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Someone so concerned to optimize their reading experience really ought to be reading more than 12 books a year.


According to Goodreads, I've read 438 books so far (it's probably way above that, since it doesn't have that many Spanish language books...), and I'm only 32. So, whomever is reading 12 books a year is being lazy :)

However, most are the literary value equivalent to your average sitcom :)


I think I read that many books in high school. b^)

My rate has really plummeted recently, but it's not as though St. Peter is going to decide my case based on whether I read the seven volumes of À la recherche du temps perdu in the original French. When you read for enjoyment, no one is grading you. The "real literature" thing is odd.


If I was reading more than 12 books a year, I wouldn't be so concerned to optimize my reading experience ;)

Anyway, that was just an average, and I was just talking about literature, I wasn't including essays or technical books.


So you're happy to read things other than "literature". (Quite right!)

Which makes it a bit strange to say "don't read this, because it isn't literature". (Not your actual words, but I don't believe I'm misrepresenting your meaning.)

As you clearly appreciate, there are many reasons for reading things. Some of those reasons are best served by reading highbrow literature, some by reading technical books. Is there some general principle that makes it obvious to you that there is no good reason that would be well served by reading HPMoR?

Perhaps you have read enough of it to know you don't like it. Perhaps you've found "fanfiction is always junk" so reliable a guide that it would take an enormous amount of contrary evidence to change your mind in any instance. Fair enough, in both cases; but in both cases the actual reasons are much more detailed than "it isn't literature, so away with it".


What's real literature, then?




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