Just want to throw out a little reminder to check the libraries in big cities in your state (US)! A lot of them offer free or very cheap memberships to non-city residents. The Philadelphia Public Library and the Carnegie Public Library both offer cards to PA residents regardless if you live in those city limits. I think a few NYC ones do, as well. It's definitely worth looking into if you haven't already! You may not be able to check out physical books, but you'll have access to their Libby library.

Saturday morning musings. A couple of things brought this to mind:

-1. I've met, a few times now, a very nice Icelandic author who wrote a horror novella that involved the death of cats (good book, btw...deals with issues of how women are treated by the medical system, among other things). The author herself is a dog and cat lover, and she mentioned in a talk that she likes to include things that horrify her in her horror fiction and that these deaths certainly qualified. The book was out in Iceland for a few years. People liked it and there was no controversy about it, no one worked up over the animal death (again, horror), and that's in a country where people I've met seem to love cats and cats walk the neighborhoods in relative safety (one of my favorite things to do there is to find cats I've met on previous trips). So...the book comes out in the U.S. and people are review-bombing over this issue. There was some discourse on social media where people came a bit unglued as well. It always seemed to be Americans.* The author commented that it wasn't until the U.S. release that there was any issue and it seemed to come out of the blue.

-2. I follow a lot of bookish accounts on Threads. There is always drama, which I mostly try to skip over, though I do like to interact with authors and other readers there. Irrespective of what the issue is (could be anything they deem 'problematic'), whenever I see people start to really get worked up about the contents of a book, to the point they want it taken down, they're generally Americans (and, I should note, they span the entire political spectrum, so this isn't a political matter but a sociological one and probably not limited to books, though that is my focus here).

This isn't to slam Americans. I'm one. Nor is it to cast a wide net--these are, I'm sure, a minority of readers, but they tend to be loud.

So, especially for those of you outside of the U.S. who interact with U.S. readers online, does it seem to you that Americans are more likely to get really worked up over such things than people in your own country? Or is it simply that my social media intake is biased (certainly it is heavily weighted toward Americans)? Do other cultures have a different relationship with fiction that allows a different perspective on the contents of a novel vis a vis real world harms? If so, why do you think that is?

Having talked to a number of authors from outside of the U.S. over the past few years I've concluded that many of us in the U.S. have quite a different relationship with fiction and I'm curious as to the sociology behind it (if it really exists and isn't a figment of my imagination).

*I'm using "Americans" colloquially to refer to people in the U.S.

ETA: I'm keeping up with the comments but am heading out to see my mother. I wasn't expecting so many responses and I will catch up with them when I return!