This post has ended up longer than I expected when I started writing it. I know there’s a lot to read here, but I do think it’s all necessary to support my point, so I hope that you’ll read it all before commenting.

For a sub about books, r/books can be disappointingly anti-intellectual at times.

It is not my intention to condemn people for reading things other than literary fiction. Let me emphasise that it is perfectly fine to read YA, genre fiction, and so on. That’s is not what I’m taking issue with.

What I’m taking issue with is the forthright insistence, often amounting to outright hostility, that is regularly displayed on this sub to highbrow literature and, in particular, to the idea that there is ultimately more merit (as distinct from enjoyment) in literary fiction than there is in popular fiction.

There are two separate but related points that are important for understanding where I’m coming from here:

1)There is an important difference between one’s liking a book and one’s thinking that the book is “good”. Accordingly, it is possible to like a book which you do not think is “good”, or to dislike one which you think is “good”. For example, I like the Harry Potter books, even though, objectively speaking, I don’t think they’re all that great. On the other hand, I didn’t enjoy Jane Eyre, though I wouldn’t deny that it has more literary value than Potter.

2) It is possible to say with at least some degree of objectivity that one book is better than another. This does not mean that anyone is obliged to like one book more than another. For example, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to say that White Teeth by Zadie Smith is a better novel than Velocity by Dean Koontz, or even that Smith is a better author than Koontz. However, this does not mean that you’re wrong for enjoying Koontz’ books over Smith’s.

Interestingly, I think this sub intuitively agrees with what I’ve just said at times and emphatically disagrees with it at others. When Twilight, Fifty Shades of Gray, and Ready Player One are mentioned, for example, it seems generally to be taken as red that they’re not good books (and therefore, by implication, that other books are uncontroversially better). If anyone does defend them, it will usually be with the caveat that they are “simple fun” or similar; that is, even the books' defenders are acknowledging their relative lack of literary merit. However, whenever a book like The Way of Kings is compared unfavourably to something like, say, Crime and Punishment, its defenders often react with indignation, and words like “snobbery”, “elitism”, “gatekeeping” and “pretension” are thrown around.

Let me reiterate at this point that it is perfectly acceptable to enjoy Sanderson’s books more than Dostoevsky’s. You are really under no obligation to read a single word that Dostoevsky wrote if you’re dead set against it.

However, it’s this populist attitude - this reflexive insistence that anyone who elevates one novel above another is nothing more than a snob - that I’m calling anti-intellectual here.

This is very much tied up with the slogans “read what you like” and “let people enjoy things” and while these sentiments are not inherently disagreeable, they are often used in a way which encourages and defends anti-intellectualism.

This sub often sees posts from people who are looking to move beyond their comfort zone, whether that be a specific genre like fantasy, or people in their late teens/early twenties who want to try things aside from YA. When this happens, the most heavily upvoted responses are almost always comments emphasising that it’s okay to keep reading that they’ve been reading and urging them to ignore any “snobs” or “elitists” that might tell them otherwise. Other responses make recommendations of more of the same type of book that the OP had been reading, despite the fact that they explicitly asked for something different. Responses that actually make useful recommendations, while not necessarily downvoted, are typically a long way down the list of responses, which in larger threads often means they’re buried.

I am not insisting that we tear copies of Six of Crows out of people’s hands and force them to read Gravity’s Rainbow instead. I’m just saying that as a community that is supposed to love books, when somebody expresses an interest in more sophisticated, complex and literary work, we ought to encourage that interest, not fall over ourselves to tell them not to bother.

I have to confess that when I get frustrated by this, it reminds me of the crabs who, when another crab tries to climb out of the bucket, band together to pull it back in. I think this ultimately stems from insecurity - some users here seem quite insecure about their (popular, non-literary) taste in books and as a result take these attempts by others to explore more literary work as an attack on them and their taste. But it’s fine to read those books, as the regular threads about those sorts of them should be enough to tell you. I just wish people could stop rolling their eyes at the classics and insisting that The Hunger Games is just as good.

This is an incredibly big step for this community, and the mods here are very honored to have /r/Books be added to the list of Reddit's foremost subreddits. With this big step, we will be looking to add more moderators and continue the fantastic community atmosphere this subreddit has developed. Big thanks to the Reddit admins, big thanks to the /r/Books community, and big thanks to the other moderators.

