Stereotyping People by their Favorite Author...

[Blanket Heist]

I'll just leave this here...


J.D. Salinger
Kids who don’t fit in.
Stephenie Meyer
People who type like this: OMG. Mah fAvvv <3 <3.
Jodi Picoult
Your mom when she’s at her time of the month.
Leo Tolstoy
Guys I want to date.
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Guys I want to sleep with. (The difference between the two Russian authors lies in the fact that I think the Underground Man is sexier than Pierre Buzukhov).
Ayn Rand
Workaholics seeking validation.
David Foster Wallace
Confirmed 90’s literati.
Jane Austen (or Bronte Sisters)
Girls who made out with other girls in college when they were going through a “phase”.
Haruki Murakami
People who like good music.
Charles Dickens
Ninth graders who think they’re going to be authors someday but end up in marketing.
William Shakespeare
People who like bondage.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
People who drink scotch.
Joseph Conrad
People who drink old fashioneds.
Edgar Allan Poe
Men who live in their mother’s basements. Or goth seventh graders.
William Faulkner
People who are good at crosswords.
Nicholas Sparks
Women who are usually constipated.
George Orwell
Conspiracy theorists (too easy).
Aldous Huxley
People who are bigger conspiracy theorists than Orwell fans.
Harper Lee
People who have read only one book in their life and it was To Kill A Mockingbird (and it was their assigned reading in the ninth grade).
Ernest Hemingway
Men who own cottages.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
People who get adjustable-rate mortgages.
Vladimir Nabokov
Men who use words like ‘dubious’ and ‘tenacity’.
Hunter S Thompson
That kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo.
Thomas Aquinas
Premature ejaculators.
Thomas Pynchon
People who used to be fans of J.D. Salinger.
C.S. Lewis
Youth group leaders who picked their nose in the 4th grade.
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Men who can’t lie but will instead be silent if they know you don’t want to hear the truth.
Virginia Woolf
Female high-school French teachers who have their master’s degree.
Richard Dawkins
People who have their significant other grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong.
Albert Camus
People who went to art school after “trying it out” at a public university.
Kurt Vonnegut
People who played Creep by Radiohead while having sex or smoking pot.
James Joyce
People who do not like John Cusack movies.
Oscar Wilde
People who can’t resist anything. See also, people who claim they’re going to change but never do.
Truman Capote
People who would never dream of owning anything that could be classified as a “knick-knack”.

This list definitely made me laugh.

Agree with the list? Did it throw you into an existential crisis? Have some of your own? LET'S HEAR THEM.


Full list can be found here: http://laurenleto.wordpress.com/readers-by-author/"]http://laurenleto.wordpress.com/readers-by-author/

[Butosai]

I thought they were kind of off, but I guess you have to look at it with some humor. Btw, Radiohead is decent at most, but I'm more likely to listen to Sleep or Buzzoven. At least the pot smoking part was right on. :)

[toni]

If that's the case, then I am a premature ejaculator with a good taste in music that likes bondage who can't resist anything.

Seriously, I cannot help stereotyping people by their literary preferences. as the saying goes: "You are what you read..."

[Janine]

I don't know why but this one really cracked me up:

Nicholas Sparks
Women who are usually constipated.

I read one of his books and thought it was awful...worst writing I have ever read...total sap!

[toni]

Thanks for the warning, Janine. I was about to look into him. :eek:

[mayneverhave]

It's certainly not out of line to make such a judgment. A person's preferences for certain things are just as much a part of their identity as anything else - whether they are lying or not.

If a person tells you his favorite author is Joyce, for example, you can ascertain that they are either lying (to a degree, perhaps) to sound more sophisticated, or that they legitamently enjoy Joyce.

Either way, some aspect of their personality is present - either that they feel the need to sound sophisticated and they feel reading Joyce makes them sound sophisticated, or that their personal taste favors Joyce.

[JBI]

It's certainly not out of line to make such a judgment. A person's preferences for certain things are just as much a part of their identity as anything else - whether they are lying or not.

