Bring on the Books for Everybody: How Literary Culture Became Popular Culture

by Jim Collins

Bring on the Books for Everybody is an engaging assessment of the robust popular literary culture that has developed in the United States during the past two decades. Jim Collins describes how a once solitary and print-based experience has become an exuberantly social activity, enjoyed as much on the screen as on the page. Fueled by Oprah’s Book Club, Miramax film adaptations, superstore bookshops, and new technologies such as the Kindle digital reader, literary fiction has been transformed into best-selling, high-concept entertainment. Collins highlights the infrastructural and cultural changes that have given rise to a flourishing reading public at a time when the future of the book has been called into question. Book reading, he claims, has not become obsolete; it has become integrated into popular visual media. Collins explores how digital technologies and the convergence of literary, visual, and consumer cultures have changed what counts as a “literary experience” in phenomena ranging from lush film adaptations such as The English Patient and Shakespeare in Love to the customer communities at Amazon. Central to Collins’s analysis and, he argues, to contemporary literary culture, is the notion that refined taste is now easily acquired; it is just a matter of knowing where to access it and whose advice to trust. Using recent novels, he shows that the redefined literary landscape has affected not just how books are being read, but also what sort of novels are being written for these passionate readers. Collins connects literary bestsellers from The Jane Austen Book Club and Literacy and Longing in L.A. to Saturday and The Line of Beauty , highlighting their depictions of fictional worlds filled with avid readers and their equations of reading with cultivated consumer taste.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, Pop Culture, Literary Criticism

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

James C. Collins is an American researcher, author, speaker and consultant focused on the subject of business management and company sustainability and growth.

Reviews

[Book Calendar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bring On The Books For Everybody How Literary Culture Becomes Popular Culture by Jim Collins.

Jim Collins is a professor at the University of Notre Dame. This book is published by Duke University Press in 2010. Jim Collins is writing for a popular audience. The word choice is quite interesting and wonderful. He uses terms like lit-lit, bibliotherapy, adaptation film, and superstore. There is melding of the academic with the popular. Jim Collins easily moves between subjects like Ladies Home Journal and modernist literature. The juxtapositions are striking.



The writing is at times funny, ironic, and witty. The author is describing how literature is transformed into a popular medium and taken out of the academy. He describes adaptation films (films adapted literary works,), the New York Times Book Review, Oprah's Book Club, and chick lit.



Jim Collins explains how literature is treated as both a form of self cultivation and self actualization. Many people read the classics to be better people. We get a of an Oprah Winfrey episode of television where Oprah encourages people to read Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, the classic russian novel. It is at times appalling, fascinating, and poignant.

I espcially liked his sections on books to film. Two of the books which he spends quite a bit of time on are The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje and The Hours by Michael Cunningham both of which were turned into excellent films.



Jim Collins is describing the packaging of books into a complete line of products; books, films, furniture, and other products. Books become a brand unto themselves. This is an article that explains the phenomenon with the book, Eat Pray Love. http://www.mercurynews.com/fashion-st...



Classic literature becomes swept up in the process as well. Shakespeare becomes books like Shakespeare In Love and Jane Austen becomes The Jane Austen Book Club. This marketing is exploited by companies like Target, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other super shopping sites. Henry James and other writers become commodities.



I am not completely comfortable with this. I find some of it goes too far. For example, books like The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger are clear attempts at romantic consumerism. A mix of buying the right stuff and sex. They are Sex and the City for literature.



This is a very interesting book. It is quite topical for librarians, booksellers, and people interested in books. It even mentions Nancy Perl and her segment on books on National Public Radio. The book is well indexed and has an extensive bibliography. I highly recommend reading this book.

[Ethan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was fascinating. The sections on Amazon, chain bookstores, Oprah's Book Club and what the author refers to as the "Lit-lit" genre were all very interesting, although I'm not sure I buy his thesis that they all represent different strands of some larger cultural shift around consumption of literary fiction. But his discussions on how different audiences have embraced literary fiction, what sort of "use value" they attach to it, and how that's been affected by social networking and digital media and big-box retailing was interesting. I do think he's a little too dismissive of the modern fiction he calls "Lit-lit" and describes it as more homogenous and formulaic than it actually is. The book's very much aimed at an academic audience, but it gave me giddy flashes back to my English major days, so I consider that a plus.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

When we think of books, we think of them in terms of who we are. Readers recognize this fact when they hang out with non-readers. But the people who live with books (authors, publishers, librarians, academics, and readers) also have very different views of reading and books. In this study of how popular culture came to embrace a more literary mindset, Jim Collins traces the convergence of these different groups throughout the end of the 20th century. Collins seems to be able to see how books are valued from different literary sub-cultures and explain where they crossover. The books is a history of how we got to the point where Franzen would have issues with going on Oprah for one book and appear on her show for another and why we care. A useful book for librarians and publishers to understand the reader of "popular" fiction and what that means.

