Thread: What books have you 'snobbed'?

I'm surprised to see so many snobby comments in the unpublished internet community. No really I am.

I confess, I just plain don't like genre stories. I don't read books for a dirty thrill. I want substance and subtlety. 'Cause I'm a snob like that.

I know there's some legitimate, literary sci-fi out there. But weeding through the crap is just too hard. And even then it has the potential to become so overwrought.

As for fantasy and mystery...eh. Just....eh. I'm sure their useful for studying craft...or feeding bonfires or something.

I'm surprised to see so many snobby comments in the unpublished internet community. No really I am.

Being an upublished writer doesn't discredit your opinions of published material. When you have that first half-written story rotting in your hard drive, do you suddenly lose your ability to determine good and bad writing? Does your sense of good taste evaporate?

That's an absurd statement. I know plenty of people who can't write worth a damn but have an excellent sense of what genres and books are and are not worth reading. I'm guessing you can't direct a film as well as Uwe Boll, but that doesn't mean you'd be wrong for saying his films are crap.

Originally Posted by Ghost.X

I'm surprised to see so many snobby comments in the unpublished internet community. No really I am.

Why are you surprised? And who's unpublished? I'd guess that you are...in high school probably. Come back when your ears are dry.

Originally Posted by moderan

I started snobbing Thompson @Generation of Swine

Thank you. That shit was awful.

Things They Carried. Overhyped, poorly written garbage. Fallen Angels, which is pretty much a throwaway 'Nam novel, is better than that piece of crap.

Yes I am a book snob too. I usually stomach my way through them, just to find if I was right about the ending or not. I'm right most of the time. It drives people crazy when they try to make me read a mystery and I already know who the killer is half way through.
I never touched some of the books my mom bought me when I was younger. I usually read half way through before stopping. I hated kids books so much back then (and I still do). The minute they introduced some cute creature that talked in third person, I was done. It then went to the automatic "I'l read this later" pile.

Snobbery is the highest form of insecurity.

I've never "snobbed" anything in my life. I've highlighted what I believe to be weaknesses but I decline to assess any work of art with the view that my criteria for judgement is the correct one. It isn't, nor can it ever be. There is no right way of judging. It's better to learn from authors who are published, even the ones you consider poor. Learn from their strengths and weaknesses. All writing has weaknesses because writing is not an exact science and thank God for that.

The title for this thread should also read: "which books" and not "what books" as you are asking for select examples from a wider range. I guess the important thing to remember is that while snobbery may get you off, it's pretty hurtful to the writer who has spent a great deal of their time writing something they believe in, at least as far as the artistic merit of it is concerned.

There is nothing wrong with firm criticism but this idea of snobbery is not really to my liking. When you have earned the countless millions of a J.K.Rowling and are adored for your writing by a similar number of people, you can be a snob, until then, you're an aspiring writer who should have some kind of respect for those who have made a success of their writing. Whether you like it or not, you're being very bitter if you fail to acknowledge established authors and just brush them off as: "shit" or any other equally meaningless claim.

I keep snobbing Dan Brown.

I have no justification, I've no doubt I will enjoy his books when I get around to reading them. They just always fall to the very back of my GIANT "to read" pile

Originally Posted by Dr. Malone

I have the Dune books, just never read them. Maybe they'll change my mind about Sci-Fi. Someone gave me Wheel of Time when I was in highschool, and I'd never heard of it, thought it would suck, and was incredibly surprised.

Fantasy and sci-fi has some of the best material a novel can have.

Why snob something?

Honestly, I find it encouraging to read stuff that's 'below standards' sometimes just to see what's possible. I mean, come on... if a book that you think is crap can get published, isn't that indication that you are more likely to get published as well?

But that's sidetracking a little I guess. We're talking about reading preferences here aren't we? At least I think so.

For me, I often take a research point of view when I read nowadays. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but I do. I tend to see and dissect the book to see what made it into, well.. novel material. Which was the only reason why I ever read Harry Potter - to find out what made it so successful.

I agree that Fantasy has been stretching a little for quite some time now, but I still read it just to see what makes it have that power of continuity. (Drizzt anyone?)

The one and ONLY book I've ever snobbed in that sense is Eragon. Not gonna read it.

Fantasy has its roots in Ancient Greece. There's a wealth of depth to it even if magic and so on is a fairly common sight in fantasy novels. It's effectively timeless and will continue to allow authors to portray big ideas and big tragedies in a palatable way. Done well, there's nothing better.

Under The Tuscan Sun was the last book I remember snobbing. I picked it up ad started reading it by mistake and thought it was terrible. I can see why people would snob Dan Brown but I'm not ashamed to say I like him.

The first book I can remember snobbing after I became interested in reading was The Fire Within which is at the same time probably the worst book ever published and the reason I decided to write myself.

I guess by all definitions in this thread I’m a book snob. Truth be told though, I have such eclectic taste in books I don’t stick to any one genera. I doubt I’ll ever pick up any romance or self-help books though.

The Lord of the Rings, I didn’t make it through the first chapter of that book. I’ll try someday to read it again but probably in the distant future. I like the movies so much I bought a 12 DVD box set (the U.S. version has over 11 hours of video). By adding in the deleted scenes it made an already long trilogy of movies even longer.

The only genera I’ve been trying to stick to lately is quasi cult classics, my latest book being 1984.

Just Twilight, and then gasp! I started reading it.

I've an adolescent friend-that's-a-girl who was tired of me criticizing it every time it came up in conversation. She said my pre-emptive judgement wasn't justified, and that my opinion was mere speculation until I read the damn thing.

200 pages into the first (I'm not reading the rest of the series), and my opinion has been more than validated. The writing is just god-awful. It's so flat, and riddled with cliches. I understand her market, but christ!
I think she was hoping that if I read it I would be swayed and converted, but all its done is given me fuel for the fire. I do get a morbid kind of enjoyment texting her any given passage of overwrought melodrama, I don't even have to take the piss out of it, it basically insults itself.

I'm not the bitter asshole I come across as, and I think it's unfair to pass off high standards as snobbery. I don't like sitting through a shit film, so why would I want to read something that's similarly awful, and hard to digest? Books require more investment, so one has a right to high standards.

But what do I know? I'm unpublished.

I have a thing for snobbing "mainstram" books. I started reading the Harry Potter series nack then, when it wasn't popular, and I thought it was ok; however, when it became too popular, I found lots of mistakes and bullcrap, and stopped reading them.

Same with Twilight. When my sister read it, I thought about reading it too, but then nobody would shut up about it on my school, so I forgot about it.

So, point is, I mostly enjoy "obscure" books, that means, books that nobody talks about that much. Because they have really new ideas and are incredibly entertaining. Try comparing Baxter's Time Odyssey with Simak's City (Simak isn't well known in mainstram SF, sadly)

It's because the sf boom years of the 70s ended. Lots of worthy writers fell by the wayside, victimized by del Rey's promotion of half-assed high fantasy (Brooks, Donaldson, et al, as noted earlier in this thread) and ST/SW clone/retreads, Terry Carr retiring as an editor and then passing away, some other factors.
The sales figures for some people were still decent but they were tossed aside anyway because their ideas weren't in vogue. I could make a list a yard long here but all you need to do is go to the bookstore and look at the titles and authors, and note that sf and fantasy are now lumped together, where in the heyday of sf sales (roughly 1968-1977) they weren't.
But a good used store will have City and Ring Around the Sun and Shakespeare's Planet and many others.