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"Adults Should Read Adult Books" - Joel Stein

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I'm with Remo on this one; I think the capital-G Good part of reading books is wrestling with them in some way, and being sort of changed in the process. Escapism and being dragged along by a plot is certainly nice, but it's also ultimately solipsistic.

I'd certainly draw a line between literary fiction and genre/YA fiction, and it's not just the differing tropes but the very way they seek to function. Typically, if you're operating on a level that's accessible to most teenagers, you're probably not quite there. There are certainly YA books that tackle tough themes, are well-crafted, etc. but I still feel like they don't fulfill my central criterion except for those readers just beginning to delve into books.

This certainly isn't a settled truth in my mind, and I spent most of last night trying to wrestle and articulate why I feel this way. I won't deny that part of my fervency is from a knee-jerk reaction against some of the opposing arguments people levied on Twitter and elsewhere, such as"All reading is good reading!" or "Telling people that they shouldn't do something they enjoy is bad." I do a Books & Beer Podcast where I shoot the shit with my fiancee about books, and I can guarantee you that an upcoming episode will be just one long battle about this very issue. I showed her the link last night, and even our long discussions feel like we're only scraping the surface.

This subject just ties into so many unsettled issues in literature. How are genres defined? (Surely YA books aren't just those with YA-ish protagonists! Could you imagine the Hal storyline in IJ broken off into a YA book?) Why should we read? (The typical pluralist approach may fail here.) What makes a book a good book? (Is it redundant to say it's a high-quality book that you should read? Why or why not?)

I certainly don't think less of readers who choose to try reading YA—I'm about to do the same for the sake of that podcast—but I worry about those who willfully stagnate in YA or other genre fiction. In Mieville's takedown of Tolkien, he paraphrases a quip by Michael Moorcock: "Jailers love escapism—what they don't like is escape."

I worry about how our fiction impinges on the real world and ourselves, but then again I may just be overly prone to worrying about these bigger issues. In the last episode of The Idle Thumbs Podcast (about an hour in), I asked a question about whether games could achieve the same effects as literary fiction given how they're (self-)limited to their own systems they've trained the player in. Remo was worried about it too, so maybe I should just move to SF and we can do a Worrywarts podcast for the new network, where we catalogue the moral and ethical shrapnel of modernity and Late Capitalism.

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Somebody in that NY times "debate" needed to be contrary to everyone else. I think that it is important for people to read good fiction, and I think it is a tragedy when I hear people my age (late twenties) talk about "twilight" or the "hunger games" and I just know that the last real adult book they read was assigned to them in high school.

But, overall, when we are talking about books, we need to be realistic. Reading books is escapism, and a leisure activity. I am sure high powered hedge fund manager could write an article talking about "Nothing is more embarrassing than some guy reading a book on the train, when he could be trading stocks on the Asian Market" And how people shouldn't be wasting their lives doing something that isn't advancing their lives in a significant and fiduciary way.

Sure it sucks, and it really irks me when people swoon over these novels, and I want to just pop in and say, Read "The Brothers Karamazov", or a Hemmingway novel. In the end, books are entertainment, something that can be very enlightening and provocative, but entertainment nonetheless. So, we can delude ourselves and feel better because we are more accomplished because we have read X number of novels from the top of our self-described elitist hierarchy of fiction, or we can just let people read what they want to read. Some people don't feel like reading difficult prose or complicated fiction, that is their bag man. Let them have their vampire love novels.

That op-ed piece smelled heavily of "elitist jerk" (see the sneaky jab at video games and pixar films.) Not only does Mr. Stein do a poor job of stating his position and making an argument, but I think that he misses the point entirely.

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Nothing doesn't have subtext, someone that has an interest in reading deeply is going to be able to read The Hunger Games and Invisible Cities and extract meaning out of both of them.

Maybe it's taking it to far, but decades of critical thought is based on the fact that no text is dismissible, when you say your off to read '3,000 years of fiction ' your fucking covering your ears when Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari are talking to you.

"no text is dismissible"/"nothing doesn't have subtext" while I do agree with the general sentiment is kind of facile in that you simply don't have the time to read the sum total of all the (readily accessible, in languages one understands, etc.) printed material available. Certainly you makes choices about what to read and in making those choices, you dismiss. Whether you agree with what Stein chooses to dismiss is another matter.

But to Chris specifically: I'm wondering how you reconcile agreeing with the article's views with the (correct me if I'm wrong) generally positive impression you seem to have had of Eco's Queen Loana. Eco revels in the artifacts of his fictional narrator's childhood, at times revealing how the meaning of those artifacts has been changed by the intervening years. There are resonances and meanings gleaned as an adult looking back on those Buck Rogers comics etc. that could not have been had by the child who first read them.

