by Diana Tixier Herald
Rosenberg’s First Law “Never apologize for your reading tastes.”
When I read that for the first time back in library school it made a huge impact. Here was somebody who knew enough about books and reading that we were using her book in graduate school, and she said that it was okay to read genre fiction. It was a valid type of reading and no excuses or apologies need be made.
When I booktalk to the teens who write reviews for Teens Talk About Books on my Genrefluent web site, I always tell them that “No two people ever read the same book� to give them permission to like or dislike books based on their experiences with them, not on some else’s opinion. And it is true that no two people ever read the same book.
Two incidents, separated by years, have pounded the truth of this into my brain. It essential for readers’ advisors to be aware and keep it in mind. In the first case an elderly, very refined woman asked me for the title of a book I had recommended to her, that she loved and wanted to buy for friends. When she describe the book as “the one where the woman gets her teeth stuck in the man’s zipper,â€? I was beyond mortified. What on earth had I given her? It was surely something I hadn’t read myself. Surprise! It was one of my favorite books at the time, Handling Sin by Michael Malone, and that particular scene had not resonated with me at all.
The next time the truth of “no two readers ever read the same bookâ€? was hammered home to me was when I was booktalking Snowcrash by Neal Stephenson, another long time favorite, and my son who also loved the book heard me. He was shocked—here I was extolling the characters, the commercialized dystopian future, and the action. When my son had read it, it had been all about neuro-linguistics and how language shapes thought!
Reading is a creative endeavor. It takes a writer to put the words on the page and a reader to interpret them through the filters of his or her experiences and perceptions. This is why some authors who are highly regarded leave me cold and why favorite books are very individual. Readers’ advisors can see this as bad news (meaning that RA can never be scientifically codified) or as good news (an opportunity to learn the craft and artistry of good RA). It is up to us as reader’s advisors to try to discern what it is the reader likes and how books can be interpreted in different ways with all their different appeals.
So – if I am to be remembered for one phrase please let it be Herald’s First Law “No two people ever read the same book.� By the way, I may have read that somewhere, sometime and if I did I apologize for stealing it, but it is so true I’ve made it my mantra.
Well said, Diana, I have already quoted Rosenberg on the header of my “Fiction” page, but I’m going to Herald’s Law right after. As I see it, it does matter what people read. But who can say what passage will move a person in a particular moment or setting? I jokingly call this “The Incompleteness Theorem of Library Science”.
Wonderful post — thank you! One of my college professors told us that when we read a book, we are also “reading ourselves” and to pay attention to what we enjoy/hate/etc. as a possible reflection of who we are.
This has stuck with me ever since and I enjoyed your fresh perspective on this idea!!