Unread Bestsellers (what bestseller can you not get through?)

The Word Spy ^ | Jan, 2003

[Utah Girl]

unread bestseller

(UN.red best.sel.ur) n. A book that many people purchase but few read in its entirety.

Example Citation:

There's the National Book Critics Circle Awards, another nice "high-culture" opportunity for Jonathan Franzen, author of jumbo unread bestseller The Corrections. —Alexandra Jacobs, "The Eight-Day Week," New York Observer, March 11, 2002

Backgrounder:
Here's my all-time Top 10 unread bestsellers list:

The Bible
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
The Closing of the American Mind, Allan Bloom
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
The Bell Curve, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein
The End of History, Francis Fukuyama
Beowulf, Seamus Heaney (trans.)

Earliest Citation:

A 500-page novel set in a 14th-century monastery and written by an Italian professor of semiotics is hardly the stuff of conventional best sellers. But "The Name of the Rose," by Umberto Eco, has proven to be just that. ...

A few cynical observers suspect that snob appeal has played a considerable role in the book's rise. Says Howard Kaminsky, president of Warner Books, which bought the paperback rights for $550,000: "Every year there is one great unread best seller. A lot of people who will buy the book will never read it." It serves, he has said, as a "passport" to intellectual respectability. "It doesn't hurt to be seen carrying a copy at the Museum of Modern Art. It hints you've got something more in your mind than getting picked up."
~~~—Alexandre Still, "Miracle of the Rose," Newsweek, September 26, 1983

[Mamzelle]

re: What do you think of Margaret Atwood?)))

I think she has an imagination (the premise of Handmaid's Tale was intriguing, though the book was really a long, keening, bleat) but descends quickly into the usual feminist masochism. Beat me, poor me, that sort of Lifetime Women's Television stuff.

[2rightsleftcoast]

I loved "The Corrections"
Yes, I got through "One hundred years of solitude"
Agree completely with you Utah girl about Oprah's selections,I was sick of reading about these suffering women. That's why I was so happy when J. Frazen said he did not want to accept Oprah's award.
The one I could never get through was Midnight in Garden of good and evil. Bleech! I know,everyone else loved it.

[Utah Girl]

I do not like the genre of magic realism. Isabel Allende is a beautiful writer, but I don't care about her books, like you say "Who cares?"

OTOH, I did really enjoy Laura Esquivel's book "Like Water for Chocolate", maybe because of the recipes. And she didn't get into the magic realism until the very end of the book...

[Utah Girl]

I think what is so fascinating about books is how it really is to each their own. Many people have dissed John Grisham on this thread, he is one of my favorite authors, I just love how he can portray characters so effortlessly. His non-law books are classics (The Painted House and Skipping Christmas.) He just needs to plot better and really work on his endings.

[2rightsleftcoast]

LOL, yes, agree on Handmaid's tale.

[2rightsleftcoast]

sorry about that big space on my last post.

[Utah Girl]

Me three on Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. I read these rave reviews about the book, and it was so bleak and depressing, besides being every feminists dream.

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

On a completely different note, I just read Robert Caro's third installment of his Johnson biography, Master of the Senate, and am now about 1/3 of the way through Caro's first biography - the Power Broker on Robert Moses. I also read the Adams biography by McCullogh. Although both authors are probably card carrying liberals, I think they have taken political biography to an entirely new level of literacy, insight and vividness and recommend all of the above mentioned books.

(I guess we're mostly talking fiction here, but I couldn't resist anyway)

[2rightsleftcoast]

I read the Adams book too, it was very good.
If we are off fiction for a minute, did you read
"Seabiscuit"? I loved it.

[Oystir]

The Painted House was first published in serial form in his magazine "Oxford American - the Southern Magazine of Good Writing" which just relaunched after being idle for almost a year. Strongly recommend the magazine.

[Utah Girl]

I read mostly non-fiction now. I loved McCullough's biography on Adams. I'll have to pick up the Johnson biography, I've been waiting for a good recommendation on that one. I also have enjoyed Stephen Ambrose's books (Band of Brothers, etc).

[Utah Girl]

Thanks for the recommendation. I do enjoy southern authors.

[DoctorMichael]

Books on your list I HAVE read, literally, cover-to-cover:

The Bible
A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking
Doctor Zhivago, Boris Pasternak
The Bell Curve, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein
The End of History, Francis Fukuyama

*Please note: I've read Atlas Shrugged 4 times.

[ConservativeLawyer]

Great stuff. He really was an inspiration for me when I started to write. I used to dream of being able to paint a picture with words the way he did.

I know what you mean. MacDonald had a way with words.

What sort of writing do you do?

[justshutupandtakeit]

Jane Austen is my favorite author (except for maybe Dickens.) Emma is not her best work. Pride and Prejudice is hilarious and one of the greatest works in Western literature.

[maxwell]

Panthos (enters): "Alark, a staveth dost thou pass?"
Peretinitus (already there): "Aye, aye, and a knavest staveth to the end!"
Bursitus (falling from the ceiling): Tis well, tis well."

LMFAO! Ah, I remember that passage... 'Twas from that lil' known work Two Gentlemen from Verona: Homo and Mullet, or All's Well, Tight Ends Well...

[Future Snake Eater]

Panthos (enters): "Alark, a staveth dost thou pass?"
Peretinitus (already there): "Aye, aye, and a knavest staveth to the end!"
Bursitus (falling from the ceiling): Tis well, tis well."

LOL! Love the stage directions!

[2 Kool 2 Be 4-Gotten]

No, bought Seabiscuit for someone else and I see people reading it from time to time, but haven't read it. I'll put it on my list. I really felt like I had a more complete understanding of what it means to be an American after reading the Adams biography (had the same feeling after reading Shelby Foote's Civil War trilogy).

[Future Snake Eater]

(Beowulf was of course a fantastic bore from the beginning. It has bored the soul out of generations of students).

True, true. However, have you read Grendel? It retells portions of Beowulf, as well as parts preceding it from the viewpoint of the monster Grendel. Fantastic book, can't recommend it enough.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Naked Lunch is an incredible work. Certainly not for the squemish but very interesting. Burroughs was certainly a total creep but that book is a classic. Filled with great humor.