Agreed that a person needs to be careful what he/she reads – but there are many, many, many good “non-jewish” books out there that contain nothing abhorrent. There are millions of books out there! I think what some people don’t realize is that the world of books extend FAR beyond the political/espionage thrillers and trashy romance/mystery novels that they think constitute “goyish books”. What about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle? Nothin wrong with Sherlock Holmes. Lord of the Rings?? The Hobbit?? Nothin in there. Marshall McLuhan’s groundbreaking Understanding Media? Nothin in there (nonfic). Agatha Christie was mentioned before – nothin in any of her books. There’s a world of both fiction and nonfiction books out there that are very innocuous. I’d say the overarching issue, need there be one, with book-reading would be bitul z’man.
Plus, many of what we’re terming here “Jewish books” are really not very good reads or written well. Many of these books are poorly written; they simply tell a story but with canned, wooden dialogue and almost no character or background depth whatsoever.