After Hurricane Katrina, Obie Joe decided to load up the minivan for a trip to the hometown. What better bulk than dozens of books slated for one of NOLA's recently reopened schools?
A woman in the neighborhood responded to our call for donated books. In her living room, boxed and labeled, were hundreds of books.
"What can I say? I'm a romance novel junkie. I love a good story," she shrugged. Turns out she bought and read about 30 books a month, which is about the average for romance novels.
Pulp fiction, romance, sci-fi, historical fiction....all easily derided as detriments to "true" literature, yet for the readers of these forms, the story is key, and they could care less about the aspirations of the form.
Ms. Obie Joe loved today's Lev Grossman's editorial in The Wall Street Journal reminding us that literature shouldn't exult in distancing itself from the reader. Perhaps one of the reasons why Young Adult as well as graphic novels are gathering huge contingents of new fans might be a response to the lack of good stories found in grown-up lit.
(credit: Jon Krause, Wall Street Journal for graphic)
No comments:
Post a Comment