a book hasn't caused me this much trouble since where's waldo went to that barber pole factory!

Recently I saw this lovely thing in The Economist and I had to share.

"A lot of the people who read a bestselling novel, for example, do not read much other fiction. By contrast, the audience for an obscure novel is largely composed of people who read a lot. That means the least popular books are judged by people who have the highest standards, while the most popular are judged by people who literally do not know any better. An American who read just one book this year was disproportionately likely to have read 'The Lost Symbol’, by Dan Brown. He almost certainly liked it."

This is a true truth. I'm not saying that bestselling authors are horrible writers and don't deserve a second glance, they certainly know how to capture the general public. I'm also not saying I am an outrageously accomplished reader by any means, but I have read some great books that I want to share with others.

Isabel Allende. Not that she's some underground author that only a serious reader would have heard of, she's very well know and for good reasons. Allende, a Chilean writer, was given the title "the world’s most widely read Spanish-language author." She's won a bunch of crazy awards and honors like Author of the Year (Germany 1984), Book of the Year (Switzerland 1987), Library Journal's Best Book (USA 1988), Independent Foreign Fiction Award (England 1993), Honorary Degree at Lawrence University (USA 2000) and International Women’s Forum Award (Mexico 2002), just to name a few. The first book I read of hers was The House of Spirits in my AP Literature class in high school. I was automatically hooked on her magic realist form of story telling. Later that year my older sister gave me Eva Luna for my birthday which became my favorite novel. I'm currently working on The Infinite Plan. So far, it has not let me down. Allende has written eighteen books in total, fiction and memoirs. I suppose I have a lot more reading to do.

Another book I have to recommend is a picture book I read years ago. It's called Millions of Cats and I'm pretty sure it sparked my obsession with cats. It was written in 1928 and is the oldest American picture book still being printed. Millions of Cats is about this old lonely couple who want a cat to keep them company. The old husband goes out looking for one cat for his wife but returns with millions. Check this book out, it's seriously amazing!

Something else amazing I've read was an article in the Washington Post for my cultural anthropology class last week. We're currently studying gender roles and how society shapes them, this article does a stellar job pointing out how society enables men to basically act like assholes because "boys will be boys" right?

On a lighter note, here something nice to look at to inspire thoughts of spring, courtesy of National Geographic.