Books have been a part of my life, all of my life. I loved to be read to as a child and learned to read in both English and Dutch at an early age. My Dutch has diminished quite a bit, but I hang onto my old fairy tale books, including a huge Andersen's that we used to use to elevate visiting kids at the dinner table. Its covers are a little worse for wear as a result. When I blew out my birthday candles as a girl, I always used to wish for more books. Of course I became a librarian and, even in retirement, I read book reviews and book-related news.
I was excited to hear about the PBS Great American Read initiative because I think everyone should read more. As Emily Dickinson said, "There is no frigate like a book / that takes us lands away." But the list compiled by PBS (how?) is very puzzling indeed. How did some of the less literary titles get on there? And how or why did they choose some of the more obscure titles by "classic" authors? For example, why not Slaughterhouse Five over Vonnegut's The Sirens of Titan? My friend Sarah who just read Colson Whitehead's Underground Railroad says it is "right up there with To Kill a Mockingbird." That's high praise from a good English teacher. Yet The Intuitionist is on the list rather than the Underground Railroad.
It is true that the books were chosen on popularity, but I would say that the popularity of The Shack will diminish far more quickly than Pride and Prejudice or The Lord of the Rings. Paul and my favorite in recent years has been One Hundred Years of Solitude yet last night's TV kickoff didn't give it a lot of attention. Why no sign of my favorite childhood series that began with The Little House in the Big Woods? There seems to be no way to add a book to the list. I guess they wanted to stick to a neat 100 titles so that anything added means something must be removed (which would be OK by me).
I'll be keeping an eye on this program, even though I'm pretty skeptical that it will have much of an impact on our nation's psyche, except on some people who, like me, will generate a short list of books to read. You can vote every day through mid-October.
1 comment:
I never really agree with book lists. My favorites usually are not on them because I don't really care for classics. I never have liked the classics but I read all the time. Little House in the Big Woods should be on the list but like all else taste change over the years and kids just aren't reading that type of book anymore - I should say not all kids - I guess the list change as peoples taste in books change? My favorite aunt was a librarian and she made sure all her nieces and nephews had a love of books and some of us still do and others don't and those of us that still love to read passed it on to our children and they passed it on to theirs.
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