I would certainly agree that there can be value in that, but how are we to know if, as adults, we don't have a look?

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All that seeing person P at time t reading The Hunger Games tells you about them is that at time t, person P was reading The Hunger Games. To judge that a person does not read adult fiction because there is evidence that they read young adult fiction sounds to me like saying that I must never drink water because you have a video of me drinking a can of coke.

I pretty much agree. The judge-ey aspect of this whole thing is actually what I find most objectionable.

The Harry Potter books are not only interesting in scope and fiction, but technically well written

I don't actually agree with this. I have fond memories of the Harry Potter series, and I think there's a lot of excellent things that went on in... well, in scope and fiction. But a lot of that prose was awkward and very little of it was technically interesting.

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It's not like someone reading the Hunger Games means that they aren't also reading something "more substantial". The two are not mutually exclusive. All that seeing person P at time t reading The Hunger Games tells you about them is that at time t, person P was reading The Hunger Games. To judge that a person does not read adult fiction because there is evidence that they read young adult fiction sounds to me like saying that I must never drink water because you have a video of me drinking a can of coke. For all I know, there is a trend of people forgoing adult fiction because of the emerging popularity of YA fiction. That's not really for any of us to say without evidence. Anecdotally though, of all the adults I know who have read the books, one is my girlfriend who reads absolutely everything, and the others are former English majors who do not lack for appreciation of good literature.

Well, there's empirical evidence from the publishing industry indicating that adults are reading more young adult novels than ever before, and since people have finite time in which to read books, and an ever-increasing number of kinds of entertainment with which to fill their time, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that reading more young adult fiction is broadly coming at the expense of reading more adult fiction.

Similarly, there is empirical evidence to suggest people are drinking more soda than ever before, and empirical evidence showing the deleterious effect that is having on society's health at large.

Edit: You are obviously correct on an individual basis. Nobody can know a stranger's motives, actions, or beliefs. But especially in modern society it is generally possible to be aware of broader trends.

Edited by Chris

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I'm with Remo on this one; I think the capital-G Good part of reading books is wrestling with them in some way, and being sort of changed in the process. Escapism and being dragged along by a plot is certainly nice, but it's also ultimately solipsistic.

I'd certainly draw a line between literary fiction and genre/YA fiction, and it's not just the differing tropes but the very way they seek to function. Typically, if you're operating on a level that's accessible to most teenagers, you're probably not quite there. There are certainly YA books that tackle tough themes, are well-crafted, etc. but I still feel like they don't fulfill my central criterion except for those readers just beginning to delve into books.

This certainly isn't a settled truth in my mind, and I spent most of last night trying to wrestle and articulate why I feel this way. I won't deny that part of my fervency is from a knee-jerk reaction against some of the opposing arguments people levied on Twitter and elsewhere, such as"All reading is good reading!" or "Telling people that they shouldn't do something they enjoy is bad." I do a Books & Beer Podcast where I shoot the shit with my fiancee about books, and I can guarantee you that an upcoming episode will be just one long battle about this very issue. I showed her the link last night, and even our long discussions feel like we're only scraping the surface.

This subject just ties into so many unsettled issues in literature. How are genres defined? (Surely YA books aren't just those with YA-ish protagonists! Could you imagine the Hal storyline in IJ broken off into a YA book?) Why should we read? (The typical pluralist approach may fail here.) What makes a book a good book? (Is it redundant to say it's a high-quality book that you should read? Why or why not?)

I certainly don't think less of readers who choose to try reading YA—I'm about to do the same for the sake of that podcast—but I worry about those who willfully stagnate in YA or other genre fiction. In Mieville's takedown of Tolkien, he paraphrases a quip by Michael Moorcock: "Jailers love escapism—what they don't like is escape."

I worry about how our fiction impinges on the real world and ourselves, but then again I may just be overly prone to worrying about these bigger issues. In the last episode of The Idle Thumbs Podcast (about an hour in), I asked a question about whether games could achieve the same effects as literary fiction given how they're (self-)limited to their own systems they've trained the player in.

I agree with all of this, and the bolded bit in particular is essentially my thesis on the matter. I get the sense people claim they "read everything" in the same way people say they "like all kinds of music"--almost always, when you press somebody on that, it is not even remotely true. That in itself isn't really a problem. But I do think there is something profoundly important in serious fiction that deals with the actual world in which we live and how human beings exist in it, and that challenges us to reconsider our assumptions about it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with A Good Story and Compelling Characters for their own sake, but the more you engage with that kind of fiction, the more you train yourself to thinking that's what literature is all about, and then when you read an incredible and vital work of fiction that doesn't revolve around those things, you can easily dismiss it by saying things like "The characters aren't likeable enough" or "It was too slow."

