you are tired of hearing about the Casual Vacancy?:(

I'm tired of hearing about J.K. Rowling in general like she's the be-all and end all of fiction. I would add G.R.R. Martin too for that but I don't dislike his work. Actually I should add him last since I feel the same in regards to The Hunger Games. Like the work dislike hearing so much about it...

But I think you should give Rowling a chance, I don't know if you liked HP series or not, but the Casual Vacancy is completely different. Something tells me you wouldn't hate it.

I avoided Harry Potter so far because of the hype and by the time it came out I was not really interested. Will give it a go at some point probably the same for Casual Vacancy.

You must be one of the few people in the world who haven't read Harry Potter yet:)

I plan to stay that way for a while!

This is not directed at Jonathan, but I'm fed up with hearing from the people who obviously decided they wouldn't like Harry Potter before they started it or read it well into they hype and decided they were so great for noticing that it didn't live up to it. Read these books in the spirit they were written, or just go away no. We get it, they're not deep...

It's not that I won't like it it's just that I decided I wasn't going to read it until a lot of the Potter Hype died down. I prefer to try and read books away from the hype phenomenon. Hype has ruined some good books for me... Plus teen witches/wizards was not something that appealed to me ages ago. Now it might but it's not a high priority. I'd no doubt find good things in the book. I rate it on this list as books I get tired of people bringing up as must reads without them then bothering to read other things. It annoys me when people bring up Lord of the Rings similarly though it is my favourite book.

J K Rowling the 'be-all and end-all' of fiction? Hilarious.

I haven't given The Casual Vacancy a try yet admittedly, but the flood of excerpts gives the idea that the descriptions are a bit overadorned. Still, quite a few good reviews, some comparing it to George Eliot's novels.

Harry Potter is fun; nothing particularly profound to it as a 'battle between good and evil', but it's well plotted and imaginative, with reasonably dynamic characters and a pleasant and sometimes mischievous humour running throughout. The first one's a mixed bag though; I started with the fourth after seeing the Philosopher's Stone film when it came out.

Once again, I have to agree with Alex. But i don't think Harry Potter 'is not deep'.

Well, Voldemort throws in something vaguely Nietzschian with 'There is no good and evil; only power, and those too weak to seek it', or something to that effect, but there's nothing beyond this.
On the Dumbledore side of things, in what he says about Voldemort to Harry mainly, you get a more standard, slightly mystical and patronising caution against folly and a plea to see the wonder deferred by the evil side.

There's some depth in the family histories and social structure though (which is why I thought Rowling might do well with her adult novel given the premise), when there's some biography or recollection especially, sometimes shading or subverting what Dumbledore goes on about.

I just wonder what people expect when they sit down and read Harry Potter. Something that isn't obviously a children's book written with young children in mind? Who really cares if it uses ideas from Lord of the Rings or if some of the books have a slight Deus ex Machina, if someone read them carefully with an understanding to how they were written, they'd see that there are a lot of good ideas that are obviously engaging to children and that are gong to push children. There's great humour and great characters and imaginative plots. I think that, most of all books like Azkaban and Goblet of Fire really hit some excellent and thoughtful emotional notes.

Backlashes are a bit boring to me because they're so predictable, but given that this will probably always be the most high profile set of book releases in our times then it's going to draw attention for the "can't read good" crowd who aren't interested in taking the time to understand why and how this engaged children and became a phenomenon in the first place.

Another issue for me at the moment is I can't find it at my libraries and I'm not dropping everything to read it now. I have other books I need to read. I plan to fit it in between now and next year when I should be studying it for uni...hopefully.

To hype and backlash both I say- 'Impervius!'

Oh hey, somebody else who hasn't read HP! I get so much shit for it. And everybody has tried to convince me SO MUCH to read it.
They think I'm being a hipster or something whenever I say I'm just not interested. I know the basic plot, and I've seen bits and parts of movies, and heard about how it's saved everybody from some dark times and all (when they were kids), but I just never saw the appeal.

But I do agree that when something gets too hyped up, it ruins the charm. I read Twilight before it became popular, and I thought it was a mindless fun read, and then everybody in the world got to know about the book.

Same thing for Hunger Games, which I've now added to my list here because I want everyone to stop talking about it and talk about 1984 or Brave New World!!!

Yes, I definitely agree with you there.
I have to ask you about Interview with the Vampire. Have you read it and don't like it, or are you bothered by people trying to force you to read it?

