Booking Through Thursday/Saturday #2: Villainy

On Saturday

Today is the 7th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. I know that not all of you who read are in the U.S., but still, it’s vital that none of us who are decent people forget the scope of disaster that a few, evil people can cause–anywhere in the world. It’s not about religion, it’s not about politics, it’s about the acknowledgment that humans should try to work together, not tear each other apart, even when they disagree.
So, feeling my way to a question here … Terrorists aren’t just movie villains any more. Do real-world catastrophes such as 9/11 (and the bombs in Madrid, and the ones in London, and the war in Darfur, and … really, all the human-driven, mass loss-of-life events) affect what you choose to read? Personally, I used to enjoy reading Tom Clancy, but haven’t been able to stomach his fight-terrorist kinds of books since.
And, does the reality of that kind of heartless, vicious attack–which happen on smaller scales ALL the time–change the way you feel about villains in the books you read? Are they scarier? Or more two-dimensional and cookie-cutter in the face of the things you see on the news?

I've never really read any war-based books before, but because of the war and the terror going on right now, I'm even less likely to pick up a book like that, I think. I'm reading Lord Of The Flies in school right now, and I think when you put it into today's world, it's rather disturbing. The book deals with questions like; are humans innately good or evil? And that kind of thing is something that's really difficult to answer, especially with what's going on around the world in this day and age.

And to answer the last question, I think the "evil" characters in books seem so much more mild and single-focuse to me. When you listen to the news and hear about bombings, suicides, struggles, and the like, it does get rather confusing, and when you compare it to YA novel villains, I like the latter so much more. It's easy to see who's good and bad and what they're doing wrong. When I read, that's what I need, something where it's easy to tell what the right path is.

What are your thoughts?