Again, purely on the face of it, those are not inherently worthless judgments, but genre fiction trains us to look at literature as primarily entertainment, and while great fiction SHOULD entertain us in the sense that we should enjoy the experience of reading it, it should not be beholden to that, because works that strive for entertainment above all else generally do a disservice to the deeper meanings and truths we can get out of something with more substance.

It's my belief that in 2012, unless one operates as some kind of extreme hermit, it is essentially impossible to avoid engaging with Pure Entertainment a huge chunk of the time, and we all have a limited amount of time. So when it comes to books, I really do think that at least in that one medium, people should make a concerted effort to push themselves. I know it's not realistic to actually expect people to operate the way I think is ideal (it would in fact be delusional), but I've already put my opinion out there so I might as well explain it further.

Remo was worried about it too, so maybe I should just move to SF and we can do a Worrywarts podcast for the new network, where we catalogue the moral and ethical shrapnel of modernity and Late Capitalism.

This sounds good to me.

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Can someone explain the relevancy of the Mieville-Moorcock jailor quote, now that it's been highlighted twice? It actually makes less sense to me after I looked up the context in which Mieville used it (he was defending genre fiction, ironically... but not unsurprisingly since he's a fantasty writer).

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But I do think there is something profoundly important in serious fiction that deals with the actual world in which we live and how human beings exist in it, and that challenges us to reconsider our assumptions about it.

There's nothing inherently wrong with A Good Story and Compelling Characters for their own sake, but the more you engage with that kind of fiction, the more you train yourself to thinking that's what literature is all about, and then when you read an incredible and vital work of fiction that doesn't revolve around those things, you can easily dismiss it by saying things like "The characters aren't likeable enough" or "It was too slow."

Again, purely on the face of it, those are not inherently worthless judgments, but genre fiction trains us to look at literature as primarily entertainment, and while great fiction SHOULD entertain us in the sense that we should enjoy the experience of reading it, it should not be beholden to that, because works that strive for entertainment above all else generally do a disservice to the deeper meanings and truths we can get out of something with more substance.

I agree with all of this, except: why/on what basis are you conflating genre fiction (or youth fiction or whatever) with fiction primarily for entertainment?

There's a ton of "literary" fiction out there that is terrible. I read much of it in college, in addition to a lot of very good literary fiction, and a fair amount of very good genre fiction. (And why doesn't "literary" qualify as a genre unto itself?)

You seem to be suggesting, to me, that there are formal properties of "genre" fiction that are at odds with it being literature as more than entertainment, which I don't think is true. There is immense pressure on fiction (and films and games) to be entertainment and nothing more, but that seems to me quite clearly a result of who controls the funding for publishing fiction(/films/games) and the cultural crisis of late capitalism rather than a formal property of a particular kind of fiction.

(And there is very, very important work being done in the margins--the universal dismissal of Twilight, for example, is very telling, because Twilight--despite being a terribly written mess of a novel and pretty openly the wet dream of a religious fanatic--has some important things to say about our society and the role of patriarchy that are otherwise largely unacknowledged by mainstream culture.)

I think the most genre-iffic novel I've ever read was Against the Day. (Though honestly I don't read that much genre fiction.)

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Can someone explain the relevancy of the Mieville-Moorcock jailor quote, now that it's been highlighted twice? It actually makes less sense to me after I looked up the context in which Mieville used it (he was defending genre fiction, ironically... but not unsurprisingly since he's a fantasty writer).

IIRC, Mieville hates Tolkien as revisionist monarchist fantasy and is presumably suggesting that escapist genre fiction is about maintaining the status quo (the inherent conservatism of fantasy as looking back to an idealized past) versus revolutionary genre fiction that advocates social change in the tradition of utopian fiction (which is often considering the beginning of the fantasy/science fiction/genre tradition) offering a vision of a better, or at least different, world.

Which I would agree with, incidentally.

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Interesting timing, a friend on facebook just posted this.

‎"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval, instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adult themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the marks of childhood and adolescence. And in childhood and adolescence they are, in moderation, healthy symptoms. Young things ought to want to grow. But to carry on into middle life or even into early manhood this concern about being adult is a mark of really arrested development. When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."

― C.S. Lewis

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I agree with all of this, except: why/on what basis are you conflating genre fiction (or youth fiction or whatever) with fiction primarily for entertainment?

There's a ton of "literary" fiction out there that is terrible. I read much of it in college, in addition to a lot of very good literary fiction, and a fair amount of very good genre fiction. (And why doesn't "literary" qualify as a genre unto itself?)

