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What did Teddy Read?

Aug5

“And it’s likely that no president will ever match the Rough Rider himself, who charged through multiple books in a single day and wrote more than a dozen well-regarded works, on topics ranging from the War of 1812 to the American West.” ~For Obama and past presidents, the books they read shape policies and perceptions by Trevi Troy, April 18 2010, The Washington Post

I’ve read about U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt in at least three separate books, and these are just a few of the works I’ve seen on his reading list:

Plays:
Aechylus’ Orestean trilogy.
Seven Against Thebes by Sophocles.
Hippolytus and Bacchae by Euripides.
Frogs by Aristophanes.
Shakespeare: Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Henry IV, Henry V, Richard II,

Novels:
The Heir of Redclyffe by
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe.
The Boy Hunters by Captain Reid
The Hunters’ Feast by Captain Reid.
The Scalp Hunters by Captain Reid.
The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper.
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.
Sebastopol Sketches by Leo Tolstoy.
The Cossacks by Leo Tolstoy.
With Fire and Sword (Polish: Ogniem i mieczem) by Henryk Sienkiewicz. (I want to read this classic historical novel of 17th century Poland.)
In the Sargasso Sea by Thomas Janvier.
Guy Mannering by Sir Walter Scott.
The Antiquary by Sir Walter Scott.
Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott.
Waverly by Sir Walter Scott.
Quentin Durward by Sir Walter Scott. (Does anyone read Scott, other than Ivanhoe, these days?)
Stories and poems by Bret Harte.
Tom Sawyerr by Mark Twain.
Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.
Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens.
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray.
Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray.
The Newcomes by William Makepeace Thackeray.
The Adventures of Philip by William Makepeace Thackeray.
The White Company by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
Charles O’Malley by Charles Lever.
Tittlebat Titmouse by Samuel Warren.
Stories by Artemus Ward.
Stories and essays by Octave Thanet (Alice French).
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame.
The stories of Hans Christian Anderson. (TR read these aloud to his children.)
Grimm’s fairy tales. (And these.)
Howard Pyle’s King Arthur.
Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories.
Other authors: Tarkington (Penrod?), Churchill (Richard Carvel or The Crisis?), Remington, Wister (The Virginian?), Trevelyan, Conrad (Lord Jim?),

Poetry:
The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott.
Marmion by Sir Walter Scott.
Lay of the Last Minstrel by Sir Walter Scott.
The Flight of the Duchess by Robert Browning
The first two cantos of Milton’s Paradise Lost.
Poems by Michael Drayton. (“There are only two or three I care for,” wrote TR.)
Portions of the Nibelungenleid.
Church’s Beowulf.
Morris’ translation of the Heimskringla.
Miss Hill’s Cuchulain Saga, together with The Children of Lir, The Children of Turin, The Tale of Deirdre, etc.
Other poets: Keats, Browning, Poe,Tennyson, Longfellow, Kipling, Bliss Carman, Lowell, R.L. Stevenson, Allingham,

Nonfiction:
Parts of Herodotus.
The first and seventh books of Thucydides.
All of Polybius.
A little of Plutarch.
Parts of The Politics of Aristotle.
Froissart on French history.
The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot.
Charles XII and the collapse of the Swedish empire, 1682-1719 by R. Nisbet Bain.
Essays by Macaulay.
Types of Naval Officers by A.T. Mahan.
Over the Teacups (essays) by Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (TR called Holmes, Jr., the son of the author, “one of the most interesting men I have ever met.”)
Abraham Lincoln: A History by John Hay and John G. Nicolay. (Hay was Roosevelt’s Secretary of State until Hay’s death in 1905. Hay was also, as a young man, Lincoln’s assistant and private secretary. Isn’t it odd to think that the same man knew both Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln?)
Two volumes of Speeches and Writings by Abraham Lincoln.
Shakespeare and Voltaire by Thomas Raynesford Lounsbury. (490 pages)
Six volumes of Mahaffey’s Studies of the Greek World.
Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa by David Livingstone.
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin.
Catalogue of North American Birds by Spencer Fullerton Baird.
Review of American BIrds
North American Reptiles
Catalogue of North American Mammals
My reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer war By Benjamin Johannis Viljoen.
Birds and bees and other studies in nature by John Burroughs.
John James Audubon by John Burroughs.
Malay Sketches by Frank Swettenham.

