The good, the popular
Over the past week Jodi and I have been having a long discussion about book lists:
The first list was compiled out of books that people bought because they feel they ought to read them, but never got round to it. We compared how many of these books we owned ourselves, how many we had read, and how many we wanted to.
The existence of this list poses the question why do you read a book? Are there books you read because you feel you ought to, rather than because you want to? Have you ever been guilty of purchasing a “vanity” book, one that sits on a shelf, unread, and is there to create an impression on others? These books are considered of such great merit, that to have read them is taken to reflect well on the reader. Whether or not the reputation of these books is deserved is another matter, one which for some of them I dispute.
Take a look at the list, and see for yourself which books you’ve read.
The second list is, in many ways, more interesting. It is the Waterstones bookstore’s Books of the Century – a year-by-year list of the most popular book that year. What intrigues me most about this list is how many of these books I simply haven’t heard of, and how many more famous books are notable by their absence.
The problem with any “best of” list is that, regardless of your criteria, they are necessarily subjective. Even in a list such as the Waterstones list, which tries to be neutral by examining popularity on a year by year basis, it ignores books that have a lasting appeal, in favour of books that were instantly (and sometimes only briefly) popular. A list based on popularity purely will ignore books with perhaps more literary merit (for example, celebrity “autobiographies” are frequently bestsellers), but a list based purely on literary merit risks being obscure, and of course is necessarily subjective. Who defines “literary merit”? What is “literary merit” anyway?
Take a few minutes to have a look at the lists, and think about what you read, why you read, and consider what makes a good book, and a popular book.
Leave a comment here, or take part in the discussions already going on.
I can say that I cannot remember buying a vanity book. My bookshelf sits in my bedroom, and even during the times it hasn’t it’s always been a mess–a postmodern eyesore of stacks and counterstacks. Not only would it be impossible for me to “show off” a book if I had a vanity book it would soon get pushed behind other books that are handled more often.
Now I do have plenty of unread books, and I certainly have bought books that I think I ought to have read, but only because I intended or still intend to read them.
Why do I read? For enjoyment obviously but also as a means of escapism … and the best books take you far far away.
As an eternal student reading satisfies a need to ‘know more’ – though sadly anything learnt is often forgotten. I’d like to think that it collects somewhere to be retrieved later. Or at worst – it just helps to round me out as a person.
Now that I have decided to finally take my writing seriously – reading takes on a final dimension – it has become professional investment in myself as a writer and in my craft.
Never had a vanity book – but I currently have James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” sitting on my desk staring at me, waiting for me to finish my current book. It’s been a committment to my partner to give it a go. This is probably the closest that I have come to reading a book because I ‘ought’ to since I left high school and university (because there was lots of ‘ought to’ reading in those years).
There’s something really vile about the word ‘ought’ – it sends me whole body on edge!