Reading...

The thing about reading is that it is entirely subjective. Some people like certain books, some people like others. Sometimes a bunch of people like the same books, and sometimes only a few like them.

I guess my point is that we all have different tastes. If you're lucky, you find friends who like the same books you like and can make recommendations about new ones. Or you just poke around Goodreads or Amazon (or your local library) and see what you can find.

I've taken to writing reviews of the books I read, posting them on Goodreads and on Amazon.com. At Amazon, I sometimes get responses from people - readers of my reviews can click a button saying whether my review was helpful or not, and can also comment on my review.

So I left a fairly negative review of one book (Three Cups of Tea), and got an interesting comment in return saying, "What were you reading??? You missed the whole point of this book."

Did I? Did I really?

I suppose my point is that books rarely (if ever) appeal to every single person that reads them. Books can be worldwide bestsellers, and people still pick them up and go, "eh" or "ugh". What some people don't realize is that these are valid responses to books. There's a reason why there's a wide variety of books out in the world... it's because there's a wide variety of people.

I was more amused than offended at the shock and horror of the person who commented on my review. They are certainly entitled to their opinion regarding the book... but I'm also entitled to mine. While I posted a pretty calm response, my general attitude was: hey, calm down... it's not a competition, and I'm not denigrating your choice of books just because I didn't like it.

To revise a famous quote: Read and let read.