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[GavJ]

Ender's game is not a children's book, at all.

Disagree on that point.

From my perspective, Ender's game was totally an adolescents book, and then the next and all the other sequels suddenly dropped off of a cliff into profoundly adult-oriented literature (and were much better than Ender's game, which was still a good story)

[kaenneth]

I had read a lot of Cards books, and one thing that stuck out to me, is how often the young male protagonists naked body is described pretty early in each series. Outdoor showers, sleeping naked, naked fighting...

It's not just me, right?

[Frumple]

It's not as if libraries are going to reject books for donation that don't meet some quota of checkouts at other libraries[...]

... actually. Well. It's not quite that, but checkout history was one of the things checked to decide to keep a book around, when I was working with a library -- and, no doubt, if the system they were using was more sophisticated, it would have been tied into a wider range of libraries beyond the immediate.

But. Yeah, I mean, the library will probably take the book from you. Kinda' regardless, from what I saw. It's just... some of them never make it to the shelves. Admittedly, sometimes it's because they're being shifted off to libraries that have more open space, but. Sometimes they just get taken away. Limited shelf space, less limited book number, only so many places to put things. And when something hasn't been checked out in like twenty years...

But yeah, libraries don't really advertise or incentivize specific sorts of donations, or at least none of the ones I've been around have. They'll take pretty much anything, but they don't really ask for anything specific. Just doing that nets many more books than they can actually store. So I wouldn't worry too much about borrowing books having any likelihood of increasing sales for wozzname.

[hops]

I had read a lot of Cards books, and one thing that stuck out to me, is how often the young male protagonists naked body is described pretty early in each series. Outdoor showers, sleeping naked, naked fighting...

It's not just me, right?

Homophobes tend to have latent homosexuality, I guess.

[aenri]

I had read a lot of Cards books, and one thing that stuck out to me, is how often the young male protagonists naked body is described pretty early in each series. Outdoor showers, sleeping naked, naked fighting...

It is military, right? Aren't things like communal showers and such, common in military? I don't think there was too much nakedness or something in the book, or at least it didn't strike me as weird.

Frankly, in my country you can easily find small children playing naked at pools in summer and no one bats an eyelid. So maybe it is some kind of prudishness.

[Hawkfrost]

I had read a lot of Cards books, and one thing that stuck out to me, is how often the young male protagonists naked body is described pretty early in each series. Outdoor showers, sleeping naked, naked fighting...

It's not just me, right?

Like how almost every Stephen King novel contains at least one incredibly awkward and entirely out of place sex scene?

[WillowLuman]

I liked the movie *ducks flaming rebar*

I don't think they were intending to move on into the sequels (which admittedly I haven't ready all the way through), so I don't mind that they missed all the "Speaker for the Dead" stuff at the end (which was closely tied with the Hegemon stuff by the end.) For making it a good, self-contained story, I think the only crucial thing the film lacked was showing how sorry the Formics were for what they did. I guess they kind of touched on it but I didn't feel it was really clear.

[kaenneth]

I had read a lot of Cards books, and one thing that stuck out to me, is how often the young male protagonists naked body is described pretty early in each series. Outdoor showers, sleeping naked, naked fighting...

It is military, right? Aren't things like communal showers and such, common in military? I don't think there was too much nakedness or something in the book, or at least it didn't strike me as weird.

Frankly, in my country you can easily find small children playing naked at pools in summer and no one bats an eyelid. So maybe it is some kind of prudishness.

My understanding is, if the book you have is the 'Authors Definitive Edition' some of the awkward stuff was quietly edited out. I've been trying to find an original edition to compare for some time.

[palsch]

My understanding is, if the book you have is the 'Authors Definitive Edition' some of the awkward stuff was quietly edited out. I've been trying to find an original edition to compare for some time.

I don't think any of the references to 'beautiful' naked pre-pubescent boys were removed. One use of the N-word (used by Ender to teach a black boy that racism is wrong...) was cut by Card and the surrounding material changed a bit, but I don't think anything else was.

