Book shame

Just a quick one here, though I'm hoping to be back tomorrow-ish with some words about my hopes for 2015.
For now, though, an issue that's been vexing me: what do I feel about the books that I love? Or, can I get over my apparent need to write or talk only about the more literary, impressive, books that I enjoyed, and be more open, with readers of this blog but also with myself.  Repeat to self: if you enjoyed a book, you enjoyed it. They don't all have to be great literature, and there is no need to be ashamed of anything that I'm reading.

It's so hard! And it's all about the constructed self-image, not that I take a great deal of care about this but I do like to think of myself as someone with good taste (I suppose we all do) and I'm also aware that I go on about how little time I have. Maybe my imaginary reader scorns me for guzzling my way through the Susan Hill series of Simon Serailler books, or for having enjoyed  All Hallows at Eyre Hall as much as I did. I look at these and am fairly confident they're not going to win prizes or be widely known in 100 years, and one of my inner voices says that this must mean they're not "worth it"...worth what? My reading time, or my writing time, or the reading time of anyone who visits this blog or my Goodreads page? Or is it even more laughably conceited than that - "these books do not merit my endorsement, because I am a Serious Reader who must only be associated with Very Serious Books"?

I am packed with self-loathing when I find myself suspecting this is how I'm thinking, and so an early resolution for next year is this: I will read what I enjoy, which might sometimes mean a fine aesthetic appreciation, sometimes a furious socio-political engagement, sometimes a happy nostalgia, and sometimes the pure reading pleasure of something I can't put down. I will not engage with the part of me that wants to put the books in boxes as worthy or unworthy, "high quality" or "low quality", and will test out a new assumption: a book is "high quality" if it made me involve myself with it, and kept me reading - I can trust myself on this, and share my thoughts on it. It will improve me as a reader, and as a writer, because the more I can identify this magic ingredient, the better I'll be at spotting it as a reader, at helping to draw it out as an editor, and even trying to produce it myself as a writer. I'll go back again to Francine Prose, and learn from her every word, and I will get over myself a bit!

All this will work with the help of my glorious new Paperwhite (reading! All the time! In the dark! One-handed! New books at a single click!) and I swear I will write about them all, even if they only get a few lines, and this sort of honesty will improve everything. Though I'd never admit it if I read Fifty Shades of Grey....