What I read and why: Defending the right of the reader to pleasure

So, here I am, this self-proclaimed lover of stories, and I've been holding out on you... I haven't included a link to my Goodreads widget for good reason.  Or at least in my own paranoid imagination.

Why? Because I'm afraid to share what I read, or rather to share everything I read, for fear of judgment.  Alas, isn't this inevitable?  No matter what I share someone is bound to hate it, to think it plebeian, or dull.

So, I'm coming out of my reading closet, just a bit, to talk about what I read and why. You see, when it comes to reading, I am an omnivore.  I read what tastes good.

In my life so far I've read much of it all:
Youth fiction (mostly in my youth)
Scifi (mostly C.S. Lewis)
Fantasy
Classics
Modern literature
Chick lit
Mysteries
Romance (although I'm not into bodice rippers, I'm more likely to go for some Jane Austen derivation)
Historical fiction
Non-fiction - history, natural history, health and nutrition, biographies, self-help, etc.

And I find that at different times, I read different things.  And over time, my tastes have evolved and gone through phases.

In my childhood, I had absolutely no form of book snobbery.  I was not embarrassed to say I loved Nancy Drew or Little House on the Prairie or Anne of Green Gables.  But I also once read a 1,000+ page biography of Queen Victoria at the age of 12 too.  I carried that book around school and read it during breaks. Don't ask me what I was thinking.

As I grew older I began studying "English literature".  When you see these words, you must picture an eccentric woman, with interesting glasses, artsy clothes and funky jewelry, scoffing at lesser forms of storytelling - because I had that woman as teacher and professor, many times in many incarnations.  I delved into the classics and eagerly tried to expand my depth of experience.  Then eventually I fell in with some regrettably deeply intellectual types, who exposed me to wonderfully quirky works of writing, but only further deepened my literary snobbery.

I felt as if "one must read to better one's self - enjoyment is irrelevant."  I felt as if whatever I was reading I must be proud to tote around, demonstrating my sophistication by the cover of my book.  And so I struggled through difficult, tedious books with little pleasure except my own sense of pride in self-betterment.

At some point in the last five years I turned a corner, returning back to a childlike love of story. I was tired with torturing myself with self-betterment, and I wanted to enjoy reading again.  So I thumbed my nose at notions of literary snobbery.  Wait, actually I thumbed my nose in private, because I've been afraid to do so in public, until now. 

I began reading embarrassingly pink chick lit by Mary Kay Andrews and thick fantasy paperbacks by Robert Jordan with even more embarrassing cover artwork.  I fed my anglophilia with genteel Jane Austen knock-offs and light-hearted mysteries by Dorothy Sayers and Will Thomas.  I then fared into more eccentric waters with Boris Akunin.  And here recently the supposedly-for-teens Twilight saga has dominated a few months of my reading time (if you want my highly cultured opinion on this cultural phenom, you'll have to wait for another missive). Of course, thrown in the mix were also more intellectually challenging but still highly enjoyable works such as George Eliot. 

And so, as such a reading omnivore, who's also sometimes timid about her selections, these days I tend to carry my books round in tote bag, instead of wearing them on my chest.  But I'm tired of feeling I need to defend the right of the reader to pleasure, and I am going to start sharing more of what I enjoy and why.

Do you have any secret reading material? Or are you unafraid to reveal all?