Score

I am not embarrassed and very tired of intellectual snobs. If goodreads is only about that please delete me. I had enough of that in college to last me a lifetime.

Alice, maybe you haven't seen "Guilty Pleasure" lists before. They appear often from (book/movie/music/food) critics, spread out in social networks (online and off), and so forth.

Check them out. They're inherently anti-snobbery: lists of things that people love no matter what the prima facia critical response would be.

There is often a bit of a thrill for people when they "admit" to liking something they know their friends or peers don't, or that their friends have dismissed without experiencing. If it's something they know people have disliked, and have disliked for reasons that seem consistent and reliable, there is an element of polarity response and a bit of the kind of power trip more people should probably experience more often.

There certainly isn't any true embarassment or people wouldn't actually participate.

There can be a kind of embarrassment where people admit to enjoying some aspect of books(/movies/music/venues/...) that they don't generally expose as part of their public persona. It's a way to express some of their personality even when they need to keep a positional front, like when a boss of mine acted enbarassed to be reading some fairly "trashy" YA fantasy. It was outside of her positional behavior but allowed us to connect in a personal way (it helped that she knew I read similar things). The "embarassment" comes from mingling different personas.

A similar situation was when a student intern with a fairly social/party-oriented/needing-advice attitude offers insight on relatively advanced literatire in the field. It didn't fit with the way he went out and socialized with his coworkers and he was worried that it would distance himself from them. The "guilty pleasure" aspect of studying our field--extensively--in his personal time is a social idiom that allows people to ignore it when appropriate but also opens it up for inclusion, especially in contexts where his presenting persona wouldn't be included but the "guilty pleasure" would be (for him: discussions of academic advances in his field that are beyond his current education; for the boss: joking and discussing books at lunch without a "the boss is here" constraint).

[Actually, the "guilty pleasure" also opens up a social norm called "signifying," part of which is jokes at the expense of the signifyer--but in a context adopted as "guilty" and non-offensive to insult, since they were introduced as not being part of the present public persona.

In many cultures, especially cultures that percieve themselves as having low amounts of power or cultures with highly hierarchical power structures, signifying is a major element in group formation and identifying inclusion.:]



As for your response, we users can't delete you. If you don't want to be here, you have to deactivate your own account or email the admins. If this is the only page you've seen on Goodreads and the only page you intend to see, then it is what the site is all about. There are other pages about other things: lists, books, groups, authors, trivia, or people.

Pick what you want to participate in and do so; if you're participating in things you don't enjoy... well, that's probably not a problem with a web site :-)

Congratulations on completing college. It's something I never did and I'm impressed with and proud of the people who do.

I hope you got something out of it that you do want more of, rather than just things you want to avoid.

Thanks Seth for this explanation as actually I haven't ever seen Guilty Pleasures before. I have some rebellious tendencies so like to read some things that others consider to be "not the thing". I am almost never embarrassed about it so glad to read that is just an expression.

I was only half teasing about being deleted as I get so mad about people trashing Twlight. I shouldn't let it bother me but it does. I now get the urge to attack their fav books.

I got thru by sheer perseverance years ago. (not much good did it do me tho) Thanks for making this list. I have left quite a few groups etc when it dawned on me I wasn't really having FUN. Please vote on my "black" list sometime when you have a chance.
Ye Olde Kranky one,
Alice

I have to say that while Twilight might be at the top of the list, I'm not embarrassed that I liked it. Or obsessed over it. Or fell into a fandom where I have met some of the nicest and most genuine people you could ever imagine.

I'm actually not embarrassed about any of the books on this list that I've read and enjoyed. My "guilty" pleasures don't carry any guilt.

I didn't vote on this...and this is the kind of list that breeds negativity. I'm actually embarrassed that it exists on a site like this.

I'm sad to say that I have no guilty pleasures...I have never read a book, liked it and been ashamed of liking it. Then again I'm not around super judgmental people. My mom could care less what I read, My dad I don't think he has any idea of what a book is (JK), My grandmother does a far amount of read herself and she's just glad to see me reading...My friends don't care what I read..although they call me the bookworm of the group, I never really liked that term. I use to make fun of the bookworms when I was in high school but now I'm one of them, I always thought the bookworms were nothing but a bunch of nerds but now that I have become one I see that some aren't I am the farthest thing from a nerd...and I apologize to all the bookworms out there ^-^



(Yes I know I was an asshole in high school)

I'm actually not embarrassed to buy these books, but I do know that some readers look at one like they're an airhead when one does by them. Oh, well, they're just being judgmental. Hey, you never know if a book is good unless you try it yourself. :) I like calling them "guilty" pleasures just for fun.

Some of these books I didn't feel were actually crap but I voted for them because I loved the books.

the books i added I truly loved and i just don't care what others think of them. all i know is they made me happy and i enjoyed them.

Hi, I don't think Truman Capote would fit here. He is a respected author, for some.

Great list, by the way! I love me some guilty pleasures (and always give them a 5-star review on GR!)

Or Norman Mailer. How can you be ashamed by reading his work? lol. I am looking for a list where I can find books like Lace,Queenie,The First Wives Club, Valley of the Dolls.
Why cause I might get some recommendations cause sometimes I enjoy books like that. ;)

I am proud to host a number of my choices on my own bookshelves. Reading wonderfully fun pulp fiction, romance and erotica got me started in reading and saw me through a lit degree then into life as a Librarian. Don't be ashamed. Bring out your dead!

I loved reading the Twilight series and I'm 72. If I like it I read it, simple as that. I've been reading as long as I can remember.

Why is Gone With the Wind considered a guilty pleasure?
I'm asking mainly out of curiosity, as I was surprised to see it listed here.

Vampire Knight is a masterpiece how dare it end up here

Raluca wrote: "Why is Gone With the Wind considered a guilty pleasure?
I'm asking mainly out of curiosity, as I was surprised to see it listed here."

It is not. Actually, it's high literature, the 'War and peace' of United States. The fact that it's put in this list, seems to be that it's a novel bout romance and whose main character is a woman. But, honestly, I couldn't disagree more with who put 'Gone with the wind' in this list.

Oh boy, do I love a good old crapy book? Hell, yeah. I have read almost everything from Jacqueline Susann, Grace Metallious and V. C. Andrews, and I would choose them as the holly trinity of shitty books. They are so bad that they turn to be so good!