The Great American Read by PBS

PBS is showing an eight-part series, hosted by journalist Meredith Vieira, that be shown from May to October. The objective of the series is to get folks to read. A list of 100 books is available at the series' website. Viewers will be encouraged to read titles they haven't read before, and to vote for their favorite book.

The list was created by allowing 7200 folks to vote. I've just looked at the list of 100 titles, and I see that I've read 40 of the titles on the list. There are many YA titles, like the Hunger Games and Twilight, which I've never read. I did not include Harry Potter on my list, as I've only read the first book.

As I was going through the list, I realized that I would often come to a title, and look at it rather stupidly before remembering that I had read it and should include it on my list.

At least seven of the titles were titles that I'd read for school; many more I'd read just because I wanted to. And I had read two classic YA titles, C.S. Lewis Narnia books and Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. My recollection is that I'd just scarfed these books up. I remember reading Gulliver's Travels as a child and then again in our Augustan Age class; of course, I understood it much better as an adult but recognized, somehow, that I felt at sea and wondered what it was that I was missing.

The list does seem to me to be heavy in YA favorites: The Giver by Lois Lowry, Looking for Alaska by John Green, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

Here's the entire list: http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/books/#/. See how many you've read.

I think I'm definitely going to read at least one book, and perhaps it will be Looking for Alaska or perhaps the Book Thief or Their Eyes were Watching God. Years ago I read a short story by Zora Neale Thurston and I think for that reason I've been wanting to read Their Eyes for some time.

I think this is quite an ambitious project, and I love it. I look forward to participating. If you'd like to find out more about the show, here's the show's website: http://www.pbs.org/the-great-american-read/home/. The first episode will be shown here on Tuesday night at 8 pm.

Don't forget to vote for your favorite on the list. It's possible to vote every day!

Columbine by Dave Cullen

Read this book for my book group, very reluctantly. I just have never been interested in crime stories.

My book group rated it very highly: they valued the quality of the writing, the quality of the research behind it, and the wide-ranging aspects of the reporting.

I couldn't help wanting to consider the public policy implications of what Cullen had to say about the events of that day. A mental health professional and researcher Cullen spoke came to believe that both shooters, Harris and Klebold, had undiagnosed mental health illness. Harris was a narcissistic psychopath (the shooting was originally intended to be a bombing and to demonstrated his superiority) and Klebold suffered from depression and perhaps other mental health illness. I'm grossly simplifying.

The public policy implication I inferred from the reporting in this book is that school shootings are a significant public health problem deserving of public investment. Money should be spent on research and on educating the public about the kinds of signs that troubled teenagers (and others) may display before a shooting event. Further, there is a need for school shooting reporting to be less sensationalistic (to some extent, I think the frequency of school shootings might cause that already to be happening). I recall that in The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell reported a phenomenon in a South Sea island community, in which suicide had become contagious among teenagers. I think this "contagion," this impulse for teenagers to imitate each other, is very profound. We should be aware of it and act accordingly. I think that response should include not publicizing school shooters because giving school shooters notoriety is part of the problem. Although Cullen did not address this topic, I think that there is a need for a greater institutional response, including trainings, about shootings of this kind and how public administrators and front line public service providers should respond.