Book Review: Why We Read What We Read: A Delightfully Opinionated Journey Through Bestselling Books by Lisa Adams and John Heath - Page 2

Chapter four is my favorite and by far the one that probably will cause the most debates and indignation. Christians and New Agers battle it out with their literary works like the Christian-themed Left Behind series which use a fictionalized account of an apocalypse to get the message across that either you believe in God and Jesus and worship them with all your heart, mind, body, and soul, or God abandons you. And then there's the New Age-themed Conversations With God series where Neale Donald Walsch talks to a loving, generous, supportive God who wants you to make your own choices and be happy. It's kind of obvious which side I'm on, isn't it? To be fair, the Left Behind series do address the doubts and questions that cynics have, but saying things like, "I'll do it even if I don't understand it" just isn't satisfactory to my infinite curiosity and quest for knowledge and understanding, so I stay on the New Age side of the fence.

Chapter five is about the trials and triumphs that people face in literary fiction; guilt, and then redemption, or surviving through abuse, addictions, and other hardships, and then triumphing over them, or sometimes not. Oprah is especially good with these books; she picked 43 books of literary fiction between 1996 and 2002 for her book club. Some of the books selected include Ursula Hegi's Stones from the River, which is about a dwarf living during the Holocaust and the trials she faces with being different and living in a difficult time, and She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb, which is about a girl struggling with an eating disorder. I've read both these books, and I absolutely loved them both. I don't watch Oprah often, but I think it's great that her book club has spurred so many non-readers to read. Not all of Oprah's selections turn out to be great though, so you shouldn't read a book just because she says so.

Chapter six is dedicated to The Da Vinci Code, and is basically a summary of the conclusions the authors got from analyzing the bestselling books that we have been reading from 1991 to 2005. The bottom line that Heath and Adams got to is that a lot of us readers don't like people challenging our views and our dreams.

We read political non-fiction, but only the ones which tell us what we want to hear, we're not really open to looking at the other side's perspective. If we do read the other side's story, we say they're liars. That's why the mysteries and thrillers get to us too; it's us, the good guys, versus them, the bad guys. It's the same with spiritual and religious non-fiction. New Agers most likely will not read Christian literature, and vice versa. We read self-help books because we want to believe that there is a book out there that can change our lives, because we're too lazy to actually change it on our own. I don't necessarily believe this to be true because I have read some which, while not having changed my life, did help me improve a little bit. There is a reason they are called 'self' help books after all, the books don't help you if you don't want to help yourself. Romances are important to us because we want to believe that there is a happily ever after. We want to believe in dreams, in love, in destiny. Romance novels give us all of that and more. Don't tell us that there's no such thing as happily ever after, we're not going to buy that book. We read literary fiction about the hardships others go through so we feel better that our lives aren't as bad as theirs, and if they triumph, we feel inspired, we feel good because we know that there is strength in the human spirit, the human spirit cannot be beaten.

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. …

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