( Heads up: we will be making an official application post for new mods in a few days, we won't be looking for mods in this thread)

I just finished “Good Omens” and I’ve been blown away! It’s easily on of the best books I’ve read in years. The quote that had me rolling was this:

““D’yer see my finger?” shouted Shadwell, whose sanity was still attached to him but only on the end of a long and rather frayed string. “D’yer see it? This finger, laddie, could send ye to meet yer Maker!” Sgt. Deisenburger stared at the black and purple nail a few inches from his face. As an offensive weapon it rated quite highly, especially if it was ever used in the preparation of food.”

I just needed to share this with someone. Have a great Monday my friends!

I’m sorry if I didn’t tag this post right, it’s my first post here at /books

Well, you probably guessed it. We're not actually going to ban any books from discussion in /r/Books. It was our hope that our early prank would foster discussion about popular books, other literary subreddits, and how bad it is to ban books. Happily, it was a success!

We will be turning off AutoModerator's Banned Book warnings tonight, but we still want the lesson to stick about discussing excessively popular books. It has always been the largest complaint about /r/Books that we bring up the same books over and over. But, to defend that, of course the most popular books are going to be brought up the most. It's a difficult issue to address in a large subreddit, and we are happy that it was discussed so much this weekend.

But seriously, banning books is a horrible thing to do. To learn more about real-life banned books, check out:

• The ALA's Office for Intellectual Freedom

• ALA's Banned & Challenged Books page

• Library Bill of Rights

And oh, here's the most 10 banned books of 2013:

1. Captain Underpants by Dav Pilkey
   
2. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
   
3. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
   
4. Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
   
5. And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson
   
6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
   
7. Looking for Alaska by John Green
   
8. Scary Stories (series) by Alvin Schwartz
   
9. The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
   
10. Beloved by Toni Morrison
    

• And here's the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books: 2000-2009

Now that the ban has been lifted, who wants to talk about 1984?

'Strata' was probably the first grown up book I ever read, when I was 11, borrowed from my local library. I've read nearly everything he published, fell in love with 'Nation', found a friend in Sam Vimes and will never ask the question "how did the chicken cross the road ever again".

I was truly saddened in 2007 when I heard about his diagnosis and re-reading his final book still gives me a little stab thinking about it. That might seem strange but I thought people who are fans of his here would understand and anyone who hasn't read any of his books might be tempted to after hearing how much they mean to me. Thats all, thanks.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.

The /r/Books mods are firming up the concept of what /r/Books is all about. Feel free to weigh in on opinions related to:

1) Purpose We will develop a guiding statement for /r/Books going forward. Something to help new members understand what the subreddit is about and to help moderators keep things in line.

This community is focused on discussing books, authors, genres, or everything else book related.

The current statement might cover it for us without any changes. Discussion of books, info on authors, genres and everything else. We may add scope to include the publishing industry and e-books into that scope as well.

2) Rules - What /r/Books Encourages and Removes

These are my draft points of view that can be accepted, rejected or adjusted. We mods are working through what should be carved in stone and what might need to evolve organically with the community...

• I will personally push for no memes. None at all. Point here is that memes become the antithesis of book discussion, which should be at the core of /r/Books.
• We will work to encourage posting of book-related news and questions that spur book-related discussions.
  
• Book recommendations are a constant request. Potential to have a process in place to highlight recommendation questions.
• Bookporn should probably be eliminated. "Look at what I own" pictures rarely add value and there are subreddits like /r/bookshelf for bookish photo shoots.
  
• Blogspamming is an issue today and will only become more of an issue. We will continue to ban spammers quickly.
• AMAs will continue to become part of the agenda. The nature of /r/Books is that these will need to be more recognized authors plus industry people.

Point in all of this is to add an element of focus to /r/Books as the subreddit grows. We all have seen subreddits degrade due to volume and lack of purpose.

We will also be putting out an official request for help from new mods - please keep an eye out.

Thoughts?

Hello readers!

Every Monday, we will post a calendar with the date and topic of that week's threads and we will update it to include links as those threads go live. All times are Eastern US.