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

[phyrephly.livejournal.com]

the other day i realized how completely hilarious i must have looked reading some scary black book with huge red letters reading "KAFKA." i was wearing one of those fluffy down coats and it was baby pink.


i am not ashamed of liking Harry Potter because i started reading those books when i was ten. if those books came out now i would be ashamed to read them, but as it is i need to find out what happens to that ludicrous pop icon in the approaching final installment!


i often see young black girls reading these really ridiculous books written by gay black men that are supposed to be homosexual erotica. they have these overly-muscled, ferocious looking men on them, usually dripping with water, behind huge hot pink font spelling out something scandalous. i don't really understand this to be honest.

Were you going for the Belle & Sebastian look?

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

[phyrephly.livejournal.com]

haha, i was made aware of this album cover yesterday. i had no idea it existed!

[commonpeople.livejournal.com]

Are you sure those young girls are not reading romantic novels? In my library, there are tons of them, with buff hot Caribbean or African guys -- sometimes seducing a lady; sometimes starting seductively at the reader. They are all incredibly heterosexual texts.

[phyrephly.livejournal.com]

the ones i speak of have two very rambunctious looking men on the cover-- not one. otherwise i would have assumed your idea.