Because I confess to you now: When it comes to fiction, that's what I like.  And yes, I'm aware that I recently ranted that readers need be more critical thinkers just, er... I don't know, two days ago.

But I do think critically about my taste in fiction, and I have no problem with liking what I like: Fiction that tells me a story, that's not mean-spirited or ugly in any way, that takes me to a place or a world that feels vivid and real to me, and that, in short, fills me with the sense of being immersed in the author's world, and glad to be there.

I like well-written dog and cozy mysteries. I like historical fiction (but not historical romances). I like a very limited number of fantasy authors: the Pern books by Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I don't even like those same authors' other series, just those. I like gay or lesbian detective novels as long as they're not dark or noir -- Katherine Forrest, Michael Nava, Claire McNab.

What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction. Oprah book club kind of books make me want to gouge out my eyes.

I feel the same way about TV shows and films. It's probably why I see so few of either. Of shows currently on television, there is exactly one that I enjoy: Battlestar Galactica. I used to enjoy ER, although I got bored with it in the last couple of years. Other than a few sitcoms, the only shows I've ever really loved or even liked are Xena, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager, Queer as Folk, West Wing, Cagney and Lacey, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU (although I no longer watch them), NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Upstairs, Downstairs, Rosemary and Thyme, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, and Lillie, and that's about it. In an entire lifetime of television watching, those are the only shows I can remember liking, although probably I've forgotten a few.

In films, I rarely see a drama or comedy that I like. Mostly they irritate me or bore me, or upset me. Similarly to how I want to meep and wail about people who hate Mists, I know I've upset or bewildered many of my friends with how I feel about Brokeback Mountain. While I can tell it's a "good movie," I didn't enjoy it at all, because it was just so grim. It didn't make me happy or feel moved, it angsted the crap out of me in a bad way, and filled me with unpleasant anxiety. That's not why I go to the movies, watch TV, or read books.

Fiction, at least. When I want to think or challenge my mind, which is pretty much every day, I read non-fiction. I also have a very high tolerance for artsy-fartsiness, pretentiousness, seriousness, and even grim topics in documentaries and non-fiction books, although I tend to steer clear of biographies and memoirs, and what I guess you'd call "spirituality" and "self-help" books, with few exceptions.

Which isn't to say I haven't read actual literature; I have. Kind of ironically, the only subject I almost had enough credits in to have been my major (other than my actual major) was Comparative Literature. But sit me down with two books by Virginia Woolf, one her fiction and the other her essays, and I'll take the essays every time. I've read Three Guineas and A Room of One's Own a hundred times each; you couldn't pay me to ever read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse again.

Serious fiction makes me feel manipulated. However genuine the emotional experience the author is seeking to evoke, no matter how good her intentions, my instinctive reaction is resitance and even resentment.  I have trust issues. I don't want my emotions handled, guided or directed. I don't want to open myself up to their stories because I don't freaking know them or what they want or where they'll take me. I don't want to be scared or moved or angsted, and I don't want to feel transcendent joy, just because an author wrote me there deliberately. I want it to happen because life made it happen, or not at all.

Do I miss a lot of great stories that way? Probably. Just as I'm sure there some very "good" fan fics out there amongs the death!fics and breakup!fics and reunion!fics and the endless list of fics I won't read in this fandom. But since I've never actually run out of good books to read, and don't think it's actually possible to read everything wonderful, interesting, enlightening, pleasurable, and compelling that's ever been or will be written, I don't feel any motivation to remedy that.

And to all this I'll attach my universal disclaimer: This is about me. It's description, not prescription, and meant only to give context for what it's likely to mean when I recommend or admire a novel or any work of fiction.