Monday, January 17, 2011

Musing Mondays: Light or Heavy?


This week’s musing asks…
Do you prefer deep, intellectual, “meaty” books… or light, “fluffy” books? Why? Give us an example of your preferred type of book. ;)

I'm a snob when it comes to books and I've never tried to hide it! Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question is a great example of an intellectual read. So are most of Margaret Atwood's books, and A.S. Byatt's, and Ian McEwan's, and so on. Look at the Booker Prize. I'm also thinking of classics like Jude the Obscure, which I know one of my blogging pals is reading right now, and modern classics like The Master and Margarita.

Fluffy books have their place, too, and I like the ones that are smart and well-crafted. I love Celestine Vaite's Materena Mahi series, and Megan Crane's chick lit, and tight pageturners and thrillers. One of my favorite light books of the last few year is Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly, a comedy about what happens when the classical Greek gods get an apartment together in modern-day London. I don't like books that are truly stupid, though, and there are some out there!

More Musing Mondays at ShouldbeReading.wordpress.com.

13 comments:

caite said...

I am not a snob..at least book wise...and I do not try to hide it either! ;-)
I like to stay right in the middle, not too meaty and not too fluffy. Yes, it should be fun, but I still need a bit of a challenge.
I just don't want to think to much. It gives me a headache!

Gigi Ann said...

I don't consider myself a snob either as far as books go, I think we each have a genre we prefer more than others. However, when I set down to read for rest and relaxation, I don't want meat, I just want a snack.

Steve said...

My favorites are novels that are intellectually curious and provocative, but also have a sense of humor or at least of momentum. Maybe I've lost my mojo since grad school, but novels that are dense like a dissertation have become harder for me to get through.

ImageNations said...

I have read and enjoyed several books. I started my readings with books by Sidney Sheldon, Dean Koontz, Stephen King and others. I hardly read any YA books. The only YA book I remember was a coverless copy of Nancy Drew. My recent readings have all been literary fiction: some light and funny but not too 'stupid' like A House for Mr. Biswas and others very dense like Possession by A.S. Byatt. I have also enjoyed Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake and Golding's Lord of the Flies. However, most of my readings have been African Lit and they are neither funny nor fluffy. But not too dense.

Tasha said...

My reading habits changed after I came across William Faulkner's "read everything" quote. I prefer books with some weight to them, and Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf is the first title that comes to my mind. But I also enjoy lighter books, and here I am thinking of the Nora Roberts audio books I have been listening to lately. I guess I'm willing to give anything a try, but I don't force myself to keep reading a book that I don't like.

Laurel-Rain Snow said...

I've gone through various stages with books, but nowadays I mix things up a bit.

I don't go TOO fluffy, but the occasional chick lit will show up. My preferences include books with any kind of issues....

Here's my Musing:

http://laurelrainsnow.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/musing-mondays-meaty-or-fluffy-jan-17/

Zibilee said...

I also like a mix of light and heavy reads, but usually prefer heavy. The only time I really hunger for a light read is when I have read several heavy books in a row, and my spirit is dampened. I don't like chicklit, romance, or thrillers, so my light books may not be the types that others prefer, but I do read some lighter stuff!

bermudaonion said...

I like some heavy reads, but if they're too heavy, they're usually over my head.

The Many Thoughts of a Reader said...

I like to read a mix but the older I seem to get (maybe maturing in my reading is better than saying old ha) I seem to like books with more meat/depth to them and get easily irritated with books that are toooo fluffy. But that doesn't mean I won't be enjoying Janet Evanovich's Sizzling 16 that I picked up today from the library. ;)

Amy said...

I'm so glad to see you say you love Megan Crane's chick lit!

Mystica said...

I like the meaty, the fluffy and the inbetween. It is just whether I like the sound of a review or even the cover that makes me choose a book. I just go with the flow.

Literary Feline said...

Gods Behaving Badly is one I want to get to. I've heard such great things about it. I tend to fall all over the spectrum, enjoying books that are meaty, fluffy and everything in between. It makes choosing what to read next difficult sometimes.

Danielle said...

Rats, Caite stole my comment right out of my head! I don't want to read a book that's too much work, but I don't want to read something that insults my intelligence either.

There's some great light reading out there - I loved Bridget Jones Diary, for example, and Elizabeth Young's Asking for Trouble was fun (she's another British "chick lit" writer; the movie, The Wedding Date, was loosely based on this book).

But I prefer books with more meaning - I recently read All Other Nights by Dara Horn, which I enjoyed a lot. I also just read and really liked The Fetch by Laura Whitcomb, which is a YA novel, and also historical fiction, and also a supernatural love story (though the love story is a very secondary part of the book). It's not challenging, but it's meaningful, and it's beautifully written - that probably encapsulated what I want from a book.