Sunday Mish-Mash - Oscars & Popular Lit

Thanks for your patience during the lack of bloggerness this week, I was trying like crazy to finish a story before the Epic Awesome that is my China Trip commences. And my internet was being all wonky and wobbly. So those are my excuses. Mea culpa.

I promise to have (semi)brilliant and (vaguely) insightful things to say later this week, but it's a weekend so today I'm taking a break from that bothersome brain usage. So I'm just gonna babble for a few minutes. Feel free to ignore me.

I have big plans to watch the Academy Awards tonight (woot!). I'm abnormally excited about James Franco & Anne Hathaway hosting. I love that they both have the capacity to be both silly and respectful -which can be a tricky balance. I'm slightly less enthused than I was yesterday, since last night I saw the rerun of Anne Hathaway hosting SNL and her humor seemed a trifle forced. Hopefully she's more natural a la Oscar.

Are you rooting for any films? I'd love to see The Social Network win. It just feels like the film of the year for me. So brilliantly written - but then all things Aaron Sorkin are. And Colin Firth and Natalie Portman both turned in Oscar-worthy performances, I'd say. (I also kinda loved that Geoffrey Rush's wife in The King's Speech was played by Jennifer Ehle who was Lizzie to Colin's Darcy in the BBC Pride & Prejudice. Yay, random trivia!)

Speaking of trivia, I found a trivia place in Alaska! This is a cause of much rejoicing as I am freakishly addicted to pub trivia. We made a trek to it last Wednesday and came in third! Which meant cash money winnings, baby. Woot! Just think how well we could have done if we'd remembered that Van Buren was the first President born a US Citizen! Will I be going back? Wild horses couldn't keep me away. (But China will... T-minus ten days to departure!)

I've started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I know I'm about a year behind the rest of the US and two years behind the rest of the world, but I like to let the furor die down before I wade into Literatus Popularus Maximus. I'm only about sixty pages in and, yes, it's quite solid, but I find myself wondering what it is that made this book such a phenom when there are so many not dissimilar books that just sort of bellyflop onto the market.

I then thought about why I was reading the book and wondered - as with the Da Vinci Code & Twilight & My Sister's Keeper - if there is a level of sales that is achieved when not only is a book popular, but it becomes the book that people believe they must have read to keep face. I am reading TGWTDT because everyone and their brother seems to have read this book and I want to know what all the fuss is about. This seems to be a level beyond bestseller. When people are almost forced to read a book against their will to avoid cultural dunce status.

I'm not sure how a book reaches this tipping point to begin with, but it is a fascinating point to have reached.

Have YOU ever read a book just because of peer pressure? Did you like it? Did you judge the book differently - either favorably or more harshly - because of it?