Book Review: Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Bestselling Books by Lisa Adams and John Heath

This book should come with a warning: "Read at your own risk, the authors will not be responsible for any book-buying binge during or after the reading of this book." Why We Read What We Read by John Heath and Lisa Adams is basically one long book review about nearly 200 bestselling books, most of which the authors actually took the time to read, and as the case usually is, this particular 'book review' has piqued my interest in at least ten books now. Luckily for me, I had already read a few of the other books they mentioned.

This book isn't just a review about the books we read though, it's also a psychological insight to why we choose to read these particular books and make them bestsellers, because there's nothing particularly special about bestsellers after all. Like Heath and Adams said, they only become bestsellers because we buy them.

In Why We Read What We Read, Heath and Adams cover topics by book genre. Chapter one is about the obvious; self-help books, inspirational books, and diet books which include Dr. Atkin's New Diet Revolution, The South Beach Diet, Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Who Moved My Cheese, and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series. Heath and Adams state that while a lot of these books don't actually help or change a person, we all still buy and read them for the hope that the next diet book will be the one to help us lose weight (as if all you need to do to lose weight is to read a diet book) or that reading a particular get-rich-now book will make us instant millionaires.

Chapter two discusses the starkness of our views of good and evil, the "if you're not for us, you're for them" mentality. The John Grishams and Stephen Kings come under this section. We love their books because they give us a clear, black and white picture of good and evil. The protagonist is good; the antagonist is evil, simple as that. Even though sometimes the protagonist has many flaws, we can empathize with them because we know they're good people deep down inside. But those evil antagonists, they don't have hearts — they're just evil through and through. It's the same with the political nonfiction. The left wingers say that they're good and the right wingers are evil, the right wingers say they are good and the left wingers are evil. Either way, they're both right and wrong.

Chapter three is for the hopeless romantics. Romance, whether historical, contemporary, Regency, or otherwise is one of the bestselling genres, and I'm not surprised. I can read seven romance novels in the time it takes me to read one literary one. Of course, there's the happily ever after factor that all of us can't help but be sappy for. We all love happy love stories and most romance novelists are just too happy to give it to us. Unfortunately, most of us don't really have happy real life love stories, hence the bestselling nonfiction books on relationships, which scare me with some of the not really practical advice they give.

Article Author: Betty Wong

An avid reader with strong ideas and opinions, Betty Wong enjoys sharing her thoughts with anyone who cares to ponder with her about what the world is about. She is passionate about art, music, and literature and spends most of her time immersed in one or the other. …

Visit Betty Wong's author page — Betty Wong's Blog