The book meme thing

[kanaalzahir]

I wonder, who puts these lists together? 100 books on a list, including Ayn Rand, Steinbeck Irving, as well as Stephen King, Dan Brown and Barbara Taylor Bradford? What is the point? It's not Banned Books, it's not Popular Books Right Now, it's not Books Generally Regarded As Great and Changed the World (unless someone knows something about Barbara

Comments

[malvino]

I've seen those memes, I think they're probably started by a teenager who listed everything they'd read (and then a few they'd heard of that sounded intellectual).

I agree, they serve no purpose at all. Perhaps we should start one with some actual motive, propogate it as a kind of syllabus for self development "100 books that everyone should read at some point", or "100 classic novels" or maybe even "100 books that will give you a sound basis in literature/poetry/political thought/horror/gardening..."

(I may do this later actually, if I get bored between lectures).

[kanaalzahir]

I agree with your first idea, and definitely with your second.

I've seen some others too, one with Banned Books (a concept I didn't grasp at all to begin with), but I always feel somewhat culturally disadvantaged. Imo there are in every culture books that are GREAT and will be translated and read all over the world, because of their GREATNESS (category A let's call them) Then there are decent and even wonderful books that just aren't GREAT and thus will spread no further than their one cultural wossname (this will be category B). Of course, on the lists on the Intarweb, there will be category A-books, and I have no qualms with that. But the B-books will (of course) always be American/English, which is unfair, 'cause I don't read your B-list, when I have my own. All in all, I suppose it just annoys me because they make me look less well-read than I really am. Snobbism, n'est-ce pas? :-D