[Loud Whispers]

Well, I suppose that would work, although I think by borrowing his book from the library, won't I be in some way encouraging the donation of his books, and in order for a book to be donated, won't it have to be bought by someone first?
Or maybe I'm thinking too much about this.
Then again, as an asian I read Lovecraft's works.
I guess I feel less guilty about reading an asshole's work when they're already dead.

1. You're really overthinking things. Read books you enjoy, don't get so panicky about who wrote it. Don't judge a book by its cover. Secondly unless you're asking the library to order his books, no, you won't be encouraging them.
2. Why the hell would you not read a book simply because the author's as intolerant as Hitler? I'm on the same boat as you and Lovecraft is up there in my favourite authors of all time; his fear of his own genetic degeneracy worked well with his writing and his fear of the strange and alien I suspect was influenced by his racism. Secondly the guy wasn't an arse; his wife was Jewish and the worst thing I've heard him do was name his cat as a child, nigger-man. That's while judging them by our strict modern moral perspective too. Now that I'm done fanboying over HP;
3. Most people were surprised that his views were so staunchly against gay marriage, and founded in religious  basis no less, as his works seemed critical of the use of religion to control the masses. Does knowing his views change our views? Undoubtedly, but it doesn't just invalidate them either; do authors have to write for their views? Not at all!  Only philosophers have to.
4. I have read the works of warlords, rapists, homosexuals, Iinfidels, murderers, communists, capitalists, racists, saints and more. So you can imagine how it doesn't help the stereotype of Americans not wanting to read when they start looking for more reasons to read even less. Forgive me if it seems I'm shouting at anyone, but it angers me if someone would judge a book for anything but the quality of its contents.

[GavJ]

Why the hell would you not read a book simply because the author's as intolerant as Hitler?

Seemed pretty straightforward about not wanting to give them money?  If it doesn't give them money, though, then absolutely still read it, yeah.

[TheDarkStar]

Seemed pretty straightforward about not wanting to give them money?  If it doesn't give them money, though, then absolutely still read it, yeah.

You're not giving him money for his views if you buy the book; you're giving him money for his book.

[GavJ]

Seemed pretty straightforward about not wanting to give them money?  If it doesn't give them money, though, then absolutely still read it, yeah.

You're not giving him money for his views; you're giving him money for his book. Why would his views have anything to do with it?

People often want to avoid giving money to people they dislike, period. Because money helps people, regardless of its source, and you don't want to help people you dislike.

It's called a boycott. And in almost any boycott, the thing you avoid participating in is usually not the thing you actually disagree with. Like "I'm not gonna buy french fries at this place, because they're racists" or whatever. It's not that you disagree with the concept of french fries for money... It's that you disagree with racism, and are punishing them in the only way you have power to legally do so -- by depriving them of their french fry profits.

[palsch]

I think that avoiding giving money to people you find distasteful is entirely valid.

I also think that finding an author truly abominable is a perfectly valid reason to avoid reading them. There are authors where I've read enough of their writings that I have no interest in picking through another paragraph of their brain drippings.

At the very least the knowledge that someone holds views you hate is going to make the book into a minefield. You are going to start reading negative meanings into things. It's harder to take ignore their fuckups and they are more likely to ruin your enjoyment compared to an author you are more likely to be charitable towards. All in all you are less likely to enjoy such a book, and there aren't so few books out there that you can always afford to spend time on something like that.

Now some books by such people might be so highly quality or at least highly regarded that it's worth the risk. I think Ender's Game may be one of them, if only for the occasional flairs of good writing (although I have a far lower opinion of the plotting and certain internal choices since I re-read it) and it's position as a cultural touchstone. But I wouldn't expect people who go in with a negative view of Card to come out with a positive view of the book. I've seen a deconstruction from such a perspective and it's not pretty.

[GavJ]

Well yeah there has to be a pretty damn good reason to read it either, if you hate the person. You have better ways to spend your time otherwise.

Cultural importance and wanting to be able to understand references to common and well known works and being generally educated is a good reason. Like understanding Mein Kampf is going to help you understand general culture. But a similarly insulting text by some random redneck on the internet I would never bother reading.