If a person tells you his favorite author is Joyce, for example, you can ascertain that they are either lying (to a degree, perhaps) to sound more sophisticated, or that they legitamently enjoy Joyce.

Either way, some aspect of their personality is present - either that they feel the need to sound sophisticated and they feel reading Joyce makes them sound sophisticated, or that their personal taste favors Joyce.

The chance of personal taste favoring Joyce is minimal - even on the highest levels, the one's who write for the James Joyce specific journals, and publish primarily on Joyce, even at those levels, it seems riddled in snobbery and the such. I don't deny him genius, but it is rare to see people think "Wow Joyce is the greatest author ever."


Truth be told though, it is understandable how some may think him the most interesting, but I think to get to the level where you can make that claim, you must read a great deal, and the more one reads, the more it would seem they cannot commit to just one text they love. So for instance I was rereading Hardy's poetry, and I got the feeling that I could read him forever, and that he was interesting enough to write a thesis on, but then I put the book down, lifted my Yeats up, and felt the same thing - when it comes down to it though, if I were to write a thesis, chances are I wouldn't choose any of them to dedicate the time to. It becomes difficult to even keep track of one's favorites. I for instance regarded Leopardi as the supreme favorite of mine, but now realize such labeling is impossible, especially if the person is Joyce, or Leopardi, who act as syntheses of other works and sort of bring things together.


Still, the Aquinas one really made me laugh.

[grace86]

This list cracked me up! But I do think I made it through my college career without going though that "phase" of making out with girls, oddly enough my first and foremost favorite author is Dostoevsky! :)

[dfloyd]

favorite authors. But if someone raves about Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, Ann Rice et al, It does say something about their personality.

[JBI]

favorite authors. But if someone raves about Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, Ann Rice et al, It does say something about their personality.

Yeah, that they enjoy those works...

Seriously, I personally would be the first to criticize those authors as mediocre literature - I have the post count to prove it - but ultimately, one must realize where to draw the line. I don't care for Brown, I don't care for Rice, Rand, Sparks, Grisham, King, Rowling, etc. but ultimately, to really describe people's personality based on the liking of a few authors seems ridiculous.

I could, for instance, play the game of laughing at people for only reading mediocre American novels, and being ethnocentric simpletons. Or, I could laugh at people who only read Proust, Borges, Joyce, Baudelaire and the rest for being snobby egotistical charlatans trying to seem cultured and bourgeois.

The truth is though, that what we read isn't everything, and really, what people like is, when it comes down to it, their own preference. I can criticize Dan Brown, but if I see somebody enjoying it immensely, would I be a more understanding, better person for laughing at them, or appreciating the fact that they get enjoyment out of something. I will not discuss Brown, of course, unless I have to, nor praise him, and will of course comment on his work based on my own standards, but ultimately, when it comes down to it, I think everybody should read more of what they enjoy - if of course one doesn't expand one's horizons, I will comment, but in itself, one reading books they enjoy isn't going to hurt them.

On that note, I would be quick to attack the romance genre as a whole, and the "romance reader" as a convention, especially on the grounds of feminist discourse, but ultimately, I wouldn't attack people who read the books and enjoy them, or take interest in these things. First of all, I read a study somewhere before that women who read romance novels claim to have better and more frequent orgasms during sex, so at least something, on some level, is working, is it not? Why would I like to take that away from people?



The actual reading of the books is of no interest, the only time it really gets annoying, I find, is when people try to discuss such books, and realize that there isn't all that much to discuss - and that the plots discuss themselves in the book, and don't yield much to a discourse of interpretation. So I may jump at the number of Potter threads on the boards or whatever, but I am not about to go on the subway, rip the book out of some person's hand, and yell at them.

Truth be told, I find all the Orwellians, Dostoevsky readers, and people who only mention the same books, examples, and cultural situations over and over again to be far more tedious than people who describe their liking of popular fiction.

[DanielBenoit]

Hmm, according to the data I happen to fall into the catagory of specimen who like cottages and bondage but do not like John Cusack movies, oh and you probably want to sleep with me.

