The very local paper, delivered sporadically, announces the top ten bestsellers at the nearest Barnes and Noble:
- Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine
by Glenn Beck - The Shack
by William Young - Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace . . . One School at a Time
by Greg Mortenson - The Time Traveler's Wife
by Audrey Niffenegger - Eclipse (The Twilight Saga)
by Stephenie Meyer - Culture of Corruption: Obama and His Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks, and Cronies
by Michelle Malkin - Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)
by Stephenie Meyer - Dean Koontz's Frankenstein: Dead and Alive: A Novel
by Dean Koontz - From Dead to Worse (Southern Vampire Mysteries, No. 8)
by Charlaine Harris - Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury
I've never read any of these books, and with the exception of Fahrenheit 451, I can really take or leave the whole list. The political books seem to confirm that we are indeed in a red pocket of a blue area in a red state. I've always been of the opinion that most political books, regardless of authorial affiliation, should be published as big pamphlets: easily read, easily discarded. Why waste resources printing them in hardcover? Who buys a political diatribe as a keepsake?
13 comments:
The Blackadder Says:
What is the deal with the Time Traveler's Wife? Was it an Oprah book or something?
Dunno. I never heard of it before today. I want to know, what's the deal with Southern Vampire Mysteries?
The Blackadder Says:
I believe brisk sales for the Southern Vampire series may be attributable to the undeniable charms of Ms. Anna Paquin.
It is interesting that the list is made up almost entirely of God and Monster stories and then...Glenn Beck.
People seem to like the left-leaning God, the apocalyptic politics and tenuous chastity. Good old themes taken to new extremes.
Or maybe that's God to the left, Politics to the right, and sex in between.
The movie version of The Time Traveler's Wife is coming out; thus, I presume, the book's resurgence of popularity.
Of course, Doctor Who fans will probably recognize it as the plot of "Silence in the Library" from Season 4 of the new series. It will be interesting to see if people seeing the movie think the movie makers ripped off a DW episode.
Fahrenheit 451 is in the top ten because of summer reading lists for high schoolers.
We bought The Death of Outrage back in the 90's, but then Bill Bennett's a pretty good writer. As thick as the political diatribes are coming these days, you'd think they'd just put them out in a pulp edition and have done with it. Kindle may find its raison d'etre right there.
Sexy vampires in N'Awlins--didn't Anne Rice dabble in that years ago? I guess with the undead staking (pun intended) out Luzianna and the Pacific Northwest, the rest of the world can breathe easy.
BTW, thanx for the link to "Jill and Kevin's Dancing Divorce Hearing." We rolled on the floor!
The Shack is number 2, great.
I've been having discussions with a couple of Basilian priests that 'highly recommend' this book. Sadly my conversations with them have not convinced them of their errors.
Should I out them and post about it?
Anyhoo, what are you thoughts of 'The Shack'?
No, I haven't read it, but I know enough to know that it denies the existence of evil and condemns organized religion.
The Shack was an utter, utter waste of time, with the worst writing I've read, short of a Stephanie Meyer book or a romance novel. No, wait. As bad as either. Riddled with huge, gaping, incredible theological errors and characters as believable as.. actually, I can't think of a good example. I wanted to gouge out my eyes.
I was given a copy for Christmas.
I read Twilight, and it's like looking into a 14-year-old girl's romantic fantasies, except the girl has huge self-hate and Daddy issues, and the writing is beyond bad. Seriously- the main character's creepy vampire boyfriend controls her life, watches her while she sleeps, and refuses to allow her to kiss back because he might get too excited and kill her.
It was damn creepy. The bit where the vampires are described as sparkly, sorry, "incandescent", was funny, though. They look like they've got little diamond chips embedded in their skin.
The Time Traveler's Wife came out about 2003ish, and has made very good sales consistently since. It's a pretty interesting love story about a man who time travels involuntarily- it's described as similar to epilepsy- arriving naked and usually disoriented anywhere in about a 100-year span. He compulsively travels to events and people that have been (are) or will be important in his life. It's mostly about longing- he and his wife meet and are separated over and over, and their lives are even more tangled and intertwined than most couples', because he visits both her past and future selves.
Okay, this is getting too long.
The reason why I brought up The Shack is because I've been invited to join a book club at one of the more notorious dissident parishes.
Speaking with their pastor about my concerns led me to agree to read it. I will make a report and then approach the pastor a second time to allow him more to to "reassess" his error.
Tito
Haven't read The Shack, as I haven't heard much good about it.
I will concur with Lissla Lissar re Twilight, of which the first book was more than enough for me.
I was left wondering more about the psyche of Stephenie Meyer than about what would happen in the rest of the series.
Three Cups of Tea is an interesting read because it gives the people of Pakistan a face...they aren't all just anti-American Islamic jihadists. He offers a bit of "insider's" perspective on the rise of the Taliban.
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