Anybody read a good book lately?

Sgt PSN · February 20, 2006, 06:55:24 PM

Quote from: General_Failure on February 20, 2006, 06:46:55 PM
How many of those people were going to read it anyway?

Quote from: Sgt PSN on February 20, 2006, 06:54:31 PM
But let's be serious here, what are the odds that they would have read it without her?

This is bad. This is very, very bad.

General_Failure · February 20, 2006, 06:56:04 PM

Focus on rjs' irrational hatred and stop copying me, bith.

Sgt PSN · February 20, 2006, 06:56:54 PM

I'm not a bith anymore. I'm the Keeper League Champ.

General_Failure · February 20, 2006, 06:57:44 PM

Somebody's awful sensitive about being called a bith.

Sgt PSN · February 20, 2006, 06:58:01 PM

BTW, I wasn't copying you. You posted while I was typing mine.

rjs246 · February 20, 2006, 06:58:09 PM

Fair points, but the fact that her book club more or less dominates the best seller list is proof enough that a)people are farging sheep, b)she almost certainly actively takes away from the sales and exposure of current worthy novelists by doing things like pimping a 50-year old classic that everyone should have read in high school anyway and c)she has far more power over the literary world than anyone should.

General_Failure · February 20, 2006, 07:00:26 PM

Make your stand somewhere. Start pimping more books here and wherever else you go on the web. Hell, pay Ed fifty bucks to mention them on the 385 boards he goes to daily if you want. And give me a 10% commission for thinking it up.

Sgt PSN · February 20, 2006, 07:02:32 PM

Quote from: rjs246 on February 20, 2006, 06:58:09 PM
people are farging sheep

T-hawk proved that years ago. Oprah had nothing to do with it.

Sgt PSN · February 20, 2006, 07:04:05 PM

My sig is always available for rent. Have your people call my people and we'll crunch numbers and get some of your favorite books advertised.

PhillyPhanInDC · February 20, 2006, 07:14:56 PM

I tend to agree with RJS to the extent that she is choosing what to showcase, and by doing so, is possibly swaying people towards a particular brand of writing, or distracting people (inadvertently or otherwise) from other genres of writing.
On the flip side, I agree that anytime you can get a person to read anything, it can tend to turn the light the on so to speak, and they will generally search out other books from that point on their own. So if she is nudging bored housewives, and stay-at-home types into reading anything instead of watching the boob-tube, I guess I am all for it.

Doing a quick look on Amazon.com's list of her books, there are some seriously good books there, that can branch out all over the place.

Linkage

rjs246 · February 20, 2006, 07:23:42 PM

I'm not saying that she shouldn't encourage people to read, I'm saying that IF she is going to encourage people to read it isn't her place to tell them WHAT to read. And more to the point if she does have the audacity to tell people what to read, she should farging stand behind her choices. Ugh.

Rome · February 20, 2006, 07:24:39 PM

Slaughterhouse Five is absolutely awesome. I saw that a few pages and thought I'd mention it.

Subversion at its best.

rjs246 · February 20, 2006, 07:25:34 PM

Agreed. Slaughterhouse Five is an outstanding novel.

Geowhizzer · February 20, 2006, 07:33:09 PM

Loved Slaughterhouse 5 myself.

Rome · February 20, 2006, 07:47:29 PM

Quote from: rjs246 on February 20, 2006, 07:23:42 PM
I'm not saying that she shouldn't encourage people to read, I'm saying that IF she is going to encourage people to read it isn't her place to tell them WHAT to read. And more to the point if she does have the audacity to tell people what to read, she should farging stand behind her choices. Ugh.

Her face and bulbous trunk of a body are plastered on the cover of a magazine entitled "Oprah" every farging month.

She's the very definition of the term "self-involved."

For all her faults, (and there are many) encouraging people to read isn't one of them, IMO. After all, she's recommended books by Tolstoy, Faulkner, Pearl S. Buck, Elie Wiesel among others. Considering her usual audience, exposing them to the collected works of those authors can't be a bad thing.