[Veva]

Hey, according to the full list I am a boy who cannot read, a girl who kissed other girls during a "phase" in my life and a person who cannot resist anything.... :eek2: the sad part.... it is true in some ways...

[stlukesguild]

to really describe people's personality based on the liking of a few authors seems ridiculous.

Surely. It would seem more than a bit snobbish... and ignores the fact that reading may not be the sole measure of intelligence or culture (difficult to comprehend as that may seem to many of us). More than a few who are well-read (however you determine that)... even here at LitNet... sing the praises of this or that popular musician or band or less-than-mediocre artist that surely leads some into rolling their eyes. Certainly, there are a few who are well-versed with the novel who have absolutely the no idea about poetry (one need only look at the poetry board and some of the comically bad pop lyrics posted as examples of great poetry). There are too many books alone to be truly well-read in everything. The same is true of every other art form. I wouldn't have the least clue about ballet... outside of the music and what struck me as visually interesting. I could say the same for Chinese opera... the whole of Chinese music... Japanese Noh theater, and endless other art forms. Yet we all make prejudicial appraisals of others based upon impressions that may have very little to do with the whole person. Entering a home with well-stocked book shelves I would probably assume that the person has a modicum of intelligence... that he or she may have something in common... and yet it may all be but for show. Now what of people whose favorite authors include Dante, Borges, Blake, Baudelaire, and Kafka? What of people who waste time reading blogs by "writers" like Lauren Leto?

[Idril]

I'm not sure I would agree with the idea that the Underground Man is sexier than Pierre Buzukhov but Ivan Karamazov certainly is. :brow: ...oh! And Nikolai Stavrogin, much sexier than Pierre! :lol:

[Red-Headed]

What about adults who read the Beano (or Viz)?

[Muses]

Im a conspiracist who loves bondage.

It made my day.

[Janine]

Thanks for the warning, Janine. I was about to look into him. :eek:

toni, don't bore yourself. My mom read the book, too - "The Notebook" - and we both agreed - Sparks is totally redundant and so so sappy....my aunt loves his books; but I wasn't even aware she ever read anything. He's one of those best sellers who write formulative stuff...cranks out a book a month, I think.

[Zeniyama]

Apparently I'm a kid who lives in his mothers basement in a cottage who doesn't fit in, likes drinking Scotch and bondage, is a bigger conspiracy theorist than Orwell fans, some one wants to sleep with me, I'm a youth group leader, and I dislike John Cusack movies...

...Some of that's not too far off base.

[papayahed]

Who could not like a John Cusack movie?

[Zeniyama]

Ostensibly, Joyce fans.

I can remember liking Con Air when I saw it a couple years ago...

[higley]

I'm quite a Doyle fan but I'll take a beer over scotch ;)

Admittedly I think a person's choice of literature is as suggestive of their personality as clothing, music or anything else, I'm just not sure what each indicates. I just know my gag reflex is too sensitive for Nicholas Sparks.

[Janine]

Admittedly I think a person's choice of literature is as suggestive of their personality as clothing, music or anything else, I'm just not sure what each indicates. I just know my gag reflex is too sensitive for Nicholas Sparks.

Exactly! I was wondering why he even made the list. :sick:

[Pensive]

Pretty hilarious!


Stephenie Meyer
People who type like this: OMG. Mah fAvvv <3 <3.
:lol:
But of course such stereotypes can not be taken seriously...

[Kafka's Crow]

So it is decided: She wants to sleep with me!!!

On a serious note, Dostoevsky has a lot more to offer than the Underground Man.

I finshed reading Ulysses 8th time recently (or was it 9th? I am losing the count now!) and with each re-reading it becomes more and more clear and understandable. I would recommend many audio readings of this work on CDs etc for a better understanding a book which is notoriously difficult but is 'manageable' in reality. If you want something really difficult, try Finnegans Wake or Samuel Beckett's short story Ping. Come on, give Ping at try. It is only one and a half page but it will give you a headache for sure:
http://www.samuel-beckett.net/ping.html

How would you stereotype someone who thrives on such writing as FW or Beckett's short story?

Someone who pays women to whip him!

