SBD -- My reading vice
Apr. 10th, 2006 08:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jmc_bksIt's that time again -- SBD. I've got some notes written about a couple of things, including reissues and the resulting outdated feeling, and "closeted" romance readers. But then I got to thinking about the composition of my library, such as it is. I have probably 50+ series books. Series as in category, not series like In Death. But why?
The answer is that Harlequin categories/series books are my not-so-secret reading vice. I read maybe one per month; I buy occasionally, but more often read them at the library. I'll pick them up at library sales when they are $0.10 each. They are full of sheikhs, dukes, billionaire Greeks and Italians, self-made businessmen who are miraculously brilliant and wealthy and still young, conflicts that could be resolved if the h/h simply talked to each other, virgin mistresses, and secret love children. All things that drive me crazy, ultimately causing me to fling the books away in disgust. I usually end up donating them back to the library or posting them on PBS. I've even burned a couple of the more heinous ones in my little grill in my back yard.
Why do I keep reading them? Because they were what I cut my romance-reading teeth on. Mommom's bookshelf got me started, but it was closely followed by a box of old HP's someone left behind the counter at work. In the winter, when business was s-l-o-w and all of the work was done and we were as far ahead as we could get in terms of advanced prep, I would sit behind the register and read Harlequins published in the 70s and early 80s. That box was a gold mine! Most of the plots are long since forgotten, but they were fascinating at the time. Once I worked through those, I started going next door to the card shop that also carried books and magazines. The proprietor, Mr. Weaver, didn't approve of my reading material: he had a daughter my age and wouldn't let her read "those books" and didn't think I should be reading them, either. But he didn't disapprove enough to refuse to sell them to me, so I kept reading them. It's lame and sentimental, but there it is. I keep reading them because I loved them when I first started reading romance.
Of course, I was a little bit less discriminating about my reading back then. I was 14; need I say more? Maybe you were discriminating readers at that age, but me? Nah. I mean, I could and did read literary stuff, too, but I sucked up HP's without really analyzing what I was reading. My analysis and expectations of a romance novel are a little different at 32. So my expectations have risen, while it seems like the HP quality has declined. Maybe it hasn't, and I'm just remembering older books with a fond memory. Either way, I still read them. And then toss them aside, frustrated. Maybe some things really should be put aside when you outgrow them. But I haven't been able to do it yet.
The answer is that Harlequin categories/series books are my not-so-secret reading vice. I read maybe one per month; I buy occasionally, but more often read them at the library. I'll pick them up at library sales when they are $0.10 each. They are full of sheikhs, dukes, billionaire Greeks and Italians, self-made businessmen who are miraculously brilliant and wealthy and still young, conflicts that could be resolved if the h/h simply talked to each other, virgin mistresses, and secret love children. All things that drive me crazy, ultimately causing me to fling the books away in disgust. I usually end up donating them back to the library or posting them on PBS. I've even burned a couple of the more heinous ones in my little grill in my back yard.
Why do I keep reading them? Because they were what I cut my romance-reading teeth on. Mommom's bookshelf got me started, but it was closely followed by a box of old HP's someone left behind the counter at work. In the winter, when business was s-l-o-w and all of the work was done and we were as far ahead as we could get in terms of advanced prep, I would sit behind the register and read Harlequins published in the 70s and early 80s. That box was a gold mine! Most of the plots are long since forgotten, but they were fascinating at the time. Once I worked through those, I started going next door to the card shop that also carried books and magazines. The proprietor, Mr. Weaver, didn't approve of my reading material: he had a daughter my age and wouldn't let her read "those books" and didn't think I should be reading them, either. But he didn't disapprove enough to refuse to sell them to me, so I kept reading them. It's lame and sentimental, but there it is. I keep reading them because I loved them when I first started reading romance.
Of course, I was a little bit less discriminating about my reading back then. I was 14; need I say more? Maybe you were discriminating readers at that age, but me? Nah. I mean, I could and did read literary stuff, too, but I sucked up HP's without really analyzing what I was reading. My analysis and expectations of a romance novel are a little different at 32. So my expectations have risen, while it seems like the HP quality has declined. Maybe it hasn't, and I'm just remembering older books with a fond memory. Either way, I still read them. And then toss them aside, frustrated. Maybe some things really should be put aside when you outgrow them. But I haven't been able to do it yet.
