Adams and Heath do not openly debate the good vs. evil in terms of literary value, but they do suggest there are some books more worthy of reading than others. They lament our “diminishing ability to read well,” and point out that “less than half of Americans read any literary fiction or what might be called ‘literature’—novels, poetry, or drama” (275).

What we do read, as a nation, especially women, are romance novels and self-help books. Adams and Heath conclude that such books are not generally “works of scholarship, but words of advice from people who make a living giving advice” (137). And while these books sometimes help people feel better about their lives, it is not always in the way the authors of the books may have imagined. Audiences sometimes look to these books as they would a talk show on which a dysfunctional family airs their pent up grievances. “The anecdotes of bad marriages and screwed-up partners actually [make] readers feel better about themselves” (169).

Having once read a romance novel or two, I related more to the sections on romance novels. The analysis was sharp and accurate, as far as I can tell. Romance novels, despite their steamy covers, are actually quite traditional fantasies. The formula for love, no matter how steamy or illicit, is that it is expected to lead to marriage. But, as Adams and Heath point out, “these novels celebrate a quick and often superficial path to romantic bliss. Far from the antidote to divorce, adultery, and ennui, these false expectations may be one cause of them” (162).

And yet, it seems American women crave the fantasies in romance novels; they have an addiction to the escape, to the passion that they do not in actuality possess. A million readers of romance novels regularly “consume an astounding 51-100-plus books a year “(171). Like a drug to dull the pain of their lives, these readers attempt to find in these books some hope. “Readers may be saddled with spouses who want different things . . . , and “they are not willing to accept that certain partnerships will never fulfill their needs,” so they turn instead to romance novels “to remain upbeat in the face of perpetual dissatisfaction” (173). Could romance novels actually be dangerous? If they are indeed like drugs, there will never be enough rough-exteriored, tender-inside heroes to help us cross the chasm of need. Americans read about love, Adams and Heath conclude, “because we have so little of it.”

A bleak outlook indeed. Worse yet is the fact that as a nation we are not readers. Only “57 percent of adult Americans say they have read a single book in the past year,” Adams and Heath report (274). If it is true that the bulk of what makes it to the bestsellers’ lists will not engage us intellectually or even spiritually in an honest way, what are we to do to mend what ails us?

Adams and Heath credit Oprah Winfrey with getting a lot of people to read better books. As an English teacher, I too, give Oprah credit for her powerful ability to influence American readers. Still, she cannot do it alone.

And contrary to what some may believe, school teachers cannot either. There is a fragile tension between pushing students too hard to read and not pushing them enough. I teach 9^th graders and I used to assign more whole class novels. As it is the imperative of adolescents to resist and revolt, there were many who did not read the books I chose simply because I chose them. In past years I have instead expected my freshmen to read four books on their own―they choose anything as long as they’re sure their parents would approve. The results are not an illusion. They are reading more these days. But unfortunately, the result of their ability to choose is we’re not talking together about what we read like we did in the past. We only do that a couple of times a year now. So my opportunities to enhance critical reading and thinking skills through whole class novels are fewer. Again, a fragile tension. What is more important? Reading for its own sake or reading and learning to analyze what we read? My ultimate goal is to cultivate life long readers.

I truly believe it is a moral imperative for English teachers to be their own Oprahs. We not only need to be readers ourselves but we need also to talk about what we read (or even Blog about what we read). We should encourage our colleagues to be readers as well. In my early days as an English teacher, I thought it would be interesting for students to find out what their teachers were reading. Our survey was a tremendous disappointment. What we discovered was that the teachers at our school were, by and large, NOT READERS. And what about parents? What are they reading? Is there no time or interest for anything more than the latest issue of People or Sports Illustrated? Even our president is not a reader if we are to believe the current opinion of him. Some have tried to get “us” reading. Chicago Reads was an attempt to get the entire city to read (and talk about) the same book, quite an admirable goal!