[Ed Finn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Collins takes a film/English professor's eye to contemporary reading culture, exploring the development of what he calls the "cineliterary" and, later, "lit-lit." He argues that a new form of popular literary culture has emerged around the aesthetics of reading, from the Kindle to Miramax adaptation films to Oprah's Book Club. This new culture has made books about books and 'literary novels' into a new kind of genre fiction with its own rules and expectations. All in all a great piece of scholarship.

[Rebekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Where was this book when I was writing my thesis!

[Etienne RP · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taking Academic Books to the People

I do not want to brag, but I am in a league of my own when it comes to reading habits. I am not a professional reader, teacher, academic, or publisher, and yet I achieved to read 365 books in 2020—the year of the great lockdown. What started out as a silly gambit on January 1st—my “one-book-a-day” challenge—turned out to be a transformative experience. If “frequent readers” are said to read twelve to forty-five books a year, and “avid readers” read fifty or more books a year, I propose to create the category of “voracious reader” for those who read more than a hundred books per year, and “gargantuan reader” for those who pass the two hundred mark. And yes, like frequent flyers accumulating miles on air travels, we should get bonuses and free books from online bookstores. To be fair, the type of books you put on the count matters. My daughter just read one hundred and fifty volumes of Detective Conan during a full weekend of binge manga reading. I do not read comic books, and I have a certain aversion for novels and literature. My preference goes to nonfiction, and more specifically to academic books like the ones published by Duke University Press. They take more time to read and assimilate—this is why I did not write 365 book reviews in the year 2020. Reviewing a book requires time and effort: I am not a native English speaker, and I have long lost the habit of writing term papers and class assignments. But writing reviews, and posting them on the internet, makes me feel I am part of a community—a learned society of sorts, or a book club with a membership limited to one.

One-book-a-day challenge

Bring on the Books for Everybody (BoBE for short) focuses on books different from the ones I am usually reading: it deals with literary culture, and takes most of its examples from novels and literary fictions. Its central argument—that ordinary readers and media personalities have seized the means of literary taste production from the hands of the high priests of academia and literary criticism who once maintained the gold standard of literary currency—contradicts my personal infatuation with high theory and arcane academic books. I must confess I prefer to read comments on literature and literary analysis than literature per se. And yet BoBE’s message resonates with the reading practices I have developed. It argues that popular literary culture is now ubiquitous: it is to be found in Barnes & Noble superstores, Amazon reviews, blockbuster adaptations, and television book clubs, as much as in the hallowed grounds of public libraries and academic office shelves. Similarly, theory is not a category limited to academic scholars and is now making a dent in real life, nurturing new forms of activism and self-realization. Reading literature or nonfiction does not compete with other activities such as surfing the web, watching movies on Netflix, or posting messages on social networks: it feeds itself from such activities in a mutually reinforcing manner. Reading is not a solitary act but a social endeavor, enmeshed in webs of communication and commerce that are interpersonal, transnational, and technological. Reading theory or literature is a self-cultivation project that sometimes borders on self-help therapy. Books are a lucrative market and reading practices are shaped by market forces and economic factors.

New reading practices are challenging existing notions of literary authority. Asked which personality reads the most books in a year, the average American may come up with the name of Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk. The academic scholar surrounded by his bookshelves and piling volumes on his desk has been replaced by the capitalist investor, the billionaire philanthropist, the founder of a corporate empire, or the serial entrepreneur. According to Wikipedia, Warren Buffett became America’s most successful investor because he used his voracious reading habit to learn everything there was to know about every industry. Microsoft founder Bill Gates posts his reading list of the past year along with his annual letter to investors. In 2015, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vowed to read one book every other week “with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies.” Young Elon Musk is said to have read for 10 hours each day before growing up to become Tesla CEO. These new reading heroes stand in stark contrast with the college dork, the science nerd, the bookworm, the librarian rat, the armchair theorist, who used to be identified as the most voracious readers. The message they convey is less on which books you should read, but that you should read a lot, and that book reading is somehow connected to economic success and a well-balanced lifestyle. Such individuals seem spectacular to us, almost superhuman. And yet, the apparent enigma in their ability to read a lot amid a very busy schedule spurs the curiosity in us about them even more. We want to know the secret behind their power.

