Michelle Dean Quotes

I did get tired of hearing that criticism years ago. That is not a compliment. Being labeled a "beach read" is a put-down. So, I did deliberately set out to write a book, Camino Island, that would be very entertaining and compulsively readable and we published it on June 6 in time for summer vacation, hoping that people would buy it and take it to the beach.

I do realize that I am a popular writer who people buy to take on vacation. I'm an escapist kind of writer.

When I was a kid, I read many of my mom's books. Sometimes, there were mysteries, but there were no delineations, and my mother never talked about book genres. Nor did we differentiate genres in school.

I don't think anyone sits down and thinks, 'I know, I'll be a chick-lit writer.' You write the book that you want to write and then other people say, 'Oh, that's chick-lit.' You say, 'Okay.' But it's not like you look around and go to a careers fair and there will be someone at the chick-lit author stand.

I read a lot of heavy literature when I'm on set, so on holiday I want to indulge in something light-hearted.

I do read on holiday, but it tends to be very lowbrow. I'm into really camp biographies, and I'm a shameless fan of Jilly Cooper.

I don't read an awful lot of fiction and when I do, it tends to be lightweight stuff.

Young adults that actually read are reading bodice rippers and best-sellers and me. And Horror.

I'm pleased to have outsold great writers. But I'm not insane - I realize I am a writer people buy to take on vacation.

I think of my books as mainstream and that's were most people who read them look for them in book stores.

I am there to entertain. I call my work high escape fiction; it's high, it's good - but it's escape, and I have no delusions about that. I have no ambition to be a serious writer, whatever that means.

But, you know, I just did a big trip in the spring to Vietnam and Cambodia and Thailand, and that's when I bought a Kindle. I have like 15 books on this one little gizmo. But when I came home, the first night I picked up the book that was on my nightstand and I went right back to that.

Do I mind being called a chick-lit writer? Well, it's not the worst thing that could happen.

If you look for me, I'm in the fiction section. Romance has its own section.

People read more mysteries than they do political pamphlets.

I'm not writing great literature. I'm writing commercial fiction for people to enjoy the stories and to like the characters.

I know not everyone starts out reading high literature. If you read enough you might be drawn to some other things, so maybe those vampire books are what they call 'gateway books.' I just coined that term. I don't know if there's a thing called 'gateway books.'

My mother was a reader; my father was a reader. Not anything particularly sophisticated. My mother read fat historical or romantic novels; my father liked to read Westerns, Zane Grey, that kind of stuff. Whatever they brought in, I read.

I don't know that I read more than the average person. I don't think I do very much. I tend to read more when I'm on holiday. That's when I can go through books like you wouldn't believe. I read a bit of everything, but the novel has always been very important to me.

I do work-related stuff on airplanes. Then, when I'm in the hotel room or just vegging out, I read for pleasure.

I read serious books, but every now and then, I read just for fun.

Pleasure reading has long been an American ideal - generations of schoolchildren have headed home for the summer toting recreational reading lists. But try to pitch it to a group of non-readers, and they quickly become suspicious.

I like feel-good fiction and mysteries.

Wilbur Smith's novels make terrific holiday reading.

The 'beach read' has become such a ubiquitous concept in contemporary literature that we assume it has always been around. In fact, the term only emerged in the 1990s, usually in book trade publications such as 'Booklist' and 'Publisher's Weekly.'