If nothing else, the death of John Paul II has shaken up the best-sellers' list
at Amazon.com.
On Monday afternoon — this was the partial list of book best sellers.
#2: Memory and Identity : Conversations at the Dawn of
a Millennium by Pope John Paul II
#4 Pope John Paul II: In My Own Words
#8 The Way to Christ : Spiritual Exercises by Pope John Paul II
#12 Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul IIby George Weigel
#15 Rise, Let Us Be On Our Way by Pope John Paul II
#17 Crossing the Threshold of Hope by Pope John Paul II
To balance things out, the Da Vinci Code was at #13. And if you are curious, the #1 book is the pre-order of the next Harry Potter book. The list is fairly dynamic. You can check for changes here.
I was at the library Friday night, and they had a big display of books by and about the Pope; I picked up His Holiness: John Paul II and the History of Our Time by Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi. That book focuses on the Pope's role in the Cold War. I'll have a review of that in about a week.
Article comments
1 - DrPat
the #1 book is the pre-order of the next Harry Potter book
This is understandable - after all, the Pope is dead, but Harry Potter just keeps going...
2 - Silas Kain
Aren't the series of Harry Potter books nothing more than handmaidens for pagans? Are we allowing our children to be coerced into a life of debauchery and Godlessness by allowing them to read this trash? We should be banning these books from our public libraries.
P.S. Pilate called, my cross is ready.
3 - Eric Berlin
Silas: If you want to prevent your kids from reading Harry Potter or if you want to write about how dangerous you feel they are, that's cool with me.
But if you ban Harry Potter from public libraries and enforce your views upon children and adults alike, what else would you like to ban? How about the bible? Isn't that a dangerous text? In the end, we'd be left with Curious George... 'cepting the fact that he looks at you a little bit funny. Better ban his ass too.
It sounds as though you were expecting to be called out for making that comment, Silas, and in fact you should be.
4 - Bruce Kratofil
Eric --
I wrote him off as a troll, and ignored him. It may also be tongue-in-cheek.
5 - Phillip Winn
Oh yes, ban the Bible first of all. That's not only dangerous, but full of filth and garbage as well. Swearing, sex, violence, and the whole shebang. It holds up as "heroes" people who should have been locked up for life.
Heck, just look at the book of Judges!
6 - Eric Berlin
True and true, Bruce. Book banning stuff just happens to punch my buttons, however.
7 - vikk
There's plenty of book banning going on. I know of children's book writers who have written books that contain witches, fortune tellers, etc. who report that they run into trouble getting speaking engagements at schools and have had librarians tell them they can't stock their books or even have been told that participating in a certain book fair venue might not be appropriate. Once I wrote a picture book story and had a character feed a real bunny a softened bowl of ice cream and was told I had to take out the ice cream and replace it with something healthy because if the story were ever published it wouldn't make the standards for the California school system.