I think the jargon may be throwing you off a bit, and understandably so, as it's not all that descriptive. "Genre fiction" has a specific meaning in opposition to literary fiction. Sure, everything can be placed into a genre, but "genre fiction" is the particular kind of thing where the author picks a genre and hews very closely to its conventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction

It's all quite vague, but it's a useful shorthand to round up your average Blood Axeman and Blast Lasercleft type of thing. There are a lot of edge cases that can be argued one way or another. There is some great, classic science fiction that I wouldn't lump into that category, for example.

With true genre fiction, there's a motivation to avoid being too creative, as doing so could potentially alienate the reader. RA Salvatore doesn't sit down with the intention of writing a great novel; he delivers a very specific product which will meet the needs of his employer and his reader.

Sorry, my thoughts are a little disordered right now.

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That classic science fiction was nevertheless probably written as genre fiction. A whole lot of were first published serialized in sci-fi magazines.

Also, I don't really agree with Chris's assertion that reading more young adult fiction must steal time from reading proper literature specifically. YA fiction is entertainment focused, so it's in competition with other such works like most film and these days computer games as well. Someone having an impulse to read something light isn't just going to grab the nearest Dostoevsky instead.

As a general trend popular entertainment is likely getting even more popular in comparison with art, probably because these days you don't need to have any taste for art to be respected.

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Joel Stein is an attention seeking tool, why does anyone care what he thinks?

http://www.slate.com/content/slate/blogs/scocca/2010/07/06/joel_stein_s_immigrant_problem.html

Science-fiction, that staple of escapism, uses technology to talk about issues that we face today. Harry Potter helps adults remember what it was like being a teenager. Fiction, even escapism, is important for adults to deal with the harsh realities of their lives. The fact that Stein thinks he's making a valid point in his article makes the whole thing pointless.

Preston Surges answered this issue conclusively in Sullivan's Travels -- but then, that's just a movie, so it's not possible to learn anything from it. The Wire taught me more about the world we live in that anything else I can remember... but that's just TV, so it's not worthy, either, according to Stein.

Stein is a poor writer that can't make a decent point (as the Slate article points out). There's probably some truth that the world might be a better place if adults were more thoughtful and educated, but I don't see any real evidence that adults are only consuming sugary fiction.

Edited by ThunderPeel2001

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That classic science fiction was nevertheless probably written as genre fiction. A whole lot of were first published serialized in sci-fi magazines.

That's very true. Of course, the most famous purveyor of serialized, popular fiction was Charles Dickens, and I would defy anyone to read Bleak House or Our Mutual Friend and deny that they are some literary-ass literature.

These labels offer only so much clarity. But, that's a bit of a side-discussion.

I appreciate the frustration that motivated the article at the top of this thread. It may not be a high crime for an adult to read young adult fiction, but it sure looks like that's all anyone is doing lately, and that is not a good trend.

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I appreciate the frustration that motivated the article at the top of this thread. It may not be a high crime for an adult to read young adult fiction, but it sure looks like that's all anyone is doing lately, and that is not a good trend.

We're in the middle of a terrible economic situation that may drag on for decades. Trends in culture change depending on what people need. Strangely people didn't like watching movies about the horrors of war during World War II, tastes drifted towards escapism, because it was what they needed during that time.

Stein's argument is weak and badly thought out. What exactly are we supposed to be learning from books? And to what end? Until this is defined it's impossible to even discuss whether it's good or bad for adults to read escapist fiction.

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I think the jargon may be throwing you off a bit, and understandably so, as it's not all that descriptive. "Genre fiction" has a specific meaning in opposition to literary fiction. Sure, everything can be placed into a genre, but "genre fiction" is the particular kind of thing where the author picks a genre and hews very closely to its conventions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction

It's all quite vague, but it's a useful shorthand to round up your average Blood Axeman and Blast Lasercleft type of thing. There are a lot of edge cases that can be argued one way or another. There is some great, classic science fiction that I wouldn't lump into that category, for example.

With true genre fiction, there's a motivation to avoid being too creative, as doing so could potentially alienate the reader. RA Salvatore doesn't sit down with the intention of writing a great novel; he delivers a very specific product which will meet the needs of his employer and his reader.

Sorry, my thoughts are a little disordered right now.

I know what genre fiction means. :shifty:

It's an ill-defined term that is used largely not as a description of style or form (it's far, far too broad for that) but to de-legitimize/ghettoize huge swaths of fiction as being not worthy of "serious" or "adult" consideration.

