Reading For The Heck Of It

When people learn that you enjoy reading books, they seem to automatically expect at least one of the following:

• You are reading only politically-correct, age-appropriate, unoffensive, generally approved books.
• You are reading books for the sole purpose of developing yourself, i.e. you read philosophical / academic / otherwise heavy books.

Most automatic assumptions are wrong, and these are no exceptions. Besides the “heavy” stuff I pick up from time to time, I love books for their own sake! A book doesn’t have to teach me some important concept or change my whole life for me to like it. There are plenty of books I read for the sheer heck of it, sometimes even for cheap thrills, without expecting to find anything too deep in them. And I don’t think this is condemnable. It’s better than watching soap operas at any rate :P

My current just-for-fun book is Stephenie Meyer’s New Moon, second in the Twilight series. Some see it as worthless because:

• it doesn’t (seem to) teach the reader anything;
• it promotes unrealistic standards / expectations;
• there is little or no character development during the story (in the first book, at least)

But it’s still with me because:

• it’s fun!