About Bad Books Month
Bad Books Month is a celebration of bad fiction, bad nonfiction, and bad poetry. The 1st Annual Bad Books Month took place in January 2007, following a period of research in the Seattle area to determine if anyone cared about bad books, and what books they considered to be bad. At the American Library Association Conference in Washington DC in June 2007, our librarian met with his colleagues, and announced the decision that Bad Books would "go national" in January 2008.
Why care about bad books? It's easy to stand up for a good book, but what about all the books out there of little or no quality? Who will stand up for them? We will! After all, there is a month/week/day for just about everything already, so why not bad books? There is a month for poetry. There is a week for Banned Books -- which, by the way, has no connection to Bad Books Month. In my opinion Banned Books Week, while standing in principle for the freedom to read any book you wish, has tended to focus on classics and/or works of artistic merit that have been censored at one time or another, while avoiding the real crap (leaving a niche for us!). Bad Books Month is a celebration of the truly bad, the unjustifiable, and yes, the amusingly bad as well. It is an opportunity for you to explore books you may consider exceedingly bad, and even more importantly, to answer the question: what about a particular book makes it so bad in your opinion.
Why January? January is a great time to read a bad book. For one thing, if you read a truly bad book in January, any book you read for the rest of the year will be an improvement. It's also a great time to read a book by someone who's political/religious views you completely disagree with, and who has a real contempt for any factual foundation in their arguments. (I'm going to avoid naming any names here, but please post your suggestions to the blog!) It's also a great month to relax a little and read whatever you wish -- whether it's "good for you" or not. It takes a lot of the stress out of book selection when you don't have to worry about quality. One final point: reading a bad book is a great New Year's Resolution, because when you read a bad book, you don't have to finish it!