THis list is just a sampling of TR’s reading. He is generally acknowledged, along with THomas Jefferson, to be best read of all the American presidents.

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker

Aug3

Nominated for 2011 Cybil Awards, Young Adult Fiction category. Nominated by Ashley at Book Labyrinth.

This YA novel featuring small town Christian young people gets many things right. The story is absorbing. The characters are believable and interesting. The themes and issues in the book–teen pregnancy, homosexual temptation, drunk driving, etc.—are issues that young people do face; the presentation is realistic and sensitive. The author shows respect for the beliefs of conservative Christian people. I thought the parts of the book where the main character and narrator, Lacy Anne Byer, is experiencing God through her “prayer language” (charismatic speaking in tongues) were particularly well written and understanding.

However, (you knew there was a however) I am somewhat annoyed by books in which it is assumed that Christians, young and old alike, have never thought about the things that they believe, and it takes some enlightened outsider to bring them to their senses and make them realize their parochialism and blindness. In this book, Lacey’s new boyfriend is that enlightened, understanding, broad-minded outsider who makes Lacey Anne see that the Christian answers that her parents have given her are inadequate and unsatisfying. I don’t have a problem with Lacey Anne questioning the things she has been taught; I would question some of things that Lacey Anne has apparently been taught. And often it does take a new person’s perspective or a new experience to jumpstart that questioning process. Tyson, Lacey’s new friend in the book, is so perfect, however, that his answers seem obviously right and good while Lacey’s conservative Christianity comes off looking ineffectual and untrustworthy.

It doesn’t help that the adults in the book are mostly hypocritical, in a mild, unthinking way. There are no real villains in the book (other than Satan); even the bully is seen to be reacting to the abuse he receives at home from his alcoholic father. However, Lacey’s parents have difficulty dealing with her friendships with kids who are not perfect Christians from perfect families, and Lacey’s dad, a pastor, is quite over-protective. I have dealt with what I consider to be over-protective families in my church and in the homeschooling community, and Lacey’s dad is not uncommon. However, he is something of a caricature and his views on homosexuality, dating, and teen pregnancy are not very nuanced or well articulated.

I also didn’t like the way the book strongly implied that if a guy is a nerd and artistic and creative in his clothing choices, and if he hangs out mostly with girls and gets bullied, then he might be suppressing his homosexual identity. Especially, he might be smothering those tendencies if he has grown up in a small town and been taught that homosexual behavior is immoral. Talk about stereotypes. Artistic men are not naturally gay and do not necessarily, or even probably, have same sex desires. And if one does have those temptations, I would argue, like the people in Lacey’s church, that it’s not a bad thing to reject homosexual behavior for yourself. In fact, I would still maintain that the repudiation of homosex is what the Bible teaches and what is best for a man or woman who is tempted in that way.

Overall, Small Town Sinners is a good book, but it does encourage the view that there are no answers, only questions. And parents are not the ones to go to with your questions; a kid your age from out of town who has experienced so much more of Life is more likely to know the meaning thereof than your small town, uncomprehending parents. My final complaint is that there is very little or no gospel in Lacy Anne’s church or in her ideas about Christianity, only rules. Ty, who encourages Lacey Anne to question that legalism, doesn’t have much concept of what to replace it with either. Forgiveness is discussed, but staying “pure” and avoiding sins (of the flesh) are the main focus of Lacey’s brand of Christianity.

I didn’t even get into the “Hell House” aspect of the plot, which provides an interesting bit of evangelical Americana for those interested, but you can read more about that drama at Linus’s Blanket or at Presenting Lenore. Take it with a grain of salt, and some questions of your own, but Small Town Sinners provides a good story and some challenging ideas for evangelical Christian teens and non-religious ones alike.

