The Company of readers.
As I was reading the Article I kept getting hung up on the "Fiction Problem" section of the reading. "Don't appologize for your reading tastes" is a very powerful statement that shouldn't need to be said. No matter what material is being read there is value in any set of words printed even if the value is in how another person crafts sentences together. Genre fiction is always under attach for its formulas and recognizable patterns, but those same blocks are why people read them and use them as escapes or as pallet cleansers between weightier volumes or subjects or even chaotic life events.
Who are we to judge someone Else's life by our own reading standards, maybe the patron checking out chick-lit is dealing with a dieing parent or child perhaps they are using those moments of lightness and fluff to get through kemo. Or maybe they just want something to do while waiting for their child to get done with soccer practice.
Fiction isn't the problem its people who believe that they know what is best for the next person. Voltaire said let "think for yourself and let others enjoy the privilege of doing so too" which would solve all kinds of problems not just the fiction problem.
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