Guilty Pleasure-Derek

Mick Folley is a good choice as a guilty pleasure. I haven't read any of his books, but I've actually seen him at Kings Dominion riding the rides with his kids before. As far as books go, I'm not to sure about anything that I've read that's been a guilty pleasure consistently. I remember my mother tried to turn me into a Harry Potter fanatic, but I wasn't really into those books. But there is one book that I was embarrassed to tell people I read during my teenage years, Western stories.  Growing up my dad and my grandfather would watch Westerns and before you knew it I grew to like them.

I remember one summer on a road trip I decided to read a Western book "How the West was Won" by Louis L'Amour. I had seen the movie so I thought the book would be interesting and I could compare the nuances from the book and the movie. Its the story of how pioneers crossed paths on their journey to go West. While on this excursion they had to fight for their survival and overcome unfortunate events. But through all these unfortunate situations, they succeeded and were considered some of the early pioneers of the West. I remember after reading it, and telling my dad that I thought the book was better than the movie. I had a new respect for the genre after that.

I haven't read any Western stories to much after, but I do read about characters from the time and I do tend to watch a Western movie every now and then. So it was a phase in my younger years that I may pick back up in the near future. Anythings possible.

Re: Guilty Pleasures- Jessica

Since I've already admitted this to the class, I don't feel so bad about putting it in writing-- yes, I read the entire Twilight series. Which is pretty much as bad as it gets! I didn't particularly enjoy it, nor is it exceptional writing. But it happened.

Like Adina, I too fell into the trap of the 50 Shades trilogy. [And unlike Adina] I read them all. Y'all, they are bad. Like really bad.

In the case of both of these series I (like many others I presume) felt like I had to read them to see what all of the hype was about and to form my own opinion. These series though really fall deep into guilty pleasures category. Actually... I really just feel guilty about it.

On another note, as someone pointed out, I think what we define as a guilty pleasure varies with each individual. Though he is pretty popular, Nicholas Sparks would easily fall into my guilty pleasures column. It's been several years since I've made it through one of his novels. When I was in high school, I quickly became obsessed with A Walk to Remember-- first the book than the movie, of course. And then there was The Notebook. Later in college I read a few back to back (thank you college roommate), but honestly can't remember which ones they were. They all started to merge together as one story in my head.

These days, I don't find myself reading a whole lot of books I would feel ashamed of. I mostly stick with recommended books or reads I know that will make me laugh or intrigue me. I'm trying more now to go back to some of the classics that I would appreciate more or never had the chance to read.

Guilty Pleasures - Derrick

well, let's see. Hahaha Mick Foley used to be my favorite wrestler back when it was WWF! As I got older, I stop watching wrestling and focused on real life issues. But, to answer the post question at hand; what guilty pleasures do I have? Well, I guess it would really have to come down to how we define guilty pleasure. If you're just referring to what I "read for fun… for trash… for escape" then I'd have to really think about this. I do enjoy reading fantasy, drama and fiction. Lately, I've been re-reading books from my childhood.

One that is a guilty pleasure is Gossip Girl by Cecily Von Ziegesar. This young adult series novel has a tv show that followed. I'm not sure if the show is still running but it was funny and full of drama scandals. Basically the series takes place in upper east side NY, with the journey of high school students expericing relationships and typical problems that teens go through. With the secrets and rumors the drama develops. This is a guilty pleasure because clearly, I'm I'm graduate school, these issues don't concern me, but the drama is so juicy.

Another book series that I think has a tv show, Pretty little liars by Sara Shepard. I saw the book a couple years ago when I was in the library. This book is another series of lies, secrets and drama. In the book, Alison goes missing and her friends are keeping a little secret. Then they receive emails and texts and fear that Alison is back. More drama….

I guess we learn more and more about ourselves each day. For me, I've learned that I have a secret enjoyment of teen drama. Particular girl teen lol. What does that say about the society that we live in? Even at the age of 20+, I still enjoy reading this crap lol.

Guilty Pleasure-Adina

Hmmm do I even have any guilty pleasures when it comes to books? I honestly can't think of any but I will say I read books that I'm ashamed to say I did. In high school my fiction teacher received free copies of a new release called Explicit Content by Black Artemis. The book was the average "street-lit" coined book, which if I can recall was about a young woman who manages to be turned into a rapper and gets caught up in the world of sex,drugs,hip-hop and more. I was mad my teacher made us read it for class and upset I read it cover-to-cover.

