Newsweek interviews author Jodi Picoult about what being a popular writer means, and if because her books are so popular, she is in fact a “sell out”. One of the best ideas explored by the novel is does popularity inherently make something bad? Are “headier books” truly suffering for readers at the expense of lighter weight ones? Is lighter reading the demise of more challenging subjects, or is this lighter reading encouraging people who never read to begin with?
Picoult addresses the issues on a personal level stating:
“When I was at Princeton, there was this guy there, a great writer,” Picoult says, naming a New York author who has since published several sardonic, offbeat novels that have been well reviewed but sold nowhere near Picoult’s 14 million copies in print. “He used to walk around in this black trench coat like this”—she strikes a brooding, hand-to-brow pose—”and I was like, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ I just can’t do that.”
In the course of her interview, the Twilight Saga and the comparisons to Picoult’s similar audience demographic (females teen and up) arise. On Stephenie Meyer and the Twilight Saga, Picoult said:
“In terms of the literary content of the ‘Twilight’ books, they’re totally escapist. I think technically I am maybe a cut above,” she says. Picoult, who has a master’s in education from Harvard, is grateful to Meyer for getting kids to read at all, and she says many of her fans come to her through the “Twilight” series. “Stephenie Meyer has gotten people hooked on books,” Picoult says, “and that’s good for all of us.”
The article concludes by stating that “Maybe if reading wasn’t so “good” for us, we’d do more of it.” What do you think, is lighter reading turning our critical thinking skills into mush, or can it co-exist with pulitzer-prize winning novels?
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