How Judging a Reader’s Taste Can Affect Their Love for Books
Being forced into reading books you don’t enjoy can significantly change your attitude toward reading
When I was still in school, our literature curriculum would ask us to read all the scary, daunting, difficult classics, from James Joyce to Charles de Baudelaire or Edgar Allan Poe.
Every time I would pick up a classic, I would crash into anxiety and self-doubt. I enjoyed some of them, like Madame Bovary or Wuthering Heights. But I could never get through any of Virginia Woolf’s novels without underestimating my intelligence, or indeed my own love for writing.
Digressing from my reading list imposed at school, I would love to dive into a good crime novel or a contemporary fiction one. At age 14, I had a phase, when Agatha Christie was pretty much the only author I read, and I still remember fondly how much it made me want to read more and more, with every book I finished.
Many of my classmates who seemed to complete classic after classic with ease and enjoyment would always test whether I’d read my portion of heavy-duty literature for the week. Which, I admit, most of the time, I hadn’t. Some of them would underestimate my reading choices, or my knowledge and passion for books, only because I didn’t…