We need to be reading and thinking about important books. The how is the hard part. The why seems simpler, and something I have pondered again and again. The question was the basis for a masters thesis I wrote in 2000. Adams and Heath’s book has rekindled those thoughts in me again. I applaud their efforts in Why We Read What We Read. Their book should be required for all serious book clubs. It should be the first book chosen as it will get the members thinking about what they should choose to read. Books that are worthwhile are not always fun and easy; actually, they should not be. The books we need, as Franz Kafka said, “…are the kind that act upon us like a misfortune, that make us suffer like the death of a person we love more than ourselves, that make us feel as though we were on the verge of suicide, or lost in a forest remote from all human habitation–a book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.”

As Adams and Heath point out, “We already have the passion for what [great books] have to offer. We simply need to realize that they are what we have been seeking all along” (277).

Adams, Lisa and John Heath. Why We Read What We Read. Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, Inc., 2007.

Being the English teacher I am, I started with the episode on the Language of Fiction. Where was this discussion when I was writing my masters thesis for Lakeland? They were talking about all the ideas I was grappling with in that paper, all those years ago.

And then they even got around to this question (paraphrased): Does reading fiction create more moral people? My thesis question!

I’m not sure they answered that question; in fact they sort of skirted it. Well not really, but they didn’t answer it. Did I?

I think that books, fiction, when they are art (or moral as John Gardner says), give the reader, if he or she is ready for it, an experience in life that not only instructs, in a way, but more importantly, gives the reader a way of living life in pain, sorrow, or whatever it is, that is safe. And yet, this same experience is one we can learn from. What we learn is what it means to be human. We also can discover who we are in that human experience.

What I teach my students about books is that the stories of characters we care about matter. Those stories can change us. Those stories can make us better people, better in the sense of being more fully part of the universal and timeless human experience.

Still, of course, each person’s set of values is shaped by more than the books he or she reads.

But what can we know more deeply by reading fiction, great or good fiction? I think the gamut of human emotion, certainly.

In my thesis I listed the qualities I believe great books (and I meant fiction) embody. I have excerpted that list below.

Qualities of Great Literature

The following list is mine, though what I think is influenced by Gardner, Adler, Booth and unnamed others as well as my experiences as a reader and as student and teacher of literature. If there were a checklist one could apply to literature to measure its greatness, the debate about what is good and great would end. Of course there is no such thing. The qualities I propose here seem to me to be complete, though no doubt, as I look upon them again in the future, I will want to add or change what I think are essential qualities of great books.

• A great book shows us what it means to be human (and thereby connects us to each other).
• A great book shows us how to be better at being human. It shows us who we could be and how we could be better.
• A great book expresses great ideas, ideas that have engaged philosophers throughout history.
• A great book helps readers know more fully what beauty is, or truth, justice, honor, compassion, courage or love.
• A great book recognizes the value of life and honors it.
• A great book recreates archetypal stories for new generations to understand and own, remaking ancient heroes into contemporary heroes.
• A great book is over our heads. It challenges our thinking, inviting us to reread. We continue to be enlightened by a great book.
• A great writer is an exceptional wordsmith. Language as metaphor, imagery, and sound reveals truth.
• A great book changes us intellectually. We emerge from the experience knowing something we did not know before. We experience a cognitive realignment. The best books will leave us desiring to know more.
• A great book changes us emotionally. To be compassionately engaged in the lives and the conflicts of characters enriches us.

Well, beyond my astonishment at having a year of my intellectual life being replayed in a one hour podcast and having that year and those ideas validated (because to tell the truth, some of those for whom I had to defend that thesis thought it was fluffy and irrelevant) , I am also astonished (nothing new here, but I continue to be) at the value of the Internet and the various ways smart and creative people use it to learn and grow.

These philosophy podcasts are perfect tools for small Midwestern schools like ours to expand our resources, to leap beyond what we may have been able to think and talk about when our resources were limited to the books we could afford.

The Internet democratizes education in this way. Sheboygan Falls students have access to great discussions from one of the most respected universities in the nation.

Wow! And Yippee!!

Now, as I look to the list of what to listen to next, I can’t decide. But what I know for sure is that there is a discussion to fit every aspect of what we talk about in our classes. The uses are limitless. I hope my students will be as excited as I am.