that you not only enjoy them tremendously, but that you get more out of them than a feeble reading and a Wikipedia summary of whatever angsty pseudo-intellectual bullcrap that you've cherry-picked off some list you found in a PNG image compiled on a Norwegian doorknob collector forum's back alley of boards.

You sicken me. Read whatever you like, make your own decisions. Get off of Veeky Forums. Only you can make judgements on what you think is good.

Wait, so you speak and read English (or something that isn't latin), but you choose to read it in a completely different language...
Are you literally autistic?

you are projecting so hard its fucking ridiculous. these authors don't offer anything legitimate for the readers to engage with and are subpar. if you attempt to read these authors, ponder over them, and ultimately, read deeply, i don't think its possible to enjoy reading stephen king. i've tried and it was tedious. it's very bad. and charles dickens isn't bad.

Have you ever considered that you can read for reasons other than 'muh deeper meaning'?
Like enjoyment for example?

The Aubrey-Maturin series. Are they even considered a guilty pleasure here on Veeky Forums? They don't explore any deep themes or anything like that, but the sense of adventure is great.

>if I don't like it others can't

understanding literature is what is enjoyable, do you like going out and watching fucking spiderman 70? you don't legitimately enjoy literature if you enjoy these books, stop lying to yourself.

>agree with my opinions or you're wrong
I'll just let this speak for itself.

The subtle mind can find worthwhile thoughts in contemplating a blade of grass, or a lady's gasp, or the swish and thunk of an axe.

You're just grumpy.

There's not really.

...

>hard literature isn't enjoyable
Jesus fuck, dude, just cause you don't get what makes great works great doesn't mean it isn't a joy for those who genuinely appreciate it. You think people who buy fine steaks only do it to look cool and that they secretly crave mcdoubles? Who's the pretentious one here?

I didn't say it wasn't enjoyable, I said that when you claim that anything that isn't 'hard literature' doesn't belong, you look like a jackass.

It's not even the fact that these aren't "hard literature," they're just bad literature. Something doesn't have to be difficult to read to be good; these authors are just legitimately terrible with no redeeming merits and you defend them by saying "well you can enjoy them too!" Why should you read rather than read some Turgenev?

Someone here doesn't understand the point of "Guilty Pleasures"
But that's besides the point, anyway, you didn't give any reason WHY those writers/opinions are bad beyond "don't offer anything legitimate for the readers to engage with and are subpar. if you attempt to read these authors, ponder over them, and ultimately, read deeply, i don't think its possible to enjoy" which pretty damn well fits with wanting the enjoyment to stem from trying to think of some deeper meaning.

The board says "literature", by definition anything short of literature doesn't belong. I'm glad that there's stuff like the genre fic general for variety's sake, but the board should for the most part stick to its topic. This scrappy punching up is just shitposting, and detrimental to the quality of the board.

yeah, you're right. i guess i don't really consider reading stephen king legitimately "reading," but that isn't the point. i understand that you can still enjoy it, but for different reasons i guess. sorry i was being a retard, i didn't really think.

Poorly written books are, by definition, still literature.

DELET

My guilty pleasure is Iain M Banks famalam

Let me be clear, by "hard literature" I meant solid or concrete, bedrock. Not necessarily "difficult". I don't think literature is difficult if you're used to literature in general, and it's a pretty awful measure of what makes a work good or bad because its an even more subjective can of worms and distracts from the actual merits within.

Of all the genre fiction writers, Veeky Forums seems to be the most accepting of these guys, but I love the Pulp Trinity
>H.P. Lovecraft
>Robert E. Howard
>Clark Ashton Smith

My (inferior, loathsome, terrifying creature called the) nigger.

What are you rereading this fall?

this triggers the Veeky Forums

Wait, people here think Ray Bradbury is bad?

That's it, I'm never coming back again.

Those Necroscope books are pretty damn awesome.

