Everyone in Chicago is reading the same book

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Yesterday on the telly, I saw a piece about how the Mayor of Chicago is trying to get everyone to read To Kill A Mocking Bird at the moment. The aim is to encourage not only the reading of quality fiction, but also the discussion of literature. The way the publicity people described it, they want a Big Brother type reaction, where everyone at work, down the pub, visiting their parents for Sunday dinner is talking about TKAMB. It seems to be working - they reported book shops running out of copies and waiting lists for the novel in libraries.

I think the idea of encouraging people to read and talk about what they are reading is great. However, I sense an Oprah-style scenario coming on and I predict publishing houses falling over themselves to make book number two on the required reading list one of their own. I also know the revulsion I feel towards the Book Everyone Reads On The Way To Work and wonder if there will be an anti-TKAMB faction in Chicago. Or perhaps the sort of person who will be cynical about the campaign is also the sort of person most likely to have read it already.

The other thing that interests me is the book they've chosen to begin the reading campaign - strong ethical themes that are still important today, accessible to adults and children... Anyway, what do you think about the whole thing? And broadening slightly, if you could get the population of a whole city reading one book, which would it be?

― Madchen, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It's a nice idea because it would make a conversation topic. Half of my close friendships originally came from talking about books we'd read. It's too much like a school assignment, though, which I spend a great deal of time doing and then resenting; reading books from a list instead of on recommendation or because they look interesting isn't reading for fun, to me.

Also, the choice of book isn't so good. I read that in eighth grade after hearing people fuss about it for years and wondered what the big deal was. but The writing style and plot didn't interest me, so I never recommended it to anyone. Its only good points are that it is easy to read and has strong ethical themes, but is that good enough?

― maria, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The book I'd recommend: _The Diamond Age_ by Neil Stephenson. Nanotech fantasies are inherently cool, as are parallel storylines which examine the consequences of one person's actions on a series of people. Plus, Nell is one of the greatest protagonists ever.

This reminds me that I need to read _Zodiac_ at some point.

― Dan Perry, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd like to get everyone in Essex to read Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". "I like being an Essex boy, it's great to drive a Ford Capri on the Romford circuit, we're so much better than those bourgeois ponces from Kent etc."

Any novel that gets people to confront and question their values/prejudices can't be bad, so I guess that "To Kill A Mockingbird" is a sound choice in that respect as well.

Like I say, Tolstoy's "Resurrection" is brilliant for that too - even though it's essentially a critique on the social and legal system in feudal Russia, its message can quite easily be transposed to a contemporary society.

― Trevor, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Well, I, for one, am not reading it right now. But they're giving us like seven weeks, so I suppose I could change my mind and still make deadline.

Its only good points are that it is easy to read and has strong ethical themes, but is that good enough?

Well, if you're trying to get a whole city to read a book without anyone getting too upset, that's about the best you could hope for.

Oprah worries are unfounded, I hope. I don't think anyone would try to turn this into a regular thing. It worked this time because the book is actually a pretty safe and relatively good book that will upset no one, and it's choice wasn't really premeditated in a public sense -- it was widely known that Daley just happened to really like this book. But if he decided that next year we were going to read another of his favorite books, he would look pretty damn dictatorial ... and if he attempted any sort of public decision on what to read next, I get the feeling it would get so contentious that it would eventually seem easier for everyone to just go read whatever they feel like reading.

So: one-off. Definitely. And sort of nice, I think.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

It might be good enough for a city, but not for ME

― candelabra, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I already read that one in high school. This is the first I've heard of it, and I live here. The book was the center of some controversy a few weeks ago, when parents protested the book on account of the 'n' word.

Gosh, I didn't know the mayor reads. If he likes books so much, he should fire that awful head librarian who is destroying books left and right.

― Kerry, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Everyone I see on the tube seems to be reading 'White Teeth'.

― jel, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

We put White Teeth on reserve for a class and everyone kept asking when it would come off! Demand be high...

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Hooray for Zadie, who deserves the success. Brave New World is one of my favourite books ever; I'd happily write the screenplay for a remake. If you have ever worked in market research you will find it * especially* hilarious.

― suzy, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ah, so you know Ms. Smith? A good sort, then?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Ned, just work on the assumption Suzy knows everyone and everything.

(except monarchal matriarch mortality, obviously)

― Graham, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have this secret plan to marry Zadie Smith. Not so much because of the book (although it was quite promising), but just because we'd look good together.

Although have you seen her new author photo? It's very disturbing: hair straightened and down, soft make-up, a weird pseudo-elegant pouty glamour shot. Whereas for the cloth edition author photo, if you covered up her hair she sort of looked like me.

― Nitsuh, Friday, 7 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

danielewski's "house of leaves" for me please

― Geoff, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Zadie connection: we're acquainted, having shared a publisher here and lots of mutual friends and I met her a long time before publication. Last time I saw her was at a late-night session at friend's house (she was seeing him) and we had a stoned conversation about Jehovah's Witnesses and she tried to cheer me up about fiction writer's block. I like her, but a less successful writer girl I know CANNOT shut up about her shortcomings, says she's no feminist etc. but I suspect at least 250k reasons for this position.

The straightened hair thing freaked me out a little too, but Hell, it's her hair (even though I prefer the curls) and as she writes, black hair issues are a fucking minefield anyway. She lost a lot of weight before the book came out, as I discovered when I went on a multicultural programme to talk about Japanese trends and there she was, 30 lbs lighter than the last time I saw her.

Graham: the Queen Mother thing was based on shitloads of news people being on death standby and getting told to bring a black suit to work + BBC being schtum about things.

― suzy, Saturday, 8 September 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

one year passes...

look, i'm SURE i posted somewhere on these boards about how smith's "autograph man" really isn't very good, esp. the 2nd half. but i can't find it now. so i'm saying it here.

― mitch lastnamewithheld (mitchlnw), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 07:58 (twenty-two years ago)

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