My Weekly Book

I read this BBC Online piece with interest because, er, I started to read Vernon God Little and gave up. Largely to blame was the rather dense idiom and sinister, unsettling story. Alas, this is probably the fate of Booker winners every year. I mean to have another go, honest - anyone wanting to learn more about the book should go to the bottom of the page, where there are links.

And it’s nice to see my loudly-expressed (and far from original) opinion that Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire was the point when a hitherto rather wonderful series of books went well and truly down the pan being backed up with some evidence. I can only assume that it’s fat successor isn’t there because fewer people bothered to start it in the first place…

Harry Potter book ‘often unread’

The fourth Harry Potter novel and David Beckham’s autobiography are among the books least likely to be finished by Britons, according to a survey.

Booker winner Vernon God Little was the least-finished fiction title, followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Autobiographies by David Blunkett, Bill Clinton and David Beckham topped the non-fiction unfinished list.

A Teletext survey of 4,000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished.

Some 35% of those who bought or borrowed Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre’s story of a US high school massacre, admitted not finishing it.

The figure was 32% for the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series, while 28% said the same for James Joyce’s Ulysses, third on the list. Read on here…

[Buy Vernon God Little from Amazon] [Search on eBay]

Some links:

• Reviews of Books: Vernon God Little
• The Guardian: Vernon God Little
• Culture Wars: Vernon God Little
• NY Times: Holden Caulfield on Ritalin
• Washington Post: Dumb and Dumber
• Wikipedia: DBC Pierre
• Christian Science Monitor: Columbine dominates Europe’s concept of US

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 13th, 2007 at 12:59 pm and is filed under 2007 news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.