It is an odd fact of human nature that some people will not plunk down $10 to see a 90-minute movie without the security blanket of overwhelming critical praise, yet they will gladly pay $25 for a book that could torture them for weeks without bothering to consider if the thing is any damn good.
I say this following the release of the New York Times’ “100 Most Notable Books” of 2006. I do not come to bury the Times’ list, but not to praise it, either, since I have read a grand total of zero selections.
It’s impossible to critique something you haven’t read. Wife has actually read one of the “100 Most Notable” — David Mitchell’s “Black Swan Green” — making the Bookfraud household a stellar 1 for 100. For those of you keeping score at home, that’s a batting average of .010, which happens to match the on-base percentage of the Cubs’ new $136 million leadoff man.
In further research, I took a scientific poll using the list to see what readers were “likely” to read or what they were “interested” in reading. According to my results, poll takers selected 32 percent of the titles as something they might read, not a bad number when you consider the number of books.
Well, OK. Wife selected 17, and I added on another 15. But really. The fiction section didn’t make me want to run to the book store. Am I going to read yet another collection by Joyce Carol Oates? Or worthies like Jennifer Egan, Allegra Goodman, Cormac McCarthy, Colson Whitehead or Alice McDermott? Nope, primarily because there’s so much else to read (which is a bad thing, since modern fiction is no longer widely read).
Or even m I really going to read Marisha Pessl’s “Special Topics in Calamity Physics,” written by a gorgeous 20-something wunderkind, who is also an actress and surely could win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry if she just put her mind to it?
Pessl: proof that life is not fair
I can’t even say that I had any special enthusiasm for Thomas Pynchon’s “Against the Day,” which, by all accounts, sounds like a “Gravity’s Rainbow” retread. (There was a time when I inhaled everything the fellow wrote, seeking a higher understanding of humanity through the sheer density of his work, but I would ultimately have an easier time getting Pynchon to do shots of Jagermeister with me than comprehending his work.)
There’s plenty of novels, story collections, and the odd book of poetry thrown in. There’s the usual suspects (Updike, Roth, Oates) along with some lesser-known but talented names. Throw in a few foreign writers, and you got a list of fiction.
The non-fiction leaves me cold. Bob Woodward’s “State of Denial” chronicles in detail what I already knew: the Bush White House is full of authoritarian nitwits, starting at the top.
There’s a book on Reconstruction, a couple on Hurricane Katrina, the usual memoir and celebrity (Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner) biographies. There’s science books, sports books, and quirky and intellectual histories (Spinoza Vs. Lebnitz, for instance).
I haven’t gone back and looked at last year’s list, but I would bet the contours are the same: 50 percent fiction, 50 percent non-fiction; 15 percent short stories, 12 percent books on food, 38 percent novels, 3 percent on intellectual history, etc.
But just about every book on the list has one thing in common: major houses published them.
You won’t find an unheard-of masterpiece in the lot, because the Times reviewed all of the books, and just about the only way a book can get reviewed is if a Random House or Knopf publishes it.
It also leads me to wonder what, precisely, “notable” means. I didn’t see a Nora Roberts, Nelson DeMille or chick lit book (though Stephen King’s “Lisey’s Story” made the cut), though a single novel from either Roberts or DeMille probably outsells all the rest of the authors put together. I didn’t see any “Sundays With Syd” or “The Eight Addictions of Highly Stupid Businesspeople,” either.
My kinda list
It would be easy to chalk this up to intellectual elitism; after all, even if a book sells 23 copies, that doesn’t mean it isn’t notable. If you want to be notable, you have to get reviewed by the New York Times; but to be reviewed by the New York Times, you have to be notable.
Thoughts? Comments? Can you get me Marisha Pessl’s phone number?
“There’s a book on Reconstruction, a couple on Hurricane Katrina, the usual memoir and celebrity (Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner) autobiography.”
Both Gardner and Hepburn are deceased. The books are biographies.
I once saw but sadly, didn’t save a web site which referenced a book which undertook a systematic study demonstrating the relationship between books reviewed with those which were heavily advertised by their publishers. Huge positive correlation.
Mobylives.com used to have a sidebar with a running tally of the reviews and lifestyle puff pieces the NY Times accorded books’ authors who just happened to be Times staffers. Stroke, stroke.
My book was 101.
I’ve read four on this list, but the list doesn’t impress me very much, especially in the poetry selections. Selected and collected volumes shouldn’t count. Where was Barbara Jane Reyes’ book or Patricia Smith? Both major award winners and worthy of a little attention. Sigh.
“There’s a book on Reconstruction, a couple on Hurricane Katrina, the usual memoir and celebrity (Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner) autobiography.”
Both Gardner and Hepburn are deceased. The books are biographies.
I once saw but sadly, didn’t save a web site which referenced a book which undertook a systematic study demonstrating the relationship between books reviewed with those which were heavily advertised by their publishers. Huge positive correlation.
Mobylives.com used to have a sidebar with a running tally of the reviews and lifestyle puff pieces the NY Times accorded books’ authors who just happened to be Times staffers. Stroke, stroke.
“There’s a book on Reconstruction, a couple on Hurricane Katrina, the usual memoir and celebrity (Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner) autobiography.”
Both Gardner and Hepburn are deceased. The books are biographies.
I once saw but sadly, didn’t save a web site which referenced a book which undertook a systematic study demonstrating the relationship between books reviewed with those which were heavily advertised by their publishers. Huge positive correlation.