1904: Events and Inventions

Aug3

February 10, 1904. The Russians and the Japanese go to war after a surprise attack by the Japanese on the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. The two countries are really fighting over their mutual desire to control territory in Manchuria and Korea. Later in the year, the Japanese bomb Vladivostok and destroy the entire Russian fleet.

March, 1904. The British invade Tibet because, they say, of rumors that the Russians are about to attempt a take-over of that country. Many Tibetans are killed in the British incursion, but no Russians are found in Tibet. The British expedition reaches Llasa, and the Dalai Lama flees.

May 4, 1904. Charles Rolls and Henry Royce go into partnership to manufacture cars in England The new car is to be called the Rolls-Royce.

April 8, 1904 Britain and France sign an “Entente Cordiale” settling a number of territorial disputes between the two countries. France is given the right to “guard the peace” of Morocco, and Britain is given free rein in Egypt.

April 30, 1904. The 1904 World’s Fair, also known as the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, opens in St. Louis, Missouri. Several “new” treats take off in popularity at the fair: ice cream sold in cone-shaped waffle pastries, fairy floss (later known as cotton candy), a fizzy new drink invented in Texas and called Dr. Pepper, and tea with ice. The third modern Olympic games also takes place in St. Louis later in the summer.
Meet Me in St. Louis by Robert Jackson is a nonfiction book for children about the World’s Fair.
Meet Me in St. Louis is also a movie starring Judy Garland.

September 25, 1904. In spite of the war with Japan, the Great Siberian Railway linking the Ural Mountains in the west to Vladivostok in the west is finally completed.

October 27, 1904. The official opening of the New York City subway.

November 8, 1904. Teddy Roosevelt is elected president of the United States after having served out the remainder of assassinated president McKinley’s term. He says he will not seek a third term in four years.

December 10, 1904. Ivan Pavlov wins the Nobel Prize in physiology for his studies on digestion and conditioned responses in dogs.

During 1904. About 500 separate strikes take place in Russia as peasants and workers protest the lack of freedom and the horrible working conditions in Russia. Tsar Nicholas II proposes reforms in December, but warns that the strikes must stop.

Meet Me in St. Louis: A Trip to the 1904 World’s Fair by Robert Jackson

Aug2

Facts:
Almost 20 million people from all over the world came to the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis.

President Theodore Roosevelt made two visits to St. Louis, once before the fair’s opening on April 30th and again later in the year before the fair closed on December 1st.

The fair was planned to take place in 1903 as a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Louisiana Purchase, but it had to be postponed for a year due to the need for more preparations.

THe U.S. Congress invested five million dollars in the fair.

John Philip Sousa and his band performed on the opening day of the fair. Ragtime composer and Missouri resident Scott Joplin composed a piece especially for the fair, called The Cascades.

Thomas Edison himself came to the fair before it opened to help set up al the electric light displays.

Peanut butter and puffed rice, two foods not yet popular in the U.S., were promoted at the World’s Fair. Peanut butter was said to be a health food that was good for teeth.

Displayed in the Palace of Agriculture were a giant elephant made of almonds, a giant horse made of pecans, sculptures made of butter, and a corn palace.

Prince Pu Lun, nephew of the Emperor of China, Minister to His Imperial Presence, visited as the representative of his Emperor at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.

Geronimo lived at the fair for our months and signed autographs for ten cents each.

Ice cream in thin cone-shaped waffles became a favorite treat from the fair. Hot dogs and iced tea also became popular. Dr. Pepper was a fizzy new drink, introduced as a new kind of soda pop, made with 23 flavors.

The Ferris wheel from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition was brought out of storage in Chicago and reassembled for the St. Louis fair. It was 265 feet high, and the cost for a ride was fifty cents.

Reactions:
Edward V. P. Schneiderhahn: “It is unthinkable what may all be seen. The mind reels at the mass of various and wonderful exhibits.”
Anonymous visitor: “My idea is to take in just as much as I can in the time I have.”
A farmer: “By George, I’ve plowed all day many a time; and I know hard work as well as the next man. But this is the hardest day’s work I’ve ever done–it uses you up. But it’s worth it.”
Edmund Philbert: “The view from the top of the wheel was very fine. We made two trips in the afternoon, and in the evening two more to view the illumination which looked fine.”
President Roosevelt: “I count it, indeed, a privilege to have had a chance of visiting this marvelous exposition. It is in very fact, the greatest Exposition of the kind that we have ever seen in recorded history.”

