Trashy Books

[ailbhe]

I'm getting increasingly annoyed at this as a categorisation. Yes, I have used it myself. But I don't understand how it's used - some people use to to mean "genre I don't like", some use it to mean "plot I don't like", some use it to mean "badly written", and some use it to mean "popular". What makes a book trash?

I think that I tend to use it to mean "poorly thought out" or "unoriginal and badly written". But I suspect I have also used it to mean "popular romance".

Can you think of any genres which you think of as "trash"?

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

I think of "trash" books the way I think of "junk food".

A "trash" book, to me, is one which I read purely for easy, accessable fun. It's a book which doesn't challenge me, doesn't ask me to think, doesn't engage my imagination except on the most superficial level.

I like them. I read them by the truckload.

But that's because I can read them by the truckload -- I can read them as fast as I can turn the page, because they don't require me to slow down and meditate on ideas at any points.

Tom Clancy writes trash. Bernard Cornwell's "Richard Sharpe" books are trash. His "Enemy of God" series is not. There are romance novels which are trash, there are romance novels which make you sit down and think. Mystery novels are pretty much split straight down the middle. Media tie-in fantasy is usually trash, but not always.

That's how I use the term. When I use it, it's not derogatory.

I like this definition

[ailbhe]

I usually use "light" or "easy" to describe this. Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen, for example. PG Wodehouse. Many of my favourite books are two-a-day reads.

We'll save phrases like "poorly thought out" and "badly written" for all those other books.