Readers with charisma

Capitalist entrepreneurs and media celebrities have now become the taste arbiters of literary culture. They are challenging existing notions of literary authority and cultural legitimacy. As Jim Collins notes, documenting the rise of a new type of master curators such as Oprah Winfrey or Nancy Pearl, “By the late nineties, literary taste brokers outside the academy could present themselves as superior to an academy that could now simply be ignored.” Academics have painted themselves into a corner of irrelevance and ridicule by sticking to an outmoded model of exclusivity and distinction. The idea that genuine cultivation and proper taste could be secured only through proper instruction and acquired only within the academy didn’t resist the democratization of book guides, reader forums, and amateur circles. Readers were empowered to talk about literary books and form reading communities that didn’t feel intimidated by the traditional discourses of literary appreciation. The discrediting of the academy and the empowering of amateur readers have led to new forms of conversation about books. A new set of players, locations, rituals, and use values for reading literary fiction has emerged on the margins of literary culture. Within this radically secularized conversation, the new cast of curators and readers talk about books in ways that are meaningful to amateur readers, and they have the media technologies at their disposal to make their conversations into robust forms of popular entertainment.

Another central thesis of BoBE is that the literary experience has now become part of our visual culture. Books are a component of a media mix that includes a variety of texts and images: commentary, interviews, cover art, book club flyers, and cinematic adaptations, along with their spin-off products. “What used to be an exclusively print-based activity has become an increasingly image-based activity in which literary reading has been transformed into a variety of possible literary experiences.” Literary value is an important component of the success of high-concept adaptation movies and literary-inspired films: as Miramax producer Harvey Weinstein put it, “our special effects are words.” Within this predominantly visual culture, reading the book has become only one of a host of interlocking literary experiences. New reading practices are changing the public’s expectation concerning just what a literary experience should look like. It now usually comes with a Latte and a proper mise-en-scène. Reading is intertwined with tastes in music, clothing, and entertainment that come as a package: the choice of books, like the choice of wine, interior design, cosmetics, fashion accessories, and cooking utensils, attests to a set of shared values and rituals. A new kind of novels offers an exercise in self-cultivation, affirming the superiority of the reader’s taste culture and self-consciously reinventing the novel of manners for contemporary audiences. Even Jane Austen or Henry James can be read as self-help manuals for busy millennials: contemporary readers still use them as primers about the world, as introductory courses in graceful living.

From literature to theory

My reading practices are different from the ones surveyed in BoBE. I don’t take my cues on what to read from TV celebrities or corporate CEOs. Although I concentrate on scholarly books, I don’t follow an academic syllabus or a prescribed reading list. I don’t have a political agenda to document and sustain. I don’t need a caste of high priests to tell me what to read and how to read it. I make mine Martin Luther’s formula to trust only the scriptures, Sola Scriptura. My choice of books is serendipitous and owes much to the availability of second-hand books on internet platforms or discount bookstores. In concentrating on books published by Duke University Press and other academic publishers, I try to challenge not only the boundaries between the disciplines but, more importantly, the boundary between the academy and the world outside. I try to make academic books relevant for daily life and casual conversations. My reading of academic books is definitely non-academic. I do not skim volumes or skip chapters; I tend to read from the first to the last page. I don’t take notes, but I underscore important sentences or paragraphs with a pen and a ruler. It helps me process mentally the content of the book and to increase my retention rate. This way I can peruse the underscored parts in a second reading and get the gist of the book in a summary. Inscribing my mark on the pages of a book also makes it clear who is the boss. Some books are meant to be read as a struggle, and you definitively want to be on top. I feel perfectly comfortable taking on books that are supposed to be fully accessible only to professional readers. If I don’t understand the book’s content, I blame the author, not me.

