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American Book Review
By Riverboat in Flotsam and Jetsam
March 10, 2010

The American Book Review, under the auspices of our University of Houston – Victoria, recently compiled a list of bad books and, by way of comparison, a short list of venerated works. The publishers at our venerated institution admit that one man’s Mickey Spillane is another man’s Agatha Christie. One man’s Nikki Giovanni against another man’s Langston Hughes. Danielle Steele vs Willa Cather. Erma Bombeck vs Mark Twain. Garfield vs Peanuts. You get the idea.

Unfortunately, a cursory glance at the list of what the reviewers considered déclassé left me wondering if they got Oprah’s Book-of-the-Month and Reader’s Digest Condensed Books stack mixed up with the required reading list for Western Civ classes.

The reviewers used modernism and post-modernism as the criteria of what’s good and what isn’t. Under this yardstick, it should be no surprise that the writers listed in the so-called Circle of Divinity are among the most unreadable of any I've ever encountered. James Joyce and Samuel Beckett wrote, respectively, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Waiting for Godot. I had better luck with Crime and Punishment. Following this logic, John Philip Sousa would be denounced because he couldn’t make it into the Rock-and-Roll Hall of Fame.

I shouldn't be surprised to find some of the greatest works in the bottom of that pile. The Great Gatsby? The Jazz Age would not be the same without Nick and Daisy.

Frankestein by Mary Shelley? You’re kidding, right? Even Uncle Tom's Cabin? The book credited with effecting a profound change of attitude toward slavery?

The people who compiled this list must be angling for a spot on the Nobel Prize for Literature. They have a knack for choosing the worst drivel since man first started chipping on stone.