I have to admit that most hyped up books I've read were a disappointment but I can't, for the life of me, see why the hype should ruin the charm if I truly like a book/series.

Nermin wrote: "I have to admit that most hyped up books I've read were a disappointment but I can't, for the life of me, see why the hype should ruin the charm if I truly like a book/series."

Because whether in rebelling or conforming, we are socially conscious, and all too often socially motivated, irrational agents? The Vulcans would make far superior reviewers, even when gauging emotional impact! Why do we even bother?

... said the misanthrope.

Because as much as I hate it, the fans do matter.
Just take the goodreads discussions section for example.

Fatin wrote: "Because as much as I hate it, the fans do matter.
Just take the goodreads discussions section for example."

Different people can have very different reasons for liking a work, some supportable by either argument or consensus and some not. Since a work can't anticipate every expectation and surmise, it hardly seems fair that we who judge it should account for who has read and liked it.

"Fatin wrote: "Because as much as I hate it, the fans do matter.
Just take the goodreads discussions section for example."


Why should fans matter? The 'quality' of the fanbase is the last thing in my mind when I start to read a book. I read for my own personal enjoyment. Refusing to read a book because of its fans or because it is uber popular seems very pretentious to me.

Fatin wrote: "Yes, I definitely agree with you there.
I have to ask you about Interview with the Vampire. Have you read it and don't like it, or are you bothered by people trying to force you to read it?"

More that I've seen a lot of people recommending it and I've little interest in most modern vampire fiction. Plus Anne Rice doesn't appeal to me overly. Though I may give it a shot one day...

Some refuse to read a book or are cautious about reading a book because of things like fan hate. For instance one could have perfectly valid reasons for disliking G.R.R Martin and write a great review stating why (Keely comes to mind) and yet constantly be told scathingly that you're wrong by those fans. I can't judge people for not wanting to read books when fans are so aggressive in trying to defend or attack books...

When you say 'aggression', it's not like those frenzied fans are going to hurl more than words at you, and looking at some reviews expressing unpopular opinions, those words seem to be strung together insults which reflect badly on the fanbase. Focus on the coherent accounts and you have a chance at debate and reasoned discourse- be discouraged by ire-fuelled babble and you're just letting a social concern dictate your tastes.

Oh if one steels oneself you can ignore scathing comments but as humans words can be the most insidious and damaging things, more powerful than physical weapons since they can last for so much longer...
The main issue I have with hype is that it can be difficult to see the coherent, clarity of how good a book truly is through the haze of love.

So you think some silly annoying fan is a valid reason to hate a book/author one hasn't even read? No, I'm sorry but I can't agree with you there. Every book has it's own share of stupid fans. Don't see why author/book should take the blame for them.

I'm not saying it's a valid reason to hate the book but I'm saying that I can understand why people would want to stay clear of that novel. It is human nature after all to connect events and ideas to a book. Like for instance how the Nolan Dark Knight films had deaths connected to them that turned some people away from the movies regardless of how strong they were cinematographically.

Jonathan wrote: "Oh if one steels oneself you can ignore scathing comments but as humans words can be the most insidious and damaging things, more powerful than physical weapons since they can last for so much long..."

Of course they can be. But the thing is that they don't have to be. I think for good literary judgement (as with most things in fact) a 'sticks and stones may break my bones...' kind of stout attitude is a must. Overall in a population of readers there might be certain tendencies, but if each one tries to minimise their own prejudice for these things and exercise a blunt (in the sense of worrying about impact- it's good of course to be incisive on the commentary on actual substance) analysis.

Human nature, as Hobbes might have put is, is skulking and brute, and the best judgements in art or elsewhere, overcomes its limitations.


Also, even seemingly important facts can be irrelevant for a book's essential merit- for instance, there's a link just now posted to your Elric review where Moorcock explains how he wrote sword and sorcery back then, but this added information says nothing in itself about his work's merit as it stands. Nor would an author's intent according to the new critics, and I'm inclined to agree. So if the author can not matter, the reader or reader-bases can certainly be excluded from consideration, even when picking a book up.

This list is almost identical to mine. I just haven't gotten around to posting mine up here yet.

Haven't read HP yet. Or Twlight. (Enjoying slogging through Tolkien too much to invest time in either series at the moment.) But I did recently read HG and they were decent but nothing outstanding.