There is a ton of literary fiction where the author sticks very closely to conventions, avoids being too creative, etc. (You're familiar with the idea of "Oscar-bait" films? Literature has the same thing.) RA Salvatore is a hack, but it's because he writes derivative, mindless, comforting fiction, not because he writes "genre fiction".

This argument has been fought many, many times. Samuel Johnson was fighting (for the canon) in the 1700s.

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I had no idea who Joel Stein was. Now I know that he is a humor columnist?

That article was probably supposed to be humorous?

Oh dear. Whiffed that.

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I find no value in the statement that 'adult shouldn't read young adult books' since I wouldn't let anyone dictates what should be appropriate/healthy reading habits... but I do agree with Chris when he says those books get so much exposure already that it wouldn't make sense for the book club to put emphasis on that genre. We know those exists, and I don't know about other readers, but my main reason for following the book cast is because I expect it to help me disocver new territories and get me out of my comfort zone.

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I've long maintained that the best art we can make is the stuff that is so human that it becomes incomprehensible to other intelligent species.

Or, to quote William Faulkner: "The human heart in conflict with itself...alone can make good writing."

I've read books with "meat" on them (Jonathan Franzen, Herman Melville, William Shakespeare, Michael Chabon, William Faulkner, Naguib Mahfouz, Anton Chekhov, and more) that I've loved, reflected on, and been moved by, and I've also read "genre" fiction that has had a similar effect on me (A Song of Ice and Fire, a little bit of Arthur C. Clarke, Stephen King). What I can say that, though these writers are all of different skill and background, the stuff that they wrote that has actually stuck with me is the stuff that ignores the set dressing (the kitchen sinks, families in dispute, wizards in pointy hats or the spaceships) and is, in reality, about something profoundly human.

I love the literary, "highbrow" stuff as much as Chris Remo does - really - but I won't maintain that Jonathan Franzen is by default a more important writer than JRR Tolkien because he wrote something about family while the other wrote something about a ring.

I guess what I'm saying is that I wouldn't enjoy a "genre" novel that didn't have something worth thinking over.

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We know those exists, and I don't know about other readers, but my main reason for following the book cast is because I expect it to help me disocver new territories and get me out of my comfort zone.

Yes, I hope this too. I don't think I would've ever bought 'the Sense of an Ending' if it wasn't for the book cast. I read about as fast as I would talk, so that makes any book a reasonable time investment. It's kind of sad, but it makes me rather risk-averse when it comes to picking books. I'm not a person that can walk into a book store and go "that looks interesting, I'll give that a go", no, I need to check out what people (who I care about) have said about it.

Reading a book and then talking with other people who have read the book seems like an excellent way to stimulate my book reading habits! I forgot the point I was making, there was one, but I've been fever struck and also insomnia so I keep forgetting things at random and then I lack the energy to try and remember what the what?

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I love the literary, "highbrow" stuff as much as Chris Remo does - really - but I won't maintain that Jonathan Franzen is by default a more important writer than JRR Tolkien because he wrote something about family while the other wrote something about a ring.

For what it's worth, this isn't really why I think someone like Franzen writes more vital fiction than someone like Tolkien. In Freedom, Franzen's powers of human observation are astonishing. That book genuinely affected the way I see other people and the world. There's a depth of humanity present in the work of a fiction writer like Franzen that I have rarely encountered in genre fiction--that's absolutely not to say it doesn't exist, but I don't think genre fiction writers treat it as their highest responsibility the same way literary fiction writers do. When you're writing in a genre you're necessarily beholden to whatever tropes and conventions exist in your genre; you certainly may try to transcend or subvert them, and may do so successfully, but to me those elements can't help but be the centerpiece or at least steal a lot of the show. (That is after all why people read a particular genre.) I think this is especially true when (as is the case for many, many genre writers) you're writing these series that seem to go on forever, with book after book, and then your responsibility becomes to this self-contained universe you've created, which exerts its own pressures on itself in terms of needing that world and its characters to remain viable as an indefinitely-lasting or at least fairly long-term concern, which to me is at odds with how fiction operates at its best.

I know this is all highly subjective, and I don't claim any of this is automatically the case for any one given author. But having read a whole lot of various kinds of genre fiction during different stages of my life, it is part of why I have largely abandoned it.

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I just realized Freedom was one of the fifteen books I got for cheap from Amazon, but haven't started reading because I should be reading epistemology and education theory.

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Out of curiousity guys who agree with that piece - Where do you stand on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

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Out of curiousity guys who agree with that piece - Where do you stand on The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy?

I loved it dearly in my teenage years. It's not the kind of thing I would newly read now, but that doesn't mean it's bad or anything. I think I read those books at the right time in my life.

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