Related books:
Still Shining! Discovering Lost Treasures from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair by Diane Rademacher.
Beyond the Ice Cream Cone: The Whole Scoop on Food at the 1904 World’s Fair by Pamela Vaccaro.
The Great Wheel by Robert Lawson. Newbery honor fiction about an Irish worker who helped build the great Ferris wheel in Chicago in 1893.
Fair Weather by Richard Peck. Fiction about a farm family’s visit to the Chicago World’s Fair.
The Minstrel’s Melody by Eleanora Tate. Twelve year old Orphelia longs to perform at the St. Louis World’s fair, but she must win a competition to do so. An American Girl history mystery through time.

Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce

Aug1

About halfway through Amy Inspired, I had to look at the author blurb to see how autobiographical the novel was. The book is about Amy Gallagher, an almost-30, single, Christian, adjunct professor of English at a small college in Ohio Ms. Pierce is married, but she must have taken some of the characters and scenes in Amy Inspired from her own life as a single person before marriage. True-to-life and yet romantic describes the book perfectly.

Amy Gallagher so reminded me of my own Eldest Daughter and her friends who are also trying to navigate the waters of Christian single-hood. It’s not easy. Christian young women are supposed to be chaste but not frigid, open to marriage but not desperate, intelligent, beautiful, but not intimidating or vain, confident and independent but also submissive and selfless, and it goes on and on until a woman can get lost in all the expectations.

Amy is, frankly, a little lost. She’s a Christian, but she doesn’t know how to approach God except through the expectations that she believes He has for her life and behavior. Amy lives her life in lists–to do lists, grocery lists, lists of the rejection letters she’s received for her writing submissions, lists of former boyfriends lists of her lists–and when she meets Eli the artist who’s more of a free spirit with a checkered past, Amy isn’t sure whether it’s love or fear at first sight.

I don’t know how to convey the sheer goodness of this novel because I’m just not as skilled a writer as Ms. Pierce. It made me laugh out loud a couple of times. I never knew exactly what would happen or how the novel would end. I know some of the characters in the book—Amy’s annoying but lovable Mrs. Malaprop Mom (OK, maybe I AM the mom, a little), her tofu-loving roommate Zoe, the men in her life, self-centered and shallow, but trying to grow up, too. Amy herself reminds me, as I said, not only of Eldest Daughter, but also of several other single young women I know. The novel felt Real in a way that many Christian novels don’t manage to accomplish.

Amy Inspired made it onto my TBR list because it was nominated for the 2011 INSPY Awards in the category of General Fiction. I’m trying to read all of the nominated books that I find of interest, and I hope Amy Inspired makes the shortlist for the INSPY’s. It’s that good.

Sunday Salon: Books Read in July, 2011

Jul31

Children’s and Young Adult Fiction:
Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys. Semicolon review here.
Three Black Swans by Caroline B. Cooney.
Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker.
Stolen by Lucy Christopher.

Adult Fiction
The Daughter’s Walk by Jane Kirkpatrick.
Friends and Lovers by Helen MacInnes.
Angel Sister by Ann H. Gabhart.
The Hardest Thing To Do by Penelope Wilock.Semicolon review here.
The Hawk and the Dove by Penelope Wilcock.
The Wounds of God by Penelope Wilcock.
Amy Inspired by Bethany Pierce.

Nonfiction:
The Fear by Peter Godwin. Semicolon review here.
One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp.
The Peacemaker by Ken Sande.
Unplanned by Abby Johnson with Cindy Lambert.

Plus some bookish links:
Minimalist posters inspired by children’s stories.
Five Vacation Spots for Book Lovers. I doubt I could afford any one of these, but it’s fun to dream.
This year’s Bulwer-Lytton prize for bad writing.

