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

[astrange.livejournal.com]

Piers Anthony books seem to be completely random with regards to quality. I've read at least one book of his (though I've completely forgotten the title) which had less engaging writing than Watch Your Brain does. And Xanth has gone completely unreadable even if you are 13, unless you don't mind reading books made entirely out of reader-submitted puns. Somewhere in between there and the first Xanth books (which were just sort of boring), he did manage to produce a few that I still think are actually good. The only example I can think of immediately is Castle Roogna, though.