[El Viejo]

...If you want something really difficult, try...Samuel Beckett's short story Ping. Come on, give Ping at try.

How would you stereotype someone who thrives on such writing as FW or Beckett's short story?

Someone who pays women to whip him!

Just took the suggestion/advice/dare and read "Ping." Didn't give me a headache, but I decided I liked it. As a puzzle. I started considering ways to analyze it for patterns, such as converting to a fixed-width font and trying different margin widths to see what emerges. The image that kept coming into my head was of a room with a crucifix, or someone who'd hung themselves, and a clothes dryer alarm or some other device periodically making noise.

As some have said, our taste in literature says something about us, but as others have said, exactly what it says is unclear. I, for instance, despite liking "Ping," wouldn't pay anyone to whip me.

What's probably more revealing is what we think about the literature we like. For instance, my liking "Ping" for its suggestion of hidden patterns might show me to be like the prince in Mason Williams's "The Prince's Panties (http://www.themadmusicarchive.com/song_details.aspx?SongID=8417)."

Speculation is certainly fun, however.

[hack]

And if I enjoyed "The Dead Father" or "P.S. Your Cat is Dead" and Proust can make me wince, and Joyce bores me to the bone, and Thomas Wolfe can take my breath, and Stegner and Cather speak direct to my life experience, and Saramago carries me to a place I have not been but remember clearly, and so much more and less, do those things raise or lower your opinion of me, and if so, should I care? I am not what I read, my tastes, like the challenges of my life, shift and move beneath my unsteady feet.

[Nietzsche]

Why I am I not on this list? Rand gets a spot but not me? Where is Franz Kafka?

I'll add to this.


Franz Kafka
For those who are creepy grammar masters who speak German. Slightly older, more intelligent, goths than those who favorite Poe.


Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
For misunderstood geniuses slowly descending into madness.

[The Comedian]

What! No Thoreau! No Edward Abbey on that list? Then let me make one up on my own:

Favorite Author: Thoreau
People who make their own lists because they're too boring or too cantankerous to be invited to other people's lists. .

[applepie]

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol: :lol::lol::lol:

Well that shows me to characterize Atlas Shrugged as one of my favorite books, and it is in fact one of the only long stories I've finished in the last few years. To give credit... I am a bit of a workaholic and I've spent the last 2 years or so since graduating college working 50-65 hour weeks. My last two weeks off is the longest stretch off I've taken since the forced two weeks off between terms in college. I'll concede it is a correct stereotype;)

[PeterL]

Pretty hilarious!


:lol:
But of course such stereotypes can not be taken seriously...

Why not?

[JuniperWoolf]

:( I'm not on there either.

John Steinbeck:
People who go weeks at a time without bathing or sleeping inside.

[Blanket Heist]

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
For misunderstood geniuses slowly descending into madness.

Think the more likely stereotype would be:

Nietzsche:
People who feel intellectually isolated and compensate for it via telling themselves that they are "ahead of their time."

I dig your work, though. :thumbs_up

[Petrarch's Love]

Goodness! I had no idea I was into bondage and liked to make out with other women. At least I can drink lots of scotch to help erase the memories and the regret. :lol: Maybe I need to keep a copy of this list around to hand to the next student who gives me that "oh my god you teach Shakespeare and that must make you the most archaic boring person in the world" look.

[Mathor]

:( I'm not on there either.

John Steinbeck:
People who go weeks at a time without bathing or sleeping inside.

seeing as this is my favorite author, i'm at a loss for words. :lol:

Henry David Thoreau:
People who are really poor and/or people who seek to rebel against the natural bonds of society. If none of these are true, than this person is simply someone who seeks some escape from their own reality, but does nothing about it.

[Emil Miller]

A very funny list with many a true word spoken jest. My own favourite is:

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

[Hank Stamper]

What about adults who read the Beano (or Viz)?

no serious literary scholar should be without a copy of the profanisaurus rex..

[PeterL]

A very funny list with many a true word spoken jest. My own favourite is:

Dan Brown

People who used to get lost in supermarkets when they were kids.

And continue that into adulthood.

