BOOKS THREAD

"Obscene in the Extreme: The Burning and Banning of John Steinbeck's /The Grapes of Wrath/"



http://www.motherjones.com/arts/books/2008/09/book-review-obscene-in-the-extreme.html

 

Just finished Boys will be Boys. It was good in that it delivered what it promised- a juicy page-turner- but felt short on substance at times and was riddled with typos that became increasingly annoying the more I found them (I paid $28 for this?!).

 

The Bestselling Books of 2008 -- The sales figures are from Bookscan (Nielson ratings for the publishing business), which accounts for roughly 75% of total sales, give or take:

1 Breaking Dawn Meyer, Stephenie 3,310,000
2 Twilight Meyer, Stephenie 3,175,000
3 A New Earth Tolle, Eckhart 3,146,000
4 The Last Lecture Pausch, Randy 2,705,000
5 New Moon Meyer, Stephenie 2,667,000
6 Eclipse Meyer, Stephenie 2,563,000
7 The Shack Young, William 2,551,000
8 The Tales of Beedle the Bard Rowling, JK 1,822,000
9 Brisingr Paolini, Christopher 1,312,000
10 Eat, Pray, Love Gilbert, Elizabeth 1,274,000
11 Three Cups of Tea Mortenson, Greg 1,099,000
12 The Appeal Grisham, John 954,000
13 New Moon Meyer, Stephenie 890,000
14 The Secret Byrne, Rhonda 828,000
15 The Host Meyer, Stephenie 794,000
16 The Audacity of Hope Obama, Barack 764,000
17 Diary of a Wimpy Kid Kinney, Jeff 721,000
18 Eat This Not That! Zinczenko, David 706,000
19 Rodrick Rules Kinney, Jeff 696,000
20 The Friday Night Knitting Club Jacobs, Kate 683,000
21 Dreams from My Father Obama, Barack 680,000
22 Water for Elephants Gruen, Sara 638,000
23 The Kite Runner Hosseini, Khaled 602,000
24 Twilight Meyer, Stephenie 584,000
25 The Story of Edgar Sawtelle Wroblewski, David 580,000
26 The Lucky One Sparks, Nicholas 575,000
27 Skinny Bitch Barnouin, Kim 565,000
28 Playing for Pizza Grisham, John 493,000
29 The Power of Now Tolle, Eckhart 489,000
30 Twilight Meyer, Stephenie 479,000
31 When You Are Engulfed in Flame Sedaris, David 477,000
32 Cross Country Patterson, James 474,000
33 Fearless Fourteen Evanovich, Janet 472,000
34 The Christmas Sweater Beck, Glenn 469,000
35 Nineteen Minutes Picoult, Jodi 461,000
36 The Pillars of the Earth Follett, Ken 456,000
37 Dewey: The Small-Town Library Myron, Vicki 449,000
38 Marley & Me Grogan, John 444,000
39 7th Heaven Patterson, James 441,000
40 Audition: A Memoir Walters, Barbara 437,000
41 The Hollow Roberts, Nora 9780515144598 427,000
42 Twilight (with poster) Meyer, Stephenie 425,000
43 Outliers Gladwell, Malcolm 420,000
44 90 Minutes in Heaven Piper, Don 418,000
45 Strengths Finder 2.0 Rath, Tom 399,000
46 A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity O'Reilly, Bill 387,000
47 Sail Patterson, James 383,000
48 The Battle of the Labyrinth Riordan, Rick 382,000
49 Gallop! Seder, Rufus Butler 379,000
50 The Alchemist Coelho, Paulo 377,000

 

It pisses me off that Meyer's tripe is selling so well. Those books are absolute garbage.

 

[crossthread]
21 Dreams from My Father Obama, Barack 680,000
36 The Pillars of the Earth Follett, Ken 456,000
[/crossthread]

Except in this case, these are the only ones on the list I HAVE read.

 

Those books are getting millions of kids to read.

 

To read how women should be subservient to men. On top of that they are written terribly. The Harry Potter books, they are not.

 

More proof that the kiddies will happily eat dogshit.

Those books barely deserve the name.

 

Bought two Kevin Smith books yesterday when I was at his shop in NJ. Opened "Silent Bob Speaks" a collection of columns he wrote for a comics site, a UK mag and somewhere else. Devoured most of it on one of the plane rides home. If you need a quick read that may get you laughing so hard people around you stare, I highly recommend this one.

And for the queasy, the column about greasy shits is only a few pages long. LOL

Good stuff, though.

 

I have read one book on that top 50.

My 11 year old son has read two.

 

Sweet, I will have to check it out.

 

James Patterson is twisted, seriously twisted, yet I can't stop reading.