Bring On The Books For Everybody How Literary Culture Becomes Popular Culture by Jim Collins

Bring On The Books For Everybody How Literary Culture Becomes Popular Culture by Jim Collins.

Jim Collins is a professor at the University of Notre Dame. This book is published by Duke University Press in 2010. Jim Collins is writing for a popular audience. The word choice is quite interesting and wonderful. He uses terms like lit-lit, bibliotherapy, adaptation film, and superstore. There is melding of the academic with the popular. Jim Collins easily moves between subjects like Ladies Home Journal and modernist literature. The juxtapositions are striking.



The writing is at times funny, ironic, and witty. The author is describing how literature is transformed into a popular medium and taken out of the academy. He describes adaptation films (films adapted from literary works,), the New York Times Book Review, Oprah's Book Club, and chick lit.



Jim Collins explains how literature is treated as both a form of self cultivation and self actualization. Many people read the classics to be better people. We get a of an Oprah Winfrey episode of television where Oprah encourages people to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, the classic Russian novel. It is at times appalling, fascinating, and poignant.

I espcially liked his sections on books to film. Two of the books which he spends quite a bit of time on are The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and The Hours by Michael Cunningham both of which were turned into excellent films.



Jim Collins is describing the packaging of books into a complete line of products; books, films, furniture, and other products. Books become a brand unto themselves. This is an article that explains the phenomenon with the book, Eat Pray Love. http://www.mercurynews.com/fashion-style-headlines/ci_15797294?nclick_check=1



Classic literature becomes swept up in the process as well. Shakespeare becomes books like Shakespeare In Love and Jane Austen becomes The Jane Austen Book Club. This marketing is exploited by companies like Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other super shopping sites. Henry James and other writers become commodities.



I am not completely comfortable with this. I find some of it goes too far. For example, books like The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger are clear attempts at romantic consumerism; a mix of buying the right stuff, sex, and relationships.  Sex and the City for literature.



This is a very interesting book. It is quite topical for librarians, booksellers, and people interested in books. It even mentions Nancy Perl and her segment on books on National Public Radio. The book is well indexed and has an extensive bibliography. I highly recommend reading this book.

Daily Thoughts 8/18/2010 ( Bring on the Books, graphic novels )

Reading room of the library, U.S. Naval Academy, 1901, Detroit Publishing Company
Daily Thoughts 8/18/2010

I finished reading Bitter Angels last night.  It had a surprise ending and a unique story.  It is something I'll definitly be writing a review on later in the week.




Today was another steady day.  I read over some of the requirements for a conservation grant.  There are a number of questions I have to find out before applying.  It was interesting finding out what people wanted to know.  I also learned that I  will be using the acquisitions module directly built into our catalog.  This allows EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) of our orders.  It also shows when items are on order.




I had the Graphic Novels Club today.  We are getting more people coming to the club.  I think we ended up with fourteen people today which is not bad.  There were quite a few books checked out.  They picked out a few books on cartooning, Battle Angel Alita, Naruto, Inu Yasha, Scott Pilgrim which just came out as a movie, The Incredible Hulk versus X Force, as well as a few art books which I had brought in-- one on Mucha, and one on Maxfield Parrish as well as a book on How To Draw Manga.  One person brought their sketch book.  We also gave away free comics from Con Edison called The Power of Green  Go Green Save Some Green featuring the Green Lantern about saving electricity.




I also got a book on interlibrary loan called Bring On The Books For Everybody How Literary Culture Becomes Popular Culture by Jim Collins. It is an academic title.  I am finding the book very entertaining.  He is writing about how Amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Oprah Winfrey, beach reading, book superstores, and digital culture are creating a new open view of literary reading.  It is a different approach to the classics with a different vision of the meaning of literature. He asks why the Pulitzer Prize puts a book on the New York Times Bestseller list.