Under Pressure

It's been a while since I did a Booking Through Thursday, which is largely because I haven't blogged on a Thursday for a while. This Thursday also saw the first venture of Our Vicar and Stuck-in-a-Book in a car, L-plates and all... not a complete success. My confidence has taken a little dent, but the car has not, so we shall continue tomorrow. Just be thankful on Our Vicar's nerves that I'd got this far before coming home to practise.

Anyway. Back to Booking Through Thursday:

I was looking through books yesterday at the shops and saw all the Twilight books, which I know basically nothing about. What I do know is that I’m beginning to feel like I’m the *only* person who knows nothing about them.

Despite being almost broke and trying to save money, I almost bought the expensive book (Australian book prices are often completely nutty) just because I felt the need to be ‘up’ on what everyone else was reading.

Have you ever felt pressured to read something because ‘everyone else’ was reading it? Have you ever given in and read the book(s) in question or do you resist? If you are a reviewer, etc, do you feel it’s your duty to keep up on current trends?

Well, I haven't the smallest idea what the Twilight books are so that makes at least two of us. Perhaps it's an Australian phenomenon. And have I ever felt pressured to read something because 'everyone else' was reading it? Erm... not that I can think.

Regular readers of Stuck-in-a-Book will know that my reading tends to be off the beaten track, to the extent that I (to continue the metaphor) get lost in an overgrown meadow, wandering around without any idea where the beaten track is. Occasionally a book will be talked about on so many blogs that I feel I have to read it - Rachel Ferguson's The Brontes Went To Woolworths springs to mind - but rarely have I succumbed to a modern book through this persuasion. I did buy Kate Morton's The House at Riverton, but I still haven't read it... every now and then I look at the pretty cover...

If someone directly recommends something to me, or a blogger I love mentions a book, that's a different kettle of fish. That's not pressure; that's pleasure.

I suppose I might qualify as a reviewer, but I've never felt any real need to keep up with the trends - I'm realistic: blog-readers who want to know what the movers and shakers of the literary world are up to will glance at my tatty 1930s hardbacks and weathered Virago paperbacks and run for the hills. Stuck-in-a-Book, I hope, caters to the sort of people whose hearts leap with joy at the thought of those things! Of course, I do write about new books (dead authors rarely send review copies) and love some of them; my reading, however, will continue to meander over the past couple centuries or more. Oh, it's much more fun that way!

As usual, the same question over to you...