Can You Name a Book? ANY Book???

[timosman]

[TheTexan]

Why would anyone read a book when they can watch a movie instead

[VIDEODROME]

Okay what a Librarian can't name a book?

I distrust the whole man on the street thing. You put a camera crew in from of an average person and not surprisingly they will become flustered or look stupid.

Sadly I haven't finished a book in a while. Just busy working. I got into Underworld by Don DeLillo a little bit but haven't picked it up for a while.

Or instead crack open the Commercial Drivers Manual for work

[Marenco]

[timosman]

and then ...

[euphemia]

Funny, nobody mentioned Hillary's book. Or Obama's

At the same time if they aren't reading good stuff, they also aren't reading all the bad stuff.

[timosman]

Funny, nobody mentioned Hillary's book. Or Obama's

This is indeed a big surprise.

[euphemia]

This is indeed a big surprise.

And nobody mentioned any of books that have been adapted for film or TV. Jaws. A Wrinkle in Time. All the James Bond films are based on books. All the Hobbit movies are based on books. Peter Rabbit. Jurassic Park. Winnie the Pooh. Stuart Little. Charlotte's Web. Paddington Bear. Heidi. Little Women. Anne of Green Gables. Diary of a Wimpy Kid.

Twilight. Harry Potter. 101 Dalmatians. Peter Pan. The Wizard of Oz. Gone With the Wind. Around the World in 80 Days. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Life of Pi. The Exorcist. The Shining, and anything by Stephen King. Anything by John Grisham. Schindler's List. The English Patient. Les Miserables. Forest Gump. The Green Mile. The Shawshank Redemption. The Blind Side. American Sniper.

The guy who said Moby Dick should have just stopped talking after he said the title. Same with the guy who said The Jungle Book.

People are really idiots. This is where we get a lot of our cultural context.

Can you tell we like to read at our house?

[euphemia]

Nobody even mentioned a comic book.

Indiana Jones. Superman. Batman. Captain America. Catwoman. Wonder Woman.

[euphemia]

Nobody mentioned anything from Oprah's Book Club list.

[TheTexan]

Art of the Deal is another common book I would expect most people to know.

But given this is Jimmy Kimmel, they probably edited out anyone mentioning it.

[timosman]

Art of the Deal is another common book I would expect most people to know.

But given this is Jimmy Kimmel, they probably edited out anyone mentioning it.

Let's not go that far. Trump, unlike Oprah, never claimed to be well read.

[euphemia]

That's really not the point, though, is it? I'm not a Jimmy Kimmel fan. Seriously. I can't believe people are so illiterate they can't name a single book, even though a ton of pop culture has been built on stories from books.

A lot of people mentioned Dr. Seuss, but none of them named book titles. Really? How the Grinch Stole Christmas? Horton Hears a Who?

[VIDEODROME]

How many man on the street interviews show people answering questions correctly no matter what the topic? It generally doesn't happen.

You could ask someone who is the President and some might get it wrong because they're people on the way to somewhere and suddenly interrupted by a camera crew and a guy waving a microphone in their face. Most likely, they couldn't name the VP when put on the spot like that. I think this is an effect that is the human equivalent to being a deer staring at headlights.

I'm sure afterward, the librarian could recall a title from one of the many books they sorted.

With that said, literacy probably is low, but I have little trust in how Man on the Street interviews operate.

[AngelaKey]

The difference is that in a case of a book: you're gain knowledge and when you watch TV - you're losing your time.
IMHO