You poor guy. Look, my Blade books and Necroscope books amuse me at times, as do many comics, bad tv shows, and anything else that catches my fancy.
But I also have four degrees, my doctorate is in Victorian and medieval literature, and I've been teaching at two universities for a decade now. I have read and studied a large part of the canon over the past twenty-odd years and have published articles and book chapters. Claiming that enjoyment of popular entertainment is incompatible with literary knowledge is as silly as claiming that no classical musician could ever enjoy a pop song, or that no ballet dancer should ever go to a club. Most of us have nostalgia-based popular crap taste that predates our later education, and that's fine. It gives us some grounding in the current popular world we live in, and reminds us that the line between art and entertainment is often blurred. I teach genre fiction courses and literature courses, and there are titles that show up in both classes. If you don't like anything that isn't academic-approved, that's fine, but don't think that is evidence of your superior education or finer intellect. Try to find a professor without some quirky affection for some guilty pleasure. We don't lose our credentials by slumming: relax.

How exactly do you think people improve their skills in another language?

Also, the fact that you felt the need to add the extraneous '(or something that isn't latin)' on an English-speaking site to a comment written in perfect English tells me that you are in fact the autist.

Both of you are autistic.

You're comment is essentially correct, but undercut with hyperbole.

What people on Veeky Forums fear most is the fundamental ambiguity that lies just underneath their shortcut judgments on the intellect of others.

They want to feel that they are able to decide that so and so reads such and such and so so and so is clearly a fool. However, the truth is far more variable. Dumb people read dumb books. Smart people read smart books. Dumb people read smart books. And smart people read dumb books. Setting aside this tangled truism for a moment, let's just concentrate on the notion of the "intelligent" person.

If Einstein (to take a trope of intelligence) was to read a Stephen King novel, and even enjoy its pedestrian prose, would he cease to be a towering intellect? I don't think so. Maybe the reader can be smarter than the writer at times. Maybe the reader can be insightful regarding a lesser work. Perhaps a true intellect doesn't need to protect themselves from the accessible. Who knows? It all seems very complicated. But that's exactly the point. You don't know who it is that's reading what you have judged to be trash. So you can judge the literature, but not necessarily the person reading it.

Of course, half the people who read this comment immediately decided the whole thing was a bunch of trash, privy to the fact that I must be a pseud because I used 'you're' in place of 'your'.

tldr; hasn't all the fine literature you've read thought you to be a little less judgmental, if anything?

That Jules omnibus looks nice. How is it? Been reading in Amazon that its a good translation.

Is it unabridged, right?

Yes, Walters has been giving us about the first accurate unabridged English versions of Verne ever (a bizarre thought), and it's refreshing to read them. I only have that omnibus and his translation of Sphinx of the Ice Realm, though. Walter makes Verne's prose quite casual, as he claims the original would have sounded to French readers back in the 1860s, so it's not always as satisfying as prose, but definitely worthwhile for a mere $20 on amazon!

I read harder works because I treasure my time, and i don't want to be wasting it on things that i have a feeling won't teach me anything valuable. I don't want to come off aggressive, and I wish I could read for entertainment's sake, but I am scared of wasting my time.

Therefore I search for what's valuable where I think the valuable is most certain to exist

Teenage me loved these books.

I re-read them 2 years ago and found them trifling, I more enjoyed remember discussing them with friends than reading them.

I like Le Carre, super comfy read. Still wating for more movies of the Karla trilogy

They certainly are pulpy trifles, no question, and Blade is much worse. If they were excellent literature, they wouldn't be guilty pleasures. But I read everything, and I found Asterix and the Goths in Latin!

I love the entire Discworld series, are they considered sub-par here?

They're clever and usually well-written, for the most part.

A sensible policy, though not for everyone. But that's a long way from the guy telling a dozen strangers to get off lit because they have nothing to offer, based on their confession to occasionally enjoying low-brow stuff.

That's not the point. The point is not to have contempt for people who read books that by your standards might be a "waste of time". I very intelligent person might uncover the answer to the mysteries of the universe by reading the back of a cereal box.

The reading material is never an exact reflection of the reader. That's the only point I'm making.

I understand, but I was just trying to point out that there are people that choose not to read light-readings and not because of any elitist agenda. I am always and forever opposed to a vulgar battle between these parties