1903: Art and Music

Jul30

“In the Good Old Summertime” was a popular song of 1903, first published in 1902 with music by George Evans and lyrics by Ren Shields. Sheet music, player piano, and even recordings were all ways to buy and enjoy popular music in the early twentieth century. Sousa’s band recorded “In the Good Old Summertime” in 1903.

In the good old summertime, in the good old summertime.
Strolling through the shady lanes with your baby mine.
You hold her hand, and she holds yours,
and that’s a very good sign.
That she’s your tootsie-wootsie,
in the good old summertime.

Artist Paul Gauguin died in Hua Oa, the Marquesas Islands on May 8, 1903. He left France to live in Tahiti, then in the Marquesas, because, he said, “After the disease of civilization, life in this new world is a return to health.” More images of Gauguin’s paintings.

'Gauguin' photo (c) 2006, Tore Urnes - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Later in the year, artists American James Whistler (July 17) and Impressionist Camille Pissarro (November 12) also died. The art world was moving from Impressionism to new schools and forms, including Art Nouveau, Fauvism, Cubism,and Die Brucke (The Bridge) in Germany, but the Impressionists were still quite influential.

1903: Events and Inventions

Jul29

'New York City, Lower Manhattan, Financial District, Wall Street, NYSE, New York Stock Exchange' photo (c) 2011, vincent desjardins - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/Mach 5, 1903. The Turkish Ottoman Empire and Germany sign an agreement to build the Constantinople-Baghdad Railway. Germany is trying to make an easily accessible way for German trade to the Far East. Britain, Germany’s rival, shows concern about German expansionism.

April 22, 1903. The new New York Stock Exchange building at 18 Broad Street opened to fanfare and festivity. The Exchange building is considered one of architect George B. Post’s masterpieces and is a national landmark.

June 11, 1903. Serbian King Alexander Obrenović and Queen Draga are assassinated.

June 16, 1903. Henry Ford, along with 12 investors, forms the Ford Motor Company. Their first car, produced in 1903, was the Ford Model A.

July 1, 1903. The Tour de France, the world’s most famous cycling race, begins in Paris.

September, 1903. Turkish troops massacre thousands of Macedonian/Bulgarian rebels and civilians in retaliation for the St. Elijah’s Day Uprising, or Ilinend Uprising.

November 4, 1903. With the encouragement of the United States, Panama proclaims itself independent from Colombia. The U.S. wants Panamanian independence so that we can build a canal through the isthmus of Panama. On November 18, The Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty is signed by the United States and Panama, giving the U.S. exclusive rights over the Panama Canal Zone.

December, 1903 Pierre and Marie Curie win the Nobel Prize for their work with radium and radioactivity.

December 17, 1903 at Kitty Hawk, NC, Orville and Wilbur Wright pioneered the first successful powered human flight. For all practical purposes, they invented the airplane.

Sometime in 1903: The first box of Crayola crayons was made and sold for five cents. It contained eight colors; brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet and black.

For insight into the state of the nation and travel in 1903, watch Horatio’s Drive: America’s First Road Trip, a Ken Burns documentary about Horatio Jackson who attempted a cross-country drive From San Franciso to New York City in a cherry-red Winton automobile. (available on Netflix).

54

Jul28

54 is a wonderful number, not quite as interesting as 52, but still a lovely number and a good place to be.

On October 13th in the year 54, the Roman emperor Claudius died, possibly after being poisoned by Agrippina, his wife and niece. He was succeeded by Nero. O.K. that’s not a very beautiful event to remember, but it is interesting. Has anyone read I, Claudius and and Claudius the God, both by Robert Graves? I read both volumes of Graves’ fictionalized biographical novels about Emperor Claudius quite a while ago, and I don’t remember the details; however, I do remember them as quite well-written and fascinating.

54 is a semiperfect number and can be written as the sum of three squares: 49+4+1
27 + 27 = 54 That’s two times three cubed.

A score of 54 in golf is colloquially referred to as a perfect round. This score has never been achieved in competition.