[Morden]

Where's the author for people who just don't get it?

[MarkBastable]

Where's the author for people who just don't get it?

Well, it depends. If they don't get it but they want to get it, that'd be Douglas Adams. If they don't get it and they want to feel good about not getting it, you'd probably point them towards Tolkien.

[Scheherazade]

Well, it depends. If they don't get it but they want to get it, that'd be Douglas Adams. If they don't get it and they want to feel good about not getting it, you'd probably point them towards Tolkien.And if they don't get it and they are not even aware of this fact, then, it would be Jack Kerouac.

:p

[Morden]

Thanks for the time and answer. :)

[Old Crow]

The comment about some one who likes Beckett payins women to whip him caused me to crack up. Thanks.

I don't think anybody is really going to take this list too seriously, but some of it is certainly funny...especially the Picoult one. A persons taste does say something about their personality, but it's more of a general indicator than a cut and dry 'if you like a then you are b' type of thing.

[prendrelemick]

What about Homer?

I instinctivly feel beards are involved.

[Pensive]

Why not?
Because I just don't think stereotypes are worth taking seriously. :)



:( I'm not on there either.

John Steinbeck:
People who go weeks at a time without bathing
:eek2:
Heh.
This holds true for me at least! :D

[PeterL]

Where's the author for people who just don't get it?

Dan Brown


Because I just don't think stereotypes are worth taking seriously. :)



While stereotypes by themselves aren't very useful, the idea that one can determine something of the characters of a people by the literature that they read is not unreasonable. People show their styles of thinking through verbal expressions. Thus one can determine a lot about an author by the writing style, vocabulary, sentence structures, etc., remember that the subject matter is secondary when looking at the author's way of thinking. It is reasonable that readers show, to a lesser degree, that by being drawn to a particular sort of writing that writing reflects the reader's way of thinking. I don't think that anyone has researched the matter deeply, as has been done with authors, so it is an open field.

[purpleViolet]

My dad always makes me laugh, he has two degrees one in chemistry and one in Theology, can read ancient hebrew, took a 7 month sabbatical to study the history of dead sea scrolls etc etc you get the idea.

But he will only pretty much only read Dan Brown or Stephen King. How do you classify that one. I think as he doesnt watch TV those books are his relax time, he just wants to chill out and be entertained in his spare time and not read anything to taxing. His equivalent to his soap operas if you will.

[PeterL]

My dad always makes me laugh, he has two degrees one in chemistry and one in Theology, can read ancient hebrew, took a 7 month sabbatical to study the history of dead sea scrolls etc etc you get the idea.

But he will only pretty much only read Dan Brown or Stephen King. How do you classify that one. I think as he doesnt watch TV those books are his relax time, he just wants to chill out and be entertained in his spare time and not read anything to taxing. His equivalent to his soap operas if you will.

Someone who knows too much and wants to avoid any more.

[purpleViolet]

Someone who knows too much and wants to avoid any more.

haha well I wont tell him that he will just agree with you :lol:

[Kafka's Crow]

The People who just 'don't get it'

Haruki Murakami

[Pecksie]

favorite authors. But if someone raves about Nicholas Sparks, Dan Brown, Ayn Rand, Ann Rice et al, It does say something about their personality.

My personal pet hate is those people you meet sometimes (e.g. at parties) and who, on being told that you love reading (or writing) gush 'Wow! I love books too! My favourite author is Paulo Coelho!'

A total turn-off.

[Three Sparrows]

Hm, seeing as I like Shakespeare, Austen/Bronte, Conrad, Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy on the list, where does that leave me?:lol:

[kitkat203]

Ha ha! This made me laugh….My fiancé is that kid in your philosophy class with the stupid tattoo and the person who has their significant other (i.e. ME) grab them under the table in order to shut them up whenever someone else at a dinner says something absolutely ridiculous and wrong. So true! Well apart from the stupid tattoo...

[Jeremydav]

I'm the kind of guy who is skeptical of any new author. I'm not proud of it, but I barely read anything past 1960 that isn't Marquez. Even that pushes it sometimes.