Reading and popularity

When I posted my impossibly long thing about Twilight on Sunday, I was already halfway through the first book. I finished the fourth one today :D I love reading like that! Good heavens, it's amazing how much reading I can get done in a sitting... After all that, though, I stand by what I said before: it needs a serious editing job, and there are a few major structural flaws in the plot (such as an over-use of dei ex machina) that would be really fun to re-write. I can easily compare it with Harry Potter, though I need to read all of those again before I try. My biggest peeve about the books are the views on marriage and the poorly constructed reasons for them to abstain from pre-marital sex (as long as the books have been out, I don't think I need to worry about spoilers), and even then, my issue is not the fact that I disagree with the author's views. My issue is that these characters are hugely popular, and they are horrible role models! I cringe to think of so many young girls reading these books. But I'd better not go off on a tangent :) Suffice it to say, I enjoyed reading them, but it will be a very long time before I read them again, and they'll fall under the category of mature reading when I have kids.

Moving ON. What to read next? I promised to give the Hunger Games a try, and like I said, I'd love to read Harry Potter as a comparison. I know there's not much a similarity between the three themes, but the series are all incredibly popular, and all made into films. Since the quality of the writing (in my opinion) is unequal, I want to compare them from the standpoint of what makes them so popular. But here's my issue: this is not my usual style of reading!!!!! Before I began Twilight again, I was reading Plato's The Republic as a precursor to Aristotle's Ethics. Now, to avoid confusion, I'm not saying that I read philosophy on a regular basis, or that I've been doing it for years. It was pretty recently (a year or so) that I decided I want to be a polymath, or as it's more commonly known, "renaissance man." I want to learn more things, read more genres, etc. I'm trying to improve my knowledge of philosophy and classic literature, first; I want to work on history, politics, art, and other areas as well, but this takes free time that I don't have yet :) Which why I'm torn between continuing my current trend of reading super-popular books, or going back to more substantial stuff. Either way, I chalk it all up to expanding my knowledge of... everything, so I guess I'm just enhancing the pop-culture side for now.

Speaking of what's popular, does anybody have some ideas for the appearance of my blog? Are the images distracting, or helpful for breaking up long posts? I want it to be attractive and easy to read, but I also get bored easily, so I'd like some options for themes. Also, does anybody notice the poll I posted? Again, feedback is super important to me; which is why I've added the reaction options at the bottom of posts, too. Comments, polls, and reactions are going to be the best way for me to gauge what posts get read, not just viewed. I really appreciate that it's time consuming for everybody to read all this, and it may not even be interesting all the time! But if you all bear with me (and give me feedback, hint hint), I will be working on making this a blog worth reading :)