The Proof’s in the Books

Before we get to the much-anticipated reading list, I want to thank you all for participating this week!  I’ve had so much fun.

By the way, I’m teaching a workshop on this subject (entitled “When Your Audience Is the ‘Hoodie and Jeans Generation'”) at the Mount Hermon Christian Writers’ Conference in April; our discussion here has sparked my enthusiasm for that upcoming talk. If you would like more information about Mt. Hermon, click HERE. Maybe I’ll see you there!

Now it’s time for a POP QUIZ! No cheating.

Take this mini-quiz to see just how much you know about twentysomethings’ reading habits:

1) Which of these books would most likely be on a twentysomething’s favorite book list:

a. Blue Like Jazz (Miller, Donald)
b. James and the Giant Peach (Dahl, Roald)
c. The Shack (Young, WP)
d. The Five Love Languages (Chapman, Gary)

2) Which author is not considered a favorite of most twentysomethings?

a. J.K. Rowling
b. Stephenie Meyer
c. John Steinbeck
d. Nicholas Sparks

3) Which is least likely to be read by twentysomethings?

a. fantasy
b. classics
c. nonfiction
d. teen books

—–

(Answers: b, d, c)

I collected these answers from my twentysomething, Facebook friends’ “favorite books” sections. (These people are from all walks of life and live all over the place.)

Favorite Authors

Austen, Jane
Bujold, Lois McMaster
Card, Orson Scott
Crichton, Michael
Dahl, Roald
Gregory, Philippa
Hornby, Nick
Jacques, Brian
King, Stephen
Lewis, CS
Peters, Elizabeth
Tolkien, JRR
Meyer, Stephenie
Rowling, JK

Favorite Books

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Eggers, Dave)
A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens, Charles)
A Thousand Spendid Suns (Hosseini, Khaled)
A Wrinkle in Time (L’Engle, Madeleine)
Angels & Demons (Brown, Dan)
Animal Farm (Orwell, George)
Anna Karenina (Tolstoy, Leo)
Anthem (Rand, Ayn)
Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea (Handler, Chelsea)
Arena (Hancock, Karen)
At Swim-Two-Birds (O’Brien, Flann)
Bringing Down the House (Mezrich, Ben)
Cadillac Desert (Reisner, Mark)
Catch-22 (Heller, Joseph)
Chronicles of Narnia (Lewis, CS)
Confessions of a Shopaholic (Kinsella, Sophie)
Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky, Fyodor)
East of Eden (Steinbeck, John)
Eat, Pray, Love (Gilbert, Elizabeth)
Ender’s Game (Card, Orson Scott)
Far From the Madding Crowd (Hardy, Thomas)
Frankenstein (Shelley, Mary)
Girl Meets God (Winner, Lauren)
Harry Potter books (Rowling, JK)
Heart of Darkness (Conrad, Joseph)
He’s Just Not That Into You (Behrendt & Tuccillo)
Honeymoon with My Brother (Wisner, Franz)
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (Angelou, Maya)
Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (Bach, Richard)
Invitation to the Game (Hughes, Monica)
Lamb (Moore, Christopher)
Like Water for Chocolate (Esquivel, Laura)
Lolita (Nabokov, Vladimir)
Matilda (Dahl, Roald)
Memoirs of a Geisha (Golden, Arthur)
Music of the Soul (Berger, Joy)
My Name is Asher Lev (Potok, Chaim)
Norwegian Wood (Murakami, Haruki)
Notes from Underground (Dostoevsky, Fyodor)
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez, Garbriel)
Peculiar Treasures (Gunn, Robin Jones)
Pride and Prejudice (Austen, Jane)
Prodigal Summer (Kingsolver, Barbara)
Reedeeming Love (Rivers, Francine)
Small Wonder (Kingsolver, Barbara)
The Awakening (Chopin, Kate)
The Bonesetter’s Daughter (Tan, Amy)
The Call of the Wild (London, Jack)
The Catcher in the Rye (Salinger, J.D.)
The Culture of Fear (Glassner, Barry)
The DaVinci Code (Brown, Dan)
The Giver (Lowry, Lois)
The God Delusion Dawkins, Richard)
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck, John)
The Handmaid’s Tale (Atwood, Margaret)
The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (Adams, Douglas)
The Hobbit (Tolkien, JRR)
The Importance of Being Earnest (Wilde, Oscar)
The Kite Runner (Hosseini, Khaled)
The Once and Future King (White, TH)
The Other Boelyn Girl (Gregory, Phillipa)
The Patron Saint of Liars (Patchett, Ann)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (Chbosky, Stephen)
The Princess Bride (Goldman, William)
The Prophet (Gibran, Kahlil)
The Red Tent (Diamant, Anita)
The Stranger (Camus, Albert)
The World is Flat (Friedman, Thomas)
Things Fall Apart (Achebe, Chinua)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, Harper)