Car 54, Where Are You? was a 1961-63 TV series starring Joe Ross and Fred Gwynne as New York City policemen having comical adventures.

Studio 54 was a highly popular discotheque in the 1970s and early 1980s. Studio 54 was originally a New York City Broadway theatre, then a CBS radio and television studio. In the 1970s it became the legendary nightclub located at 254 West 54th Street in Manhattan. The club opened on April 26, 1977 and closed in March 1986.

Debby Boone (9/22/1956), Carrie Fisher (10/21/1956), Katie Couric (1/7/1957), LeVar Burton (2/16/1957), Vanna White (2/18/1957), Spike Lee (3/20/1957), Vince Gill (4/12/1957), and Scott Adams (6/8/1957) are all 54 years old right now.
And Osama bin Laden (3/10/1957) was 54 years old when he died.

There are 54 countries in Africa, according to Wikipedia.

NASA has identified 54 potentially habitable, or life-friendly, planets outside our solar system.

54 Wonderful Projects is a post from last week about all the projects I’d like to read about, try out, live vicariously, or at least start. I have lots of lists of 100 (Top 100 Hymns Project), or 50 (50 Favorites) or 52 (52 Ways to Read and Study the Bible in 2011) things on this blog. In fact, one of my favorite things to do is to make lists. Look for more “54” lists this year.

54 is the number of cards in a deck of playing cards, if the two jokers are included. And by all means, I’m at an age to include the jokers. I identify with the jokers.

Psalm 54 sounds like a good prayer for this year. I’m beginning my 55th year of life, and for the past 54 years God has been my help, and the Lord has sustained me. Amen.

1 Save me, O God, by your name;
vindicate me by your might.
2 Hear my prayer, O God;
listen to the words of my mouth.
3 Arrogant foes are attacking me;
ruthless people are trying to kill me—
people without regard for God.
4 Surely God is my help;
the Lord is the one who sustains me.
5 Let evil recoil on those who slander me;
in your faithfulness destroy them.
6 I will sacrifice a freewill offering to you;
I will praise your name, LORD, for it is good.
7 You have delivered me from all my troubles,
and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes.

1903: Books and Literature

Jul27

Nobel Prize for Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Norwegian poet and playwright.

Fiction Bestsellers:
1. Mary Augusta Ward, Lady Rose’s Daughter
2. Thomas Nelson Page, Gordon Keith
3. Frank Norris, The Pit Wheat speculation and the commodities market in Chicago.
4. Alice Hegan Rice, Lovey Mary Orphan girl Lovey Mary runs away to the Cabbage Patch (see #6 below).
5. Owen Wister, The Virginian
6. Alice Hegan Rice, Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch
7. James Lane Allen, The Mettle of the Pasture Set in Kentucky and written by a Kentucky author who also wrote The Choir Invisible.
8. George Horace Lorimer, Letters of a Self-Made Merchant to His Son
9. Thomas Dixon Jr., The One Woman Dixon was a Baptist preacher turned novelist, and this novel in particular was a sermon on the evils of socialism.
10. John Fox Jr., The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come Another book with a Kentucky setting, this book takes place during the Civil War. It was made into a movie in 1961.

Critically Acclaimed and Historically Significant:
W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk
John Dewey, Studies in Logical Theory
Jack London, Call of the Wild
Bertrand Russell, Principles of Mathematics
Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh I have this book on my Kindle, but I haven’t started it yet. Should I?
Henry James, The Ambassadors
Helen Keller, The Story of My Life
Erskine Childress, The Riddle of the Sands. I read this book on my Kindle not long ago, and I found it quite confusing. It does indicate the deep mistrust and rivalry that existed in the early twentieth century between the British and the Germans, both trying to build their empires at the expense of the other.

I’m surprised, not at how many of the books I haven’t read, but at how many of the best-selling authors I’ve never even heard of. I don’t know the details of how the list was compiled early in the twentieth century, but it was published in Publishers Weekly after 1912. Before that, it is unclear to me where the lists came from. And, of course, these are the best-sellers in the United States. Who knows what they were reading in other English-speaking countries?