John sent me the following e-mail:
Lists are dumb, but you’ll probably have an opinion about this one.
To which I replied:
Yeah, I saw this and thought about blogging it. We actually get a free subscription to Entertainment Weekly because of some concert tickets we bought like three years ago. They just keep sending it.
The thing about their list is, I can’t figure out the methodology. I mean, why put David Foster Wallace’s book of Essays ‘A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again’ on there instead of his master work, ‘Infinite Jest’? Is it because no one on their editorial staff could make it through all 1,000+ pages of ‘Infinite Jest’?
And why is ‘The Da Vinci Code’ even on the list? Why why wh–
SYSTEM FAILURE
—-
I think I’ll just blog this e-mail exchange.
Hopefully I didn’t just create some kind of infinite loop that will crash the Internets.
4 responses so far ↓
1 NanMel // Jun 23, 2008 at 11:11 pm
I only scanned the list because, quite frankly, I lost faith in “Entertainment Weekly” a few years ago when they unilaterally claimed to despise “Family Guy,” but it seems to me that it is a list of books people have told them are good at some point.
It’s the list of titles you should know so when you’re at your office Christmas party with your stoner boyfriend and someone tries to make a Barbara Kingsolver reference you can upstage him by saying “She an author. Of books.” in response to his quizzical looks.
Some of the books are actually worth reading. I have actually read some of them. But those that are worth reading are cheapened by previously mentioned trash by Dan Brown. It is not the best book ever written, I don’t care what you say grocery store check-out lady.
Oh, and yes, there is no way anyone on the EW editorial staff could make it through Infinite Jest. To be honest, I’m having trouble myself, but not for the same reasons the dolts at the Family Guy hating rag of a mag are.
2 tlitchfo // Jun 25, 2008 at 10:31 pm
Entertainment Weekly is clearly out of touch with our (pop) culture and must be stopped.
Stupid First Ammendment.
3 NanMel // Jun 26, 2008 at 9:36 pm
I agree with you and Flannery O’Connor!
(“Everywhere I go, I’m asked if I think the universities stifle writers. My opinion is that they don’t stifle enough of them. There’s many a best seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” )
4 tlitchfo // Jun 27, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I once saw a greeting card that had a picture of a room piled full of books on the front (kind of like this).
The text on the inside of the card was that Flannery O’Connor quote
Leave a Comment