posted
Odd. I don't see the Torah, the Bible (there's a children's version), or the Koran on that list. Or any other religious text.
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posted
Couple of odd choices, but reasonably acceptable. I suppose they were looking for books written by Americans or published first in the USA, too.
Only one overt SF book on the list---Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land.
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posted
What struck me was that our system of jurisprudence was originally derived from English common law. English common law was most definitely shaped by the bible. Which in turn was ultimately derived from Moses. Seems a bit odd to ignore that. Even if one is agnostic or atheist, the historical record is clear.
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You are quite right. I neglected to follow the links all the way to the full press release on the gov't web site. The list is books by American authors. Sorry. My bad.
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Idaho: A Guide of Words and Pictures? Seriously? I guess they wanted to give a nod to the Federal Writer's project. But Idaho? Have they been to Idaho?
Invisible Man is sci-fi also I believe. Fahrenheit 451 is on the list as well. I don't know about Atlas Shrugged but it might be sci-fi. (Anthem was.) Still 3(4) out of 88 I think is quite an underepresentation.
That has me thinking about what books should be on there, you know if they hadn't stopped at 88 and rounded up to a full hundred. Ender's Game totally belongs there.
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posted
The Invisible Man mentioned isn't the one by H. G. Wells, but the one by Ralph Ellison.
I was thinking of ones first published as SF---and I missed Fahrenheit 451 on my previous pass through the list...I count ten books that are tangentally SF or fantasy on the list.
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posted
With few exceptions, that list is pretty bogus. Like most lists it is one persons random opinion. These lists are rarely backed up by anything.
I say we make a list of 88 random books. We'll tape names to the wall and just throw darts. We could call it: 88 Books that Attract DartsPosts: 725 | Registered: Jan 2011
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Well, this kind of exercise is always somewhat bogus, but as such lists go this one is rather good. Here's an interesting exercise. Think of ten American books that have shaped American life or the American character through *popular awareness*. See if those books are on the list.
Let me explain the "popular awareness" proviso. Possibly the single most influential American book I can think of is marketing and public relations pioneer Edward Bernays' 1927 *Propaganda*. Bernays is the man who coined the term "bacon and eggs." But while this book was extremely influential in marketing and advertising and popularized the commercial application of psychology, almost nobody's ever heard of it. So I wouldn't include it on the list.
Here's my list:
(1) Upton Sinclair's *The Jungle*. This book single-handedly created government meat inspections. On the LoC list.
(2) "Uncle Tom's Cabin". On the list.
(3) Ben Franklin's autobiography. This book was very influential in shaping the 19th C American character. On the list.
(4) Riders of the Purple Sage. The cowboy novel shaped our view of ourselves as no other genre. You can't point to any one book, as it was hundreds if not thousands 19th C penny-dreadfuls, but the one Western everyone can name is *Riders of the Purple Sage*, so we'll use it as a stand-in. On the list.
(5) W.E.B. Dubois *The Souls of Black Folks*. Written 20th Century, this book was influential in shift in the public consensus over that century from "scientific racism" to racial equality. On the list.
(6) Stranger in a Strange Land. This book is arguably less influential than many important sci-fi works. I'd argue the single most influential book is Doc Smith's *Galactic Patrol*, but most people will never have heard of that. If people can name one sci-fi novel, it'll be *Stranger in a Strange Land*, and there is no other sci-fi work I can think of that has entered the public consciousness so widely.
(7) *The Scarlet Letter*. On the list.
(8) Dale Carengie's *How to Win Friends and Influence People*. A boon to salesmen everywhere, this book inspired the American self-help subculture. On the list.
(9) Last of the Mohicans. Famously mocked by Mark Twain for his execrable style and implausible writing, Cooper nonetheless was influential on America's self-image. NOT on the list.
(10) *The Fannie Farmer Cookbook*. Not on the list. *American Cookery* from 1796 is on the list, but while that is a historically interesting book, Fannie Farmer's cookbook has remained continuously in print for 112 years through over a dozen editions.
So there you have it. Ten influential American books off the top of my head, eight of them on the list. I'd say that's not bad.
I found it a little surprising that they went with Horatio Alger's Mark, the Match Boy, rather than his Ragged Dick, or Street Life in New York Among the Bootblacks. Unless they didn't want any jokes.
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