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[greatwideleap]

amazon.com's romance bestseller list for 5/23/06 has Philippa Gregory's The Other Boleyn Girl and Zadie Smith's On Beauty in its top 25... for some reason, I don't think they belong in the same category as Nicholas Sparks and Nora Roberts.

Also, Philip Roth's latest, Everyman, is #6 on the fiction & literature list. How many of the people buying

Comments

[flurije]

Hey, now! I happen to love Philip Roth. And, to be fair, his new book isn't exactly _American Pastoral_ or _Underworld_ it's only a hundred and something pages long. His last novel (the plot against america -- man did I get some looks when I was reading that on an airplane) hit the bestseller list, too -- it isn't really that he's hard to read, it's that you might not get everything if you rush through it, so he's not quite on the same plane as Umberto Eco, who is muuuuuch harder to read.

[greatwideleap]

Hey, hon!

I wasn't trying to claim that he is difficult to read, only the number of people who supposedly want to read his particular brand of literary fiction. I can't say I've ever really seen someone reading Roth while waiting at the bus-stop; usually it's Danielle Steel or The Da Vinci Code. I'd be just as critical of a John Updike novel reaching the top 5... you just don't see enough people reading them to warrant those high sales numbers.

You've actually read Roth and I've actually read Eco, though, so we're both absolved :)

[flurije]

Hehe...actually I've read Eco, too. :-P Although, I have to say that he is far from my favorite author and I am an English major, so I don't really count towards his normal reading public. But, yes, I have rarely seen people reading either of those authors out in the real world. Self help books, I have seen. Books written by the creepy mulleted televangelist, I have seen. In fact, when we read Eco in class, my professor actually made a comment expressing amazement that the book (the island of the day before) ever actually made the bestseller's list. Sigh...people don't know good literature anymore.

Now where the hell is my new Nora Roberts book...

[greatwideleap]

Love the icon, by the by. Did you take that picture yourself?

Have you read Baudolino? I've read that and Foucault's Pendulum... the latter is kind of a highbrow Da Vinci Code, but the former eminently more readable.

Oooh, are the creepy mulleted televangelist books you speak of the Left Behind series? Apparently they're quite the rage among college-age kids (including my sister).

Well, people do know good literature... the sales figures affirm that. They don't read it, though. (Although... was there ever a time when literature was widely read? Even in the 19th century, it was the stronghold of Oxbridge-educated men sipping brandy in expensively furnished studies, hardly a majority of society.)

There is much to be said for fluff, though. Nothing better than chick lit to destress after a long day getting yelled at by your boss/grading inane undergraduate papers ;)

[flurije]

Yeeeees...I did take it myself. The only thing I've read by Eco is _The Island of the Day Before_ which hasn't exactly sent me running out to buy his other novels. The creepy mulleted guy isn't the author of the _Left Behind_ series (as far as I know) but is the author of a few wildly popular self help books (he's on the cover of one of them). Every time I'm flipping through the channels and I accidentally land on one of the like 5 inspiration channels here, I see either him, the creepy indian looking guy, or Jerry Faliwell. But, man, your sister reads those _Left Behind_ books?? I didn't take her for a fan. Did you know that there is now a Left Behind video game?

But, yes, you are right, Literature was only ever really read by a select few, although popular literature is becoming more and more interesting to folks like myself. The major project I did for one of my classes this semester was an entire course planned around popular romance (20th century and some before that).

[greatwideleap]

Ughh. A Left Behind video game? Medium-crossing to reach all ages and interests. How clever. How devious.

Ooh! Was the popular romance project one you taught or one you did yourself? What did you work with? I'd like to see a reading list!

[flurije]

It was the final project for my Teaching College Literature class. I can send you the course description and syllabus if you want.

[greatwideleap]

Yes please!