Mobylives.com used to have a sidebar with a running tally of the reviews and lifestyle puff pieces the NY Times accorded books’ authors who just happened to be Times staffers. Stroke, stroke.
My book was 101.
I’ve read four on this list, but the list doesn’t impress me very much, especially in the poetry selections. Selected and collected volumes shouldn’t count. Where was Barbara Jane Reyes’ book or Patricia Smith? Both major award winners and worthy of a little attention. Sigh.
My book was 101.
I’ve read four on this list, but the list doesn’t impress me very much, especially in the poetry selections. Selected and collected volumes shouldn’t count. Where was Barbara Jane Reyes’ book or Patricia Smith? Both major award winners and worthy of a little attention. Sigh.
I read crap. And I admit it, too. Reading is what relaxes me, and most of the time, I’d rather spend my relaxing time reading stupid shit, instead of trying to wrap my brain around politics. That’s what my internet time is for.
That list reminds me that I have vulgar tastes.
I read crap. And I admit it, too. Reading is what relaxes me, and most of the time, I’d rather spend my relaxing time reading stupid shit, instead of trying to wrap my brain around politics. That’s what my internet time is for.
I read crap. And I admit it, too. Reading is what relaxes me, and most of the time, I’d rather spend my relaxing time reading stupid shit, instead of trying to wrap my brain around politics. That’s what my internet time is for.
That list reminds me that I have vulgar tastes.
That list reminds me that I have vulgar tastes.
peter: so noted & corrected.
collin: such is the way of the poet, no? what little recognition poets get is slathered on the usual suspects.
madame d.: you’re only reading “crap” if you buy into highbrow lists that say you’re reading crap.
bernita: i had not pegged you a lover of anything vulgar.
i read ginsberg when i was in college. good stuff.
other than that, i haven’t read any of the books on the list. however, i do plan to check out stephen king’s book. because i am a fangirl and he can do no wrong.
peter: so noted & corrected.
collin: such is the way of the poet, no? what little recognition poets get is slathered on the usual suspects.
madame d.: you’re only reading “crap” if you buy into highbrow lists that say you’re reading crap.
bernita: i had not pegged you a lover of anything vulgar.
peter: so noted & corrected.
collin: such is the way of the poet, no? what little recognition poets get is slathered on the usual suspects.
madame d.: you’re only reading “crap” if you buy into highbrow lists that say you’re reading crap.
bernita: i had not pegged you a lover of anything vulgar.
i read ginsberg when i was in college. good stuff.
other than that, i haven’t read any of the books on the list. however, i do plan to check out stephen king’s book. because i am a fangirl and he can do no wrong.
i read ginsberg when i was in college. good stuff.
other than that, i haven’t read any of the books on the list. however, i do plan to check out stephen king’s book. because i am a fangirl and he can do no wrong.
I hate these lists. The only book that has my interest is Inheritance of Loss because I respect the Booker prize more than any American literary prize.
Re: Marisha Pessl. I know Marisha. She’s not as squeaky clean as she likes to make herself out to be, with all her Hollywood beauty + chemistry yada yada books. That bitch and I were out partying every night and getting hounded left and right by paparazzi. I ended that BFF relationship. Marisha knows what she did.
(Officially, I’m denying that I became jealous of her cuteness and smartness.) (And that the New York Times picked her and not me for their dumb book list–who reads the Times anymore anyway? They think they’re sooooo smart and just know it ALL. Let’s see who the New York POST picks for 2006, Marisha. Yeah. Bet you’re scared now!)
In other words, no Bookfraud. You cannot have her number. Sorry.
Once, I almost got to hear Edward P. Jones give a talk about his Aunt Haggar book. That’s as close as I get to intellectual elitism.
I hate these lists. The only book that has my interest is Inheritance of Loss because I respect the Booker prize more than any American literary prize.
I hate these lists. The only book that has my interest is Inheritance of Loss because I respect the Booker prize more than any American literary prize.
Re: Marisha Pessl. I know Marisha. She’s not as squeaky clean as she likes to make herself out to be, with all her Hollywood beauty + chemistry yada yada books. That bitch and I were out partying every night and getting hounded left and right by paparazzi. I ended that BFF relationship. Marisha knows what she did.
(Officially, I’m denying that I became jealous of her cuteness and smartness.) (And that the New York Times picked her and not me for their dumb book list–who reads the Times anymore anyway? They think they’re sooooo smart and just know it ALL. Let’s see who the New York POST picks for 2006, Marisha. Yeah. Bet you’re scared now!)
In other words, no Bookfraud. You cannot have her number. Sorry.
Once, I almost got to hear Edward P. Jones give a talk about his Aunt Haggar book. That’s as close as I get to intellectual elitism.
Re: Marisha Pessl. I know Marisha. She’s not as squeaky clean as she likes to make herself out to be, with all her Hollywood beauty + chemistry yada yada books. That bitch and I were out partying every night and getting hounded left and right by paparazzi. I ended that BFF relationship. Marisha knows what she did.
(Officially, I’m denying that I became jealous of her cuteness and smartness.) (And that the New York Times picked her and not me for their dumb book list–who reads the Times anymore anyway? They think they’re sooooo smart and just know it ALL. Let’s see who the New York POST picks for 2006, Marisha. Yeah. Bet you’re scared now!)
In other words, no Bookfraud. You cannot have her number. Sorry.
Once, I almost got to hear Edward P. Jones give a talk about his Aunt Haggar book. That’s as close as I get to intellectual elitism.