The Nation's Bad Education

[dotinthesky]

What is worse: to be caught reading The Da Vinci Code on public transport, or one of Dan Brown's other novels? Because to read The Da Vinci Code tells the world that you are a sheep, a lemming with no taste; but to read another Dan Brown novel means that you actually liked The Da Vinci Code.

Other books you should not be caught dead reading on public transport:

• Harry Potter novels (for anyone over 14). Yes, they are pleasurable to read, but reading one in public is like going to work in your Halloween costume. There's a time and place (i.e. your home) for these if you are an adult.
  
• The Dummy's Guide to...
  
• How to Make Friends and Influence People
  
• Chick lit novels (these usually have pink or baby blue covers, with cartoonesque drawings.)
  
• Jehovah Witness pamphlets
  
• Celebrity magazines and trashy tabloids (although it's OK to read The Weekly World News.)
  
• Autobiographies by ex-Big Brother contestants
  

Any other reading material I should add to this list?

Comments

[theairwebreathe.livejournal.com]

i had to read the da vinci code when i worked at the travel agency because we structured a tour around it. ultimately i ended up skimming through it and highlighting anything i recognized as a place or a work of art.

i've never actually read any harry potter books and don't plan to. i wish joan aiken's books were as popular. they are so much better written. her stories with dido twaite warped me for life in the best possible way. i used to read those on the train in chicago all the time, but i had editions with edward gorey illustrated covers.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I was just thinking how someone reading Anne of Green Gables, for example, would make me feel alot more curious about them. There's something pleasurable about spotting someone reading against the norms.

[theairwebreathe.livejournal.com]

oh holy crap I loved Anne of Green Gables as a kid, too. I should reread those again. I remember thinking the books made Canada seem almost exotic for some reason, but then again even Prince Edward Island is exotic to a kid in Kansas.

I used to love Nancy Drew, too. In fact my mother still has my unbelievable collection - relatives started dumping on me all their old copies. I had something like the first original hundred or so in the old hard bound editions. I remember at some point they started putting more stuff in about Nancy's private life, though, and she had broken up with her boyfriend and it was just weird. I quit reading at that point. I was probably eleven.

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

I never read Nancy Drew; but I know I would have loved her if I'd been exposed to the books. Did you ever see the TV series for Anne of Green Gables? Megan Follows plays the main character... it's very good!