You are what you read

One of the dangers of modern media is that it encourages us to hold value judgements about people - the sort of thing we'd ordinarily develop from actual, meatspace interaction - on very limited and possibly spurious information. A single, unsourced one-liner on Holy Moly is enough to classify someone as hero or villain, genius or dolt, Madonna or Katona. We feel we know these people; we feel entitled to hold opinions, not about what they do or say, but what they're like.

A couple of years ago, I made some catty remarks about sometime Waterstone's buyer Scott Pack; subsequently I revised those because: a) his blog is quite good; and b) he's a serious Murakami fan.

Is the revision any less shallow than my initial prejudices, based as they were on a purist, kneejerk revulsion regarding the power of vast bookshop chains? (Which I can't really maintain without hypocrisy if they're kind enough to sell books that I write. That said, though, I'll just note that Waterstone's is currently doing a promotion on "Books you know you should read"; when they offer a similar selection of "Books you know you shouldn't read", I'll pay more serious attention to their recommendations, thanks.)

And how far can I take the if-he-likes-Murakami-he-must-be-a-good-chap meme? Especially when I discover that Alastair bloody Campbell is a Haruki junkie as well.