Monday, 12 March 2007

Well and not-so well read.

A depressing insight – published today are lists of books that are most widely started but not finished.

• UNFINISHED FICTION:
1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

• UNFINISHED NON-FICTION:
1 The Blunkett Tapes, David Blunkett
2 My Life, Bill Clinton
3 My Side, David Beckham
4 Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
5 Wild Swans, Jung Chang
6 Allen Carr's Easy Way to Stop Smoking
7 The Downing Street Years, Margaret Thatcher
8 I Can Make You Thin, Paul McKenna
9 Jade: My Autobiography, Jade Goody
10 Why Don't Penguins' Feet Freeze?, Mick O'Hare

Are we a society of pseuds who buy books for reasons of conspicuous consumption so that we can be seen to be erudite ? This would explain the sales for just about anything by Stephen Hawking.

Or are we a society of morons ? Looking at most of the titles in the non-fiction list I wonder who actually buys them in the first place. Jade: My Autobiography - for fucks sake this is a criminal waste of good trees.

Personally I have an obsession with having to finish anything that I have started. This has driven me to finish both Hegel’s Philosophy Of Right and a Jeffrey Archer found in a hotel library.

Nothing to brag about in either case.

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