More teenage bookcase embarrassments

[mmcirvin]

Crooked Timber has a thread up on the ever-popular subject of books you're embarrassed to have loved, as discussed here over a year ago.

What's striking is that the same names keep coming up over and over: Erich von Däniken, Richard Bach, Ayn Rand, Piers Anthony, Robert Heinlein (though several people point out that the shame with Heinlein is not to enjoy his work but to take him as your personal guru). And Jake even mentioned Colin Wilson in a very different context.

Somebody quoted Ursula Le Guin as saying that kids might like junk but no kid is dumb enough to like Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Wrong.

Comments

I don't care

[vardissakheli.livejournal.com]

how much people insist they're nothing but word salad, I still love Stephen Donaldson's books.

I also should see if I still have Jonathan Livingston Seagull and try to remember if I really did like it more than Siddhartha.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Donaldson's "The Killing Stroke" is one of the best short stories i've ever read. But his Covenant books are incredible garbage. And he really seems to like writing about rape.