I just noticed a new feature on Friendster that lists on each profile ten top books in one’s network of friends. They don’t detail the methodology, but I assume they just count Favorite Books of profiles within three degrees of separation. So imagine my surprise when the top books of my network came out as follows:
1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Book 5)
2. A Prayer for Owen Meany
3. Me Talk Pretty One Day
4. The Great Gatsby
5. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
6. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay
7. The Catcher in the Rye
8. The Lord of the Rings (Leatherette Collector’s Edition)
9. The Naked Warrior
10. Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
In fairness, I’ve not read most of these, but I nonetheless smell a distinct whiff of middlebrow in the pattern. And the inclusion of Harry Potter is undoubtedly statistically correlated to high proportion of gay men in my network. Ditto for not one but three David Sedaris books (closer examination shows selection to be “Naked” rather than “Naked Warrior” - guess the compiler isn’t a perfect technology). But it must say something about my social milieu as well. Do others have lists drastically different, tending to either lowbrow selections or more canonical/high-literary fare?
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