Last weekend during the National Book Festival, the Washington Post asked authors this question: If you were named literature czar and could make all Americans read one book, which book would it be?
What a great question! More than any other hypothetical – more than wondering what I would do with a million dollars or what first law I'd pass as president – the book czar question put me in touch with my inner power tripper. It was an easy call: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. A book about loyalty, adventure, humanity, and personal moral compass (and a hilarious read, no less). How cool it would be to turn to the person beside me in the grocery store and ask, “So what did you think about that ending? Did Huck fail Jim, or did Twain wimp out?” As book czar, I’d hope that the entire country would be kept awake at night obsessing over questions like that. (I’d be an eeeevil book czar.)
I posed this question to a cross-section of people today: lawyers, fulltime moms, Marines, business owners, professors, creative professionals, students, etc. Their responses were immediate and enthusiastic. These are my friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. I look at our collective list and wonder: What do these books say about us? What do they say about our views of America?
All the King's Men
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Great Gatsby (2 votes)
To Kill a Mockingbird (3)
Ferdinand the Bull
The Last Tortilla and Other Stories
Rise to Globalism
For the Common Defense, A Military History of the United States
The Illustrated Man
Huck Finn (4)
The Giving Tree
Amazing Fantasy #15 - Marvel Comics
All I Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten
Fahrenheit 451
Where the Red Fern Grows
And one deserate plea that the book be anything but Grapes of Wrath.
Your turn: If you were named literature czar, which book would you want Americans to read?
And until that glorious day when my reign begins, enjoy this preview:
"It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made or only just happened."
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain
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3 comments:
The Bible.
75% Americans self identify as Christians and few of them have any idea what their foundational scripture says. I suspect that many of them would be shocked.
Dr. Slojak-Pittman
Professor of Near Eastern Languages
Adjunct Professor of Zoology
Adjust assistant Professor of Brain Surgery
Visiting Lecturer in Soil Science
University of the former Soviet Union
I would have all Americans read British literature.
I am shocked--SHOCKED--not to mention appalled and hurt that I wasn't asked to participate in this survey.
But you don't have to tell me your request, Fiz, I can guess it. Gatsby, right? or is it Moby Dick? Oh well, I'll just put you down for both.
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