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A Program That Encourages You to Play Along: PBS' 'The Great American Read'
May 22, 2018  | By David Hinckley  | 6 comments
 

If any campaign can cross party lines this summer, it should be the one PBS has just launched: It wants us to read books.

The Great American Read, which premieres at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday (check local listings), identifies America’s 100 “best-loved novels,” as selected by a nationwide research outfit.

Tuesday’s special runs down the list, with commentary by famous and non-famous fans of various nominees, and invites viewers to vote for their favorites.

You can vote once a week, for the same or different books. The winner will be announced in September.

Between now and then, PBS is encouraging and organizing events that encourage reading in general – not just of these 100 books but of all books.

As television-sponsored promotions go, this one zips right to the top of the list. The opening line of Tuesday’s introductory episode says it all and says it well: The person who reads lives a thousand lives. The person who does not lives one.

The list itself is clearly intended to be inclusive, not just falling back on the usual famous books from the proverbial “dead white guys.” It includes classics, from Don Quixote through Moby Dick, The Great Gatsby and Great Expectations, but it also includes young adult tales like Charlotte’s Web and the Harry Potter series. 

It includes several books currently popular because of their TV or movie adaptations, including Game of Thrones, Outlander, and Jurassic Park.

It also includes several books like Fifty Shades of Grey that, frankly, are likely to disappear once their pop-culture hot moment has passed.

The idea is not to identify the 100 best books, however, but the 100 that Americans in 2018 most want to read.

That will inevitably lead to some wry responses, like how come The Godfather is on a list that does not include either On The Road or The Scarlet Letter?

Half the fun of lists like this, naturally, is finding points of disagreement, and if few people would want to read every book here, it contains the core of a solid all-time reading list, from Crime and Punishment to Pride and Prejudice.

If you also want to read the Twilight series, please do.

All this said, it has to be noted that Tuesday’s show itself isn’t as lively as you’d like it to be, through no fault of host Meredith Vieira (left).

The interviews with various commentators, from George R.R. Martin extolling Lord of the Rings to John Green explaining how Mark Twain was the first writer to find an American rather than a British voice, are consistently fascinating.

Martin makes a strongly convincing case that the last line of The Great Gatsby is the best last line of any book ever.

If James Patterson still doesn’t convince you to read A Hundred Years of Solitude, Venus Williams explains beautifully why The Chronicles of Narnia meant so much to her.

The show’s problem is that after every five or so books it cuts back to Vieira, who explains again what The Great American Read is about. She encourages all of us to read and to tell our friends to read, and then to go on the PBS website and vote.

Nothing wrong with the message. But after the sixth or seventh time it starts to have the same downside as a pledge drive. However necessary the interruptions, they are still interruptions. It’s like reading a book and the kids coming into the room every five minutes to ask where their socks are or if they can finish the Nutella.

That doesn’t diminish at all the value of the campaign, and PBS deserves nothing but praise for pointing us toward books. It’s worth watching the show just to see the list and start dissecting it for surprise inclusions and exclusions.

And in the end, while PBS may declare a winner, it really isn’t a competition. Read a book and you’ve won.

 
 
 
 
 
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6 Comments
 
 
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Jan 29, 2024   |  Reply
 
 
PBS 'The Great American Read' is like a program that encourages you to dive into the world of books, and it's a bit like playing roulette with words. Just as roulette is a game of chance and excitement, reading can be an adventure with unpredictable twists and turns. The show motivates us to explore diverse stories and characters, similar to how a roulette wheel offers various possibilities
 
 
Robert Levinson
Sadly I missed the show-I was probably reading 'Why Bob Dylan Matters'-but I like the idea-Read, watch less television. Catch-22 is my favorite book with 'Bonfire of the Vanities' a VERY close second, though I mostly read non-fiction. Can't wait until Caro finishes with Lyndon and Vietnam; it is what we still are as a country-in recovery.
May 23, 2018   |  Reply
 
Mac
Easy to catch up on PBS.org. I tried patiently to get to the James Patterson section to spend some time pausing at his book shelf,displaying books which he claims affected him. Writers include Salinger,Harper Lee and Burroughs.Hidden in there is a Little Golden Book,with the title obscured. That has me going crazy as I feel that Little Golden Books were a door opener for many,especially 1971's Monster At The End of The Book,a Sesame Street title starring Grover. It is the best seller of all LGBs with an estimated 100 million copies in print. A great page turner. Literally.
May 25, 2018
 
 
 
Zeke
Good on PBS. A follow up on Reading Rainbow.
Years ago, when my kids were about 11 I went to the used paperback store and scooped up a shelf of choices: Catch22, Alive, Hitchhiker's Guide, more- not so much the "Classics"- covered by the school system- but books that are referenced in everyday conversation. "a Catch 22" -- just told 'em to pick them up when they felt like it. It worked--and best of all, the store charged 50% of original price. That was generally 1-3 bucks!(they were old)
After, they donated them to the cottage--to be picked over by anyone!
May 22, 2018   |  Reply
 
Mac
Local Girl Scout placed a few "leave a book,take a book" public kiosks to encourage the "pass it forward" idea of keeping reading in circulation on the cheap. The guy who invented this went non-profit and claims 50,000 boxes worldwide. When one considers a Nobel Prize...
May 23, 2018
 
 
 
Mac
I'll spend at least a few moments with this,though most of what I read is non-fiction. I'm still mourning the death of Tom Wolfe,the newspaperman more than the novelist. Vieira is not a plus for me,but it is a no-brainer choice as the show likely skews female,she is easily recognized and doesn't come off as too brainy. The list on the WNET site,thirteen.org,puts titles into genres-a mistake. Note "classic",which,like the same word used for music,can be off putting and really has no meaning. It is "old". So what? "Literary"-too snooty for you,dummy. A Separate Peace is under "young adult",which discourages any grown up from reading it,though if you missed it in your teen years,there may find more insight as an adult. Tom Sawyer-"classic"-we're still catching up to what Twain was writing about. How about calling it a "novel". "Inspirational"? Ugh!
May 22, 2018   |  Reply
 
Mac
This just in:Philip Roth,who wrote more than 25 novels,including Portnoy's Complaint & Goodbye,Columbus,just died. Not a mention on the 100 list.
Really?
May 23, 2018
 
 
Mac
Stayed with this between baseball. Well intended blurbs of the titles chosen,using some recognizable faces and,as Mr. Hinkley points out,a formula that gets a little irritating. This voting thing also mars the music,dance & dating reality shows that are cheap to produce. As a summer reading list,it is OK,but no encouragement from Vieira & Co.till the fall(This was a summer ritual at my high school. First day back was an afternoon-filled test of what was read. How fun was that?). Checking the pulse of activity would be helpful to encourage in weeks ahead,but even PBS has to watch the pennies during the summer.
On a personal note-Morgan Freeman,aka Easy Reader,noted one could tell by the solo laughter on a bus ride that someone was reading Catch-22. That happened to me in 1971. Heller's observations of WWII,written during the Korean War, resonated during Nixon/Vietnam. Today with Trump-paging Milo Minderbinder!
May 23, 2018
 
 
 
 
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