Last night, while thinking about the vast publishing industry and the fact that you could never read even a fraction of the books published each year, even in a lifetime of reading, I wondered “Are there any books that you could be sure that almost every single person who is a reader has read?”
I think children's books are a good place to start – most of us have exposure to the same classics when we're young – Cat in the Hat, Charlotte's Web and into our adolescence with things like the The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew.
For that reason, that might be a good way to approach the list of books that every adult has read – except I suspect that there isn't probably a single “classic” in literature that everybody has read, the same way that there might be for children's and YA books. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if, given any list of 100 Great Books, there's probably a few gaps on that list for anybody (I usually feel like I've barely read half the books on any of these lists – and I've got an English degree!)
Maybe that's another way to approach it – education. There must be some books that everybody reads in the course of their schooling. Is Hamlet the universal book we have to read in school? Not necessarily – I think we studied Merchant of Venice in grade ten then Romeo and Juliet in grade eleven then MacBeth in grade twelve in my high school. I didn't see Hamlet until university (but then I saw it in about three different classes!)
How about coming at it from the opposite direction – the books no teacher would ever recommend? Mass market paperbacks like Stephen King, Tom Clancy, John Grisham – all of whom have been referred to as the best-selling novelist of all-time.
Is there anybody out there who has not read at least one Stephen King book? But then again, he's got such a large back catalogue, is there a single book out of his dozens that you could say everybody has read?
The Bible is another book that is a strong contender – it's known as the best-selling single book of all-time according to Guinness. But I would be fairly certain that “best-selling” doesn't not equate to “most read” by a long shot! (“David begat John begat Paul begat Mark begat Mary…” makes for some pretty dry reading!)
Any other ideas? I think I'm going to go with Hamlet as my pick for a “universal book”. I don't think you can be a reader of any level of finesse and get away with not having read it.
Speaking of reading habits, I had another idea driving home from RPL yesterday. Below is a list of the books I grabbed on a fairly typical visit to the public library. There was no filtering – either to pick “good” books or avoid “bad” ones since I didn't come up with the idea for this list until coming home so here, completely and honestly, is a list of books and other items I borrowed. (Not that I think there's anything particularly embarrassing in this batch but just want to state for the record that I'm not “forgetting” that biography of Posh Spice that I had on hold for a month.)
The Undercover Economist
This was a hold that brought me to the library on this day. I'd seen the book at Chapters and in typical librarian fashion (?), made note of the title so I could borrow it from the library and save myself $40. It's supposed to be sort of similar to Freakonomics which I really enjoyed. I started it last night and it seems like this will be a good one too!
Atheism: A Very Short Introduction
– I usually start my browsing at the start of the non-fiction shelves so usually end up grabbing 1-2 computer/book on books/philosophy-religion titles when I visit the library.
A Devil's Chaplain – Richard Dawkins
– while waiting for “The God Delusion” to come through on hold, another Dawkins book caught my eye while browsing – this a collection of various essays. The Selfish Gene is a great book and the origin of the word “meme” if you didn't know.
The Weblog Handbook
– browsing at Superstore the other day, I saw a new book called the Rough Guide To Blogging. RPL doesn't have it yet but this one from 2001 seemed similar but yet, should be good
for a laugh at the same time.
Butter Down The Well – Robert Collins
A classic about growing up on the prairies in the 1930's, I've been meaning to read this one forever.
Neil Young Nation – Kevin Chong
Someone suggested this Vancouver author's first book for our FTRW “Book of the Year” in Calgary so I was aware of him as an author. Then I heard his new book would be a non-fiction travelogue where he compares his life to Neil Young's (plus I have about a dozen guitar picks emblazoned with the title of this book from a promotional event I attended in Moose Jaw a couple years ago. So I figured the least I could do is read the book.)
Touched By Tommy – Ed & Pemrose Whalen
A collection of anecdotes about people's encounters with Tommy Douglas.
Stripes (DVD)
– perhaps the funniest opening scene until “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective”
Animal House: Special Edition (DVD)
– I've seen this a few times but wanted to check out the extras.
Jesus de Montreal (DVD)
– great Canadian film with an awesome ending.
(All DVD's are ones I've seen before but I like to have a familiar film playing in the background when I'm on the computer or doing other stuff so I can tune in and tune out without feeling like I'm missing anything.)
Last fall, I had a debate with one of my readers about whether 40 items was too high of a limit for a public library (she said it was, I said it wasn't even close!) I admitted at that time that I never read all the books I take out but do like the convenience of having a “mini-library” with a range of borrowed books in it so that I can find something to read no matter what mood strikes me. (Let's not get into the hundreds of neglected books on my own bookshelf!) Anyhow, every book I took out yesterday is a book I *want* to read, whether it is a book I *will* read is another question.
Oh, another realization – I'm really into non-fiction these days and rarely read fiction anymore. Which in turn inspires an idea for a post for another day – the hierarchy of genres within the book world. But that'll have to wait.
[Edit – I posted this question to the hivemind at AskMF for their thoughts.]
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