The whole “serious literature”/”popular literature” binary is fraught with issues. The distinction calls to mind Adorno’s famous separation of popular music and what he calls “serious music” and seems to be, in the case of literature, just as annoyingly prevalent in our cultural consciousness as it was when he was writing back in (I think) the 1940s. As a literary theorist (heck, as a thinking human), it annoys me to no end that a) there’s some loosely-defined yet nonetheless extremely influential hegemonic body of powers-that-be proclaiming what is and isn’t “real” Literature; and b) that the literary canon and that which maintains it instills a really problematic sense of what is and isn’t “good” reading onto our cultural consciousness; and c) that, therefore, a lot of really amazing writing may not get the respect and attention it deserves, because it is seen as popular or escapist or too “genre” to be literary. As far as I’m concerned, literary merit should have less to do with whether some group of people you’ve never met tell you a book is worth reading and more to do with whether you actually derive pleasure from the act of reading it. That’s empowering stuff. If adulthood means buying into the ideology that “serious literature” is better/better written/more profound/more important than “popular literature”, I’m just going to go ahead and keep eating at Chick-Fil-A and wearing Aquaman underoos to bed.

(I shudder to think of academia’s part in the making of the oppressive literary canon, but in my own defense, I did speak at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer academic conference a few years back, heh.)

There are many sayings here of the universe needing to stay in balance like what goes around comes around, etc. Therefore, someone taking the time to be mean to me all year should reap the benefit of that all time and effort put in by me saving up a large and boring book all year for them so that they can have it in their secret santa. Perfect karma and I especially love it when the book is a prize winning one as I can can say with all seriousness that I chose it because I thought it would be a good one for *insert name of mean person here* because it won a prize and looked the one that looked the best out of the ones I saw (in the box in the attic - but I leave that part out).

It’s nice to put so much time and effort into selecting the right gift for someone and keeping the universe in balance. I am feeling very spiritual now after all that

And Breahna: the thought of escaping into a good book is what keeps me going these days!

Some prize winning books are actually so dull that even the charity shops won’t accept them anymore as no-one will buy them. If that happens, I just keep them in a box in the attic and wrap them up as a secret santa gift if I get someone I don’t like very much. Saves me sometimes as much as £10 which is hopefully more than I spent on the book in the first place. Winner all round I reckon!

Your books and Anton’s are part of my prized collection and I will always be first in line for sequels from either of you (or rather pre-ordered online as they hardly stock any of the good stuff in Jersey as god forbid we might actually have some taste in what we read and rebel or something!)

PS I am talking about Jersey, UK and not Jersey, US.