No Book Clubs, Thanks
2009 September 18
Dear Barnes and Noble:
I love you because you sell books, but this does not mean you need to update me when Oprah picks a new book for her club. I consider my literary exploration to be a precious one, and I refuse to base it on an entertainment figure. While our choices do coincide at times, I consider my literary curiosity strong, and I do not rely on the media to guide my reading. I’ll pick up what seems interesting, not what Oprah says is interesting. Thanks!
Love,
WordNerd WordNedia IPia
2 Responses
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Actually, I’ve become pretty interested in this question lately: how do I (and by extension others like me), as an active consumer and reader of books, learn about what’s out there? And why do I hear about some books 100 times and others not at all. I mean, it’s obvious everyone’s going to review/plug/whatever the new Dan Brown book, but if you look at the review pages of some of the major newspapers and magazines, I’d venture to guess that a high proportion of the books they review are the same. And you just know there’s a lot more out there.
Right. I was actually thinking about that as I was writing this small post. How is it that I stumble across the things that I do? Partly it’s reading reviews; I have to confess that’s small, though, given my penchant for not reading the NYT Books section. I get recommendations through you and other readers; I don’t take all of them, but I do take a look before making a decision. I also like to browse through different sections both online and off, then buy from there. I like writing reviews, I don’t mind reading them, but I’ve been known to ignore even bad ones in order to explore a topic I’m interested in at the moment (but the author might not have done such a great job writing it). I figure as a reader who’d like to do some writing some day, I need to run across the good and the bad.
There’s a ton out there that never sees exposure, definitely. Part of the answer probably lies in how hard agents push and if the material is appealing to a broad audience. And other factors which I won’t enumerate because I’m hungry now. ;)