fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2732 ]

[ SECRET POST #2732 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2732 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 020 secrets from Secret Submission Post #390.
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Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
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there are a lot of reasons I only read fanfic-- a key one is that it's easy to come by free, legal (well, legal-ish), quality work. If I spend money on a book and it's crap, I get pissed off. If I start a fic I don't like I can just stop reading, no money lost.

That's what libraries are for...

Haha, I thought it was pretty funny that everyone's going "but fanfic is freeeeee!" when the actual secret is of a photo of a library. That cracks me up.

Unless your local libraries have made drastic cuts in the past 20 years and now only hold a few shelves of encyclopedias, a few shelves of nonfiction, and a giant-ass young children's section. :/

But yeah, if you're lucky enough to be in an area with libraries that still have nice, big, varied collections, I absolutely recommend checking it out (haha puns).

Most of the stuff I read is fanfic because I don't have the time or energy to go to a library. I mean, all I have to do is click on a website to read whatever fic I want, but to have to go well out of my way and waste all that money/time/effort to go to a library just to pick up some books? Really doesn't seem worth it.

Also, I've never really known how to find good books. Aside from a few recs from friends here and there, I've never known where (or how) to start looking to find something I'd sincerely enjoy reading.

Fanfiction is easier, plus I already care about the characters.

Uh--there are loads of websites out there, like goodreads, that are all about people reviewing books and giving them star-ratings like on Amazon--or hell, Amazon has ratings too. Also, depending on where you are, your local library may have an ebook collection. Once you get the actual card by going into the library, you can stay home and check out ebooks on your computer or e-reader or whatever. Also, you realize there are fandoms for books that were never adapted into movies or tv shows or musicals or whatever, yeah? My most longstanding--as in, I've been in it 20 years--fandom is a book fandom. Sorry to flip out. I work in a library and people seeing going to the library as effort rather than fun makes me sad.

I live in a very small city, so my library isn't that great (and it's well out of my way on the other side of town). I still don't know how to start searching for stuff like that, though? I'm really picky, and for some reason books feel like more of a commitment than watching some pilot for a TV show or the start of some Youtube walkthrough for a video game to see if I'll like it or not.

So really, I only read non-fiction historical stuff because at least with that I'm guaranteed to enjoy it. I don't have an e-reader, either.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-30 22:36 (UTC) - Expand

Also, I've never really known how to find good books. Aside from a few recs from friends here and there, I've never known where (or how) to start looking to find something I'd sincerely enjoy reading.

That's literally what librarians do. They will help you with this.

My library has a terrible selection, a several week long waiting list for anything I'm interested in reading, and once I do get a book I only have three weeks to read it. No renewals because, yeah, ridiculous waiting lists.

And THEN, I'm not even guaranteed to like it. Or maybe I do, but it just didn't QUITE scratch that itch when I'm in the mood for something specific.

So yeah. Fanfic all the way.

As someone who used to rely on libraries for most of my reading, A) accessibility, B) fines, C) variety, D) clutter. All problems that fanfic doesn't have.

Are you in a location that does not have a public library?

DA

This is a good moment to remember that libraries in certain countries can be very restrictive (in my country only high schoolers and college students can borrow books to take home; everyone else can only read them in the library) and can have a very limited selection of books (Encyclopedias? Dictionaries? Technical texts? Sure. Literature? Only classics and some more recent novel-prize winners, that's all you'll find in the public libraries in my country ~~For some reasons they do have an excellent collection of magazines. I guess it's because those get donated pretty frequently?~~)

Maybe it's the same for the other anon?

ayrt

That is incredibly unfortunate and I wish it weren't that way.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-26 23:53 (UTC) - Expand

I'm curious, now. Where are you from?

I live in a location that has one of the biggest library systems in the world, and even there, demand and theft makes it difficult to get the books you want when you want them. Seems like every damn one only has the second book in every series ever.

Going on this, not all of them have eLibraries (or good ones, at least), and not everyone has an eReader, anyway. I read things on my laptop, which last time I tried, my city's elibrary did not like/cooperate with (too easy to pirate, I guess). And the nearest physical library is...still pretty far.

Libraries are just hard to access for some people, and what there is to access in them isn't always worth putting in that effort, anyway.

Most books are public domain nowadays, you can legally download them . Only contemporary books aren't. You have 3,000 years of literature for free.

The older books can be a tough starting point for a young reader, though. Even if that included some of the best books in the world (Pride & Prejudice!)

Myself, I have 30+ books downloaded on my Kindle, free and completely legal from here:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

Older translations, though. :-( Who really wants to read George Webbe Dasent's translation of Njal's Saga or Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad? (Well, maybe the latter if you're a fan of Pope, but that's kind of my point; the translation is decent Pope but horrible Homer.)

And that's assuming that works even have older translations at all. Water Margin, for instance, was written in the 14th century but not translated into English until Pearl S. Buck did so (badly) in the 1930s; that translation is still under copyright.

Of course, if you happen to read Icelandic and Ancient Greek and vernacular Chinese and etc., then, yes, 3000 years' worth of literature are yours for the taking.

Yaaay 3,000 years of mostly straight white people whining pretentiously. No, thank you.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-27 11:59 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nyxelestia - 2014-06-27 16:52 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-28 22:39 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

nyxelestia - 2014-06-29 02:58 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, there isn't a single worthy book in that entire collection. Of course. Never mind that neither "straight" nor "white" existed as concepts 2000 years ago, let alone 3000; and never mind that something being written by a straight white person isn't necessarily pretentious or bad; and never mind that the collection involves works written by people from all over the world, so many of them aren't even white by today's standards.

Yes, dismiss it all, and pretend that doing so doesn't make you pretentious.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-28 22:37 (UTC) - Expand

If you don't want to read literature, cool. But if you're going to dismiss ALL of older literature- Gilgamesh, Homer, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, George Elliot, Virgil, Virginia Woolf, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Ramayana, Mahabhartha, Shakespeare, The Divine Comedy, A Thousand And One Nights, volumes fairy tales,the collections of oral folklore, mythology...- all of it, as "white people whining pretentiously," then you are an idiot.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2014-06-30 22:41 (UTC) - Expand

A lot of it is, yes. But dismissing all of it because it's written by white people doesn't make you some sort of enlightened reader (because tumblr lies), it just means you're limiting your reading choices in a slightly different but also ridiculous way as the people who won't read anything by a POC author.

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