LISTS

It's a funny thing about lists. There's a certain skepticism that surrounds the mere idea of lists - in your personal life: the inability to ever finish those to-do's or achieve those resolutions. In the media: constant seemingly under-researched, ho-hum "good-for-you" food lists or supposed "best-cities-to-live" lists. In entertainment, David Letterman's daily un-funny top tens, or the Guinness Book of World Records full of unnecessary, waste-of-time achievement lists. Yet, every year, we look to lists during those most memorable occasions - Thanksgiving, end of year, summer - and long-term lists: bucket lists, wedding lists, birthday lists. Lists provide an organized calibration of your own world and the world out there - lists can be a set of values to serve as goals; a hint to what's proper/popular/accepted; a measuring stick to your own normality and uniqueness of taste.

Lists, when compiled with other lists of similar nature, can also be a useful tool to understand the current climate of the nation - trends and nuances in the particular culture. Just for kicks, I've compiled below a list of the top five book lists from the industry's major sellers or publishers. A thought about booklists such as these - do bestsellers inevitably succumb to the most insipid and mediocre types, a phenomena proven by pop music and Top 40's? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a way to track actual bestreaders, for lack of a better word - acknowledging the best new bounded works with the most interesting and stimulating content, apart from the pool of mainstream-following and lemming-like masses? Here's calling for the underground formation of alternative literature!

Hey, I'm not saying that I'm innocent of picking up recommendations from "lists" like these. In fact, more often than not, I'm snuggled up on the couch with the trashiest and most conventional of them all. Those paperback favorites can be quite entertaining, light reads -- guilty pleasures, if you will. The hardcover notables can also provide wonderful discovery points to new, insightful and captivating contemporary authors. Here goes:

Amazon's Bestseller Booklist (this hour)
1. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61)
2. Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope
3. Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace...One School at a Time
4. A Civilization of Love: What Every Catholic Should Can Do to Transform the World
5. The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

The New York Times Paperback Fiction Bestsellers
1. I Heard That Song Before - Mary Higgins Clark
2. Obsession - Jonathan Kellerman
3. Naughty Neighbor - Janet Evanovich
4. Sacred Stone - Clive Cussler and Craig Dirgo
5. The 5th Horseman - James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

Borders Bestsellers
1. Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
2. The Choice - Nicholas Sparks
3. Playing for Pizza - John Grisham
4. The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World - Alan Greenspan
5. My Grandfather's Son - Clarence Thomas

Random House Fiction Bestsellers
1. The Appeal - John Grisham
2. Remember Me? - Sophie Kinsella
3. Honor Thyself - Danielle Steel
4. Killer Heat - Linda Fairstein
5. Christ the Lord - Anne Rice

Most Borrowed from My Personal Library
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - J.K. Rowling
3. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
4. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
5. The History of Love - Nicole Krauss

currently listening: Handlebar by Flobots

xoxo,
Claire