New technologies have an influence on the way I read. I started to write book reviews on Amazon, developing on a writing habit I had picked up as a student. BoBE mentions the history of Amazon’s curatorial activities: reviews, articles, and interviews that were originally drafted by an editorial team have been progressively replaced by customer-generated content and algorithms linking customers sharing similar tastes (“Customers who bought this book also bought…”). The book also refers to new technologies of taste acquisition that empower amateur readers to assume the role of curators of their own archives. The website Goodreads (owned by Amazon) allows to track one’s readings, to set book lists and reading challenges for the upcoming year, and to arrange one’s library as an extension of one’s self. The solitary act of reading a book has been transformed by the advent of reader comments, star ratings, and customer evaluations. According to Jim Collins, “The desire to make those evaluations public demonstrates that the need to display one’s personal taste in terms of the books one chooses to read forms an essential part of the pleasures of reading.” People will greatly enjoy reading a whole lot more if they start telling people about what they have read. The author, who used to be a distant figure one approached reverently, now maintains a familiar presence on social networks. Nothing gives me more joy than getting positive feedback from an author on a book review I have advertised on Twitter.

The Duke Reader

So why Duke University Press? This relatively obscure publishing house has recently attracted a fair share of media attention: its editor, Ken Wissoker, as well as two of its star authors, Lauren Berlant and Donna Haraway, have been chronicled in The New Yorker. As the author of the first portrait notes, “Duke has become known as a press that blends scholarly rigor with conceptual risk-taking, where high and low art boldly intermingle on principle.” The history of Duke University Press is, partly, the history of cultural studies in the United States. It is not attached to one discipline: as an example, it is difficult to categorize BoBE between literary criticism, film studies, and the sociology of reception. Duke publishes a steady stream of volumes anchored in the social science disciplines: sociology, anthropology, history, and literary criticism. It is also open to the new disciplines that have flourished in the margins of academia: media studies, sound studies, gender studies, queer theory, critical race studies, disability studies. It is not the preserve of tenured professors and established authors: its catalogue is open to junior faculty, adjuncts, and members of the intellectual proletariat. Part of the story of how Black Lives Matter and the #MeToo movement came to the academy goes through Duke Press. It is one of the few academic presses with crossover appeal: because its editorial line is so cutting-edge, it can make interventions in contemporary debates beyond the purview of American academy. Through The Duke Reader, I am happy to associate myself with its development.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this book very much and it got me thinking about a number of things about the contemporary role of reading and the popularization of certain types of reading that I hadn't previously considered. I also liked that Collins chose to explore these questions in the context of relating them to cinema, looking at both the complimentary and contradictory ways that different mediums relay messages about taste and consumption. All of this said, many parts of this book seemed more like gestures toward how we might go about theorizing the role of contemporary literature and reading rather than attempts to unpack such practices in any sort of historiographical way. Thus, while Collins utilizes many compelling examples regarding the popularization of literary reading practices, he doesn't always clearly articulate how it is that this myriad of examples relate to each other. So, in designating various types of contemporary novels that interpolate readers to imagine themselves a part of a "literary reading culture," he doesn't quite go far enough to imagine the consequences of these different categories. Thus, as a reader, I was left to wonder whether there was any real difference (at least on the levels that he spoke about them) between such categories as "lit lit fiction" (which he creates) and some of the other types of contemporary novels he designates otherwise. This may be because the criteria for placing one novel in a certain category was not always clearly articulated. But, when he makes what is one of his most compelling points at the book's end, that we can't assume that this move towards popularization, in so much as it presents a clear counter to previously-held presumptions about who could read "literary" books, is not at the expense of demonizing many other forms of culture (particularly digital ones), I'm left to wonder whether this is true of all of the books he has written about. My inclination is to say no, and I think Collins' is as well (or, at the very least, to hope that consumers will learn to distinguish the difference). In either case, I would have been curious to hear more about this, which I think would have compelled Collins to look more closely at exactly *who* the readers he's writing about are, how it is their practices cross the categories Collins creates, etc. Looking at these things, I think, would help better reveal exactly who the titular "everybody" is and what, exactly, the consequences of their consumption practices might be.

[Mirte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides the reader with a cross-section of literaty presence in popular culture. He makes a strong case for the current link between literature and lifestyle, as well as addressingthe cine-literary nature of the current cultural field. The final chapter, however, felt slightly out of place as the vocabulary becomes quite subjective and judging when he speaks of literary novels about literature/reading, which is understandable but unfortunate in this otherwise very interesting research. Also annoying but beside the point: slight syntactical slips and an incorrect use of cursive that are ubiquitous enough to be noticed.

[Iris Windmeijer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very fascinating insight in the contemporary reading culture, where he discusses the big-box bookstore, Oprah's Book Club, film adaptations, and popular literary texts as the new structure of literary pleasure. The book provided me with a lot of background between literature and lifestyle.

[Trulydivyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim is family, of course he gets 5 stars from me!!

[Kylie Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book due to my studies in literature.