Sadly, I was amongst the readers who brought The 50 Shades trilogy. In my defense it was the first book for a book club I had joined. I will say that was one book I was embarrassed to be seen with and I had the paperback edition, so no hiding it on an e-reader. I read the first chapter of book one and quickly returned the other two to Amazon for a refund and gave book one away to a friend. I refused to waste my eyes and mind reading that thing and I am disappointed to know it has gained the world-wide success it has. Quality, people, quality! Smh to E.L. James.

Now that I think about it, given I was a big sports fan coming up, I often felt people looked at me weird for reading a biography on Kobe Bryant about three times, and Shaq's autobiography (which was really good). Sports-related books may not be seen as the best material but when you're a fan, you're a fan of the game.

Read without shame. Enjoy the books that grab you and keep you close!

Guilty Pleasures - Aseloka

Guilty Pleasure? Hmmm... That's a good one, Rich! I don't know that I have guilty pleasures any more. When I was younger I used to read Eric Jerome Dickey quite a bit. I liked them at first because the main characters were often accomplished young black people which wasn't a figure I came across often in my literature often at the time. But then they were always getting into some kind of foolishness or had some weird personality quirk that made them a horrible person. Also the plot inevitably shifted toward somebody hooking up... I got tired of that after a while. Same plot over and over. It gets boring. But at the time I felt like they were trashy novels and people looked down on me for reading them, haha.

I do also remember in middle school feeling self conscious about reading science fiction novels. Didn't seem to be a popular genre from what I could tell. I think the problem was mostly failed attempts to summarize the plot in such books and losing people in the process. I'll use my favorite book (which I've mentioned a hundred times) as an example.

Innocent Inquirer: "Oh what's that you're reading, Aseloka?"

Me: "It's called the Snow Queen"

Innocent Inquirer: "Oh really? What's it about?"

Me: "It's about a planet of two peoples: the Summers and the Winters and their Queen. Winter is coming to an end at which point they normally kill the Snow Queen and the Summers take over. But the Snow Queen wants to remain queen forever and wants winter to remain as well so she clones herself amongst the Summers thinking that her daughter will be a Winter and become queen and prevent Winter from ending. The book follows her daughter/clone through her adult life and how she unknowingly becomes the Summer Queen, marries her cousin (who is also in love with the Snow queen), and manages to end Winter's reign over the planet."

Innocent Inquirer: "Ummm... I didn't wanna know all that but whatever..."

Over the years my tastes have changed a bit when it comes to books, but not much. As I've gotten older I just sort of stopped feeling guilty about the types of books I read or the authors. I read because I enjoy the content. No use feeling guilty about it. I love a sappy love story, an action packed sci-fi novel, an uplifting self-help book, an enthralling young adult novel... you name it. I have no boundries!

Re: Are Books Going Out of Style?

Reading has always been an important aspect for me. Personally, I considered myself a late bloomer when it came to liking to read books because I would rather read magazines. Nothing like a visual to go along with some text. But now I'll read a book any day of the week. I used to go to the library all the time as a child and always found myself having a knack for reading more informal content, newspaper articles, encyclopedias and magazines, as oppose to stories as a child. To this day, instead of the library I find myself at Barnes and Nobles when I'm working on/ or researching a project to gather ideas and gain inspiration from books and anything I can get my hands on.

I believe books are still relevant for kids these days, I have a niece and nephew that I always buy books for. My nephew isn't into them as much as my niece, but he reads books that appeal to what he likes to watch.  It's nothing for here to go through a chapter book in a day or two. After they finish we sit down and talk about what they read. If there not reading books there usually reading something on the iPad or laptop. I think the schools are leaning more towards teaching on the computer. So I think they're getting these skills from both books and technology.

Reading is still the backbone of education and I don't think it'll ever go out of style.

Are books going out of style (Christina)

I can honestly say that I did not "get" reading for pleasure until I was in college and it was out of pure necessity.  It's a shame, but somehow I made it through public school education escaping reading the classics.  At the time, I thought I had really pulled one over.  Fast forward to college, as a rising junior I found myself life guarding full time at a pool that rarely had swimmers on my shift.  I thought I would loose my mind from boredom and after complaining to my roommates, I was given The Vampire Lestat.  From the turn of the first page that summer, I was hooked!  I drank books down one after the other, story after story,  genre to genre. Reading is pure pleasure for me today, I find myself grumbling when life is too busy for me to quiety enjoy a book.  To the point of this post, it is a concern to think that reading could go out of style.  I am not sure where I heard this information, but an important study conducted by some important so so said - children are completely loosing their creativity and imagination because they are fed images (tv, video games, preschool technology games) at such an early age that they already have preconceived images planted in their minds and they are loosing the ability to create their own personal images/experiences from what they read.  This was devasting news because part of what I love about reading is creating the movie in my head, the faces and images in my own mind, without seeing them first.  You ask an important question.