Thursday, September 16, 2010

A wee tap on the shoulder . . .

. . . . and a whisper in the ear of, 'You've not read enough'.

That's the shiver I get when I stumble across book polls like the recent one conducted by NPR.

Seventeen thousand readers/listeners/viewers - what exactly do people do with NPR? - voted on their favourite 'Killer Thrillers' and, of the Top 100 listed, it turns out I've read a grand total of 2 of them.

Every other book I read is crime fiction, and it turns out I've been reading the wrong ones. Granted I've probably seen the film versions of about 20 of the books listed but that won't win me any kudos amongst the Ditmas Park literati.

There's only one solution. No, not actually knuckle down and read some of the works listed . . . find another crime fiction top 100 poll more in tune with my reading tastes. It'll be out there somewhere. Even if I have to create a bogus one myself.

5 comments:

Darren said...

The two that I've read?

Hammett's Maltese Falcon and Conan Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles.

stuart said...

Only five on that one. And that's if I include a book that I ended up throwing violently across the room after ploughing through about half of it: The Stand by Stephen King. Utter shite. Dracula's great, read that!

robert said...

Stu, you've made the 15 year old me cry! I loved The Stand back then; the last book I read before getting specs. (The T.V. version of The Stand was horrendous).
And - fairly modest drum roll please - I've read 11 on this list!

Darren said...

@Stuart.
I still remember Bill's talk on Dracula. Were you at that meeting? Clever bastard. He should be stroking his chin on BBC4 ;-)

@Robert
11? Another clever bastard. ;-)

stuart said...

No, would have loved to hear it. He should indeed be stroking his chin on BBC4!