More Big Read stuff

[altivo]

We were talking about The Big Read at work yesterday and again today, in the context of these odd book lists. A package came in the mail.

It turned out to contain 16 CDs with "book talks" from The Big Read. Sent as a freebie, with a questionnaire about how we might use them. I took the one on Jack London to listen to in the car on my way home. It's like a podcast, actually. Robert Redford reading snippets from The Call of the Wild interspersed with various commentators talking about London's life and works. It's 28 minutes long, with a break for station identification in the middle. Very polished and professionally done. Essentially, it's an advertisement for the book, intended to make you want to read it.

The thing about it that makes me laugh is that this kind of production values are aimed squarely at people who still aren't going to actually read a book. If it were an advertisement for a movie or a television program, they'd probably pay attention. But reading a book just isn't their thing. That's why they prefer this sort of shortened, media and special effects filled presentation.

I give the NEA points for trying, but I don't think it's a winner.

Comments

[farhoug.livejournal.com]

I guess I'd like to hear something like commentary of a book... though after I've read it. I've got enough to read already, I don't need any advertising for that. :-)

The Call of the Wild happens to be the first book I read in English, I could've used a nice dictionary back then though.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You've heard my podcasts I think. It's like that, only much more polished and shiny, with music and sound effects and all.

[silver-kiden.livejournal.com]

the only thing i can see them being used for is by book enthusiasts who want to know more about their favorite books and authors.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I think they are really a bit too simplified for those who are already well into reading the books. They are designed to attract people who might read the book but never considered it.

They might be influential with those who do read, but have only stuck with popular best sellers like James Patterson or Sue Grafton or whatever. It just might get some of them to try reading a classic or two. They aren't promoting Moby Dick or War and Peace, but titles like The Great Gatsby and The Call of the Wild that are quite approachable.

[saythename.livejournal.com]

My first thought is that your wrong. Books, especially good books
like Call of the Wild, need this kind of marketing.

But then I remember my fundemental flaw of considering most
people to be rational and reconsider.

Your right, people would rather be read too, than do the dirty
deed themselves.

I suppose its a remnant of the "around the fire in the jungle/woods"
that lives in us.

I have this theory that any problem can be solved by a large
enough library.

Sadly, most libraries of such size are mostly empty unless its
time for term papers.

Even then, you can find huge pockets of quiet, with the scent
of paper aging and the light of flourescent lamps.

*le sighs*

Okay that sigh was a fake, I like going into huge libraries
in the middle of summer when no one but the hardcore are
there.

^.~

[altivo.livejournal.com]

No fluorescents, please. You make me think of the seminary library when I was in theological school. Polished wood, stained glass windows, robins and cardinals singing outside the cool stone walls, and those long, sloping tables with little individual book lights (incandescent bulbs that cast a warm glow over the pages.)

The main stacks were in a cellar, dark and dusty. But the reading room was delightful. And, for those in the know, there was a rare book room in a garret above that had Egyptian-style wall paintings, an actual mummy in a glass case, and everything from Sumerian clay tablets to papyrus scrolls in Hebrew to actual first editions of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer and Henry VIII's treatise against the protestants. What a setting! (Unfortunately, the collection was notoriously weak on science fiction. ;p)

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I love history too, and origional
texts are awe inspiring, you can imagine them
as almost textual time machines. You touch the
page and you know that very long ago someone
else touched them too.

That library sounds like a perfect setting for
that.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Whinnyhi, Rider.

Reading has always seemed work. At first, at least. Like not wanting to take a shower or sit with relatives you do not know at a dinner table. But once you get the proverbial foot wet, you kinda slide in and it is funner and much much easier than you at first thought.

I think it is a lot like wetting your dry toes in the cool but not chilly lake or stream (or shower). At first you go YOW but within mere seconds you become immersed and the next thing you know you are splashing and ducking and having the time of your life.

I feel that mandatory reading programs are never going to work. But give a plot line and a few sentences to draw you in, you get hooked like a fish and the next thing you know it is hard to put the stupid book down. That is how it has always worked for me, anyway.

Impers

[altivo.livejournal.com]

"Reading == Work" is exactly the problem. But you can't overcome that without reading. You have to practice it to become proficient enough that it isn't work any more. And that's why a certain amount of reading needs to be mandatory in schools...

It's just like learning a foreign language, or computer literacy, or a thing like morse code. At first it is dauntingly difficult. You have to be motivated enough to keep at it until something clicks. I'm still at that mid-point with morse code, so I understand why many people shy away from reading. It's work. It requires concentration. They have to focus on it and practice it, and sometimes go over the same sentence more than once. This is where our typical public school graduate ends up these days, alas.

You and I flew past that because we kept reading. For us it is second nature, just like speaking. But for more and more Americans who never reach that point, the idea of reading is abhorrent. Add in ever shortening attention spans (caused by who knows what, but I'm inclined to blame visual media with their fast flash action and scene changes) and you end up where we are today: with a US President who can't spell or string together a coherent sentence, and a public that adores him for it...