<\/a><\/p>\n

When I was young, weekend trips to the library were an adventure. I\u2019d charge through the front doors and down the endless hallway, my eyes trained on the colorful mobiles swinging overhead as I made my way back to the children\u2019s reading room. The dark walls would give way to brightly colored murals, and the sensible reading chairs were replaced with tiny plastic seats big enough for only the smallest of bottoms. It was a place for whispered stories and squeals of delight, and it was mine.<\/p>\n

By the time we got home, I would have decided the order in which I would devour my many books. I started out with\u00a0Where the Wild Things Are<\/em>\u00a0by the late and great Maurice Sendak then graduated to the\u00a0Amelia Bedelia\u00a0<\/em>series. The older I got, the longer the books I chose, so our trips became less and less frequent. Eventually I must have returned a book without picking out another, because my weekly visits stopped. But I kept reading. Sure, much of my reading list was dictated by my teachers, and yes, my parents would hand me books they thought were important for me to read, but the joy of reading was still there, even if the opportunity to pick my own book was limited to the occasional book report.<\/p>\n

Choosing reading material today is far more complicated than picking out a book from the children\u2019s shelves or having an assigned reading list handed to me at the beginning of the semester. In fact, it\u2019s almost a combination of the two: \u00a0I am able to choose what I read while simultaneously treading through the water of popular opinion and Top 100 Lists.<\/p>\n

This has always been true, of course, but something has happened over the last ten years: the internet. Whereas before I was limited to the opinions of my friends and family, librarians, teachers, and the occasional booklist, I now have access to websites like goodreads.com which allow me to see not only what\u00a0my<\/em>\u00a0friends are reading and what\u00a0their\u00a0<\/em>friends are reading, but also what some guy in Detroit is reading. It raises a lot of questions, least of which is the issue of taste.\u00a0Do I think Emma has good taste in books? If she liked\u00a0<\/em>Haunted, will I like it too?<\/em><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s websites like Amazon.com, which give me the opportunity to peruse thousands of reviews with the click of my mouse.\u00a0Kenny in South Carolina thought\u00a0<\/em>Gone Girl\u00a0was unfairly biased in favor of the male perspective. Should I bother reading it, or just assume he\u2019s right and move on?<\/em><\/p>\n

And don\u2019t forget Facebook and Twitter, which let me see what my friends are reading in real time.<\/p>\n

So we have more opinions to weigh. But that\u2019s good, isn\u2019t it? We hear about books we might have never known about. We discover genres we never considered before. And we begin supporting the careers of authors who might not be on the\u00a0New York Times<\/em>\u00a0best seller list, but are still fantastic artists. People have always shared their taste in books, but now we can share our reading lists across cities, states, and even countries, with the click of a button. Perhaps we\u2019ve lost the randomness of finding a fantastic read with the help of a librarian, but we\u2019ve found a worldwide community of fellow readers to share with and learn from. \u00a0It\u2019s literary globalization, and it\u2019s bringing us closer together through books.<\/p>\n

So where\u2019s the downside? We\u2019re discovering new authors, finding new loves. We\u2019re connecting with people over a shared interest: reading. There has to be a catch, right?<\/p>\n

Yes.\u00a0 One of the most dangerous things about getting a bunch of people together is Group Think. One voice multiplies into hundreds, then thousands, and suddenly the public outcry that something is worthwhile drowns out the few voices who protest that it\u2019s not. Or worse, the opposite happens: the public decides that a book is lousy, so we miss out on a novel we\u2019d really love.<\/p>\n

But is that necessarily a bad thing? Pop culture gets a bad rap, but it\u2019s really only\u00a0popular<\/em>\u00a0because a lot of people like it. Popularity isn\u2019t synonymous with quality, but if five thousand of your closest friends enjoyed\u00a0Hunger Games<\/em>, chances are you will too.\u00a0But the publishing industry controls everything, so we only get what they decide is worthwhile!<\/em>\u00a0The publishing industry decides what is published, sure. But it also listens very carefully to the desires of readers, otherwise it\u2019ll fail. The industry is also under even more pressure these days to produce wonderful books, since self-publishing has become so popular (and yes, I\u2019d say that you can add self-publishing to the list of wonderful things brought to us by the digital age. But that\u2019s another story).<\/p>\n

So I say unto thee: Blog on. Tweet forward. Explore the riches that goodreads, Amazon, and Facebook have to offer. Keep the social in social media, if you\u2019ll forgive the lameness of that expression. But talk to your friends too. Ask your mom what she\u2019s reading. Steal a book off your best friend\u2019s coffee table.<\/p>\n

Go to the library.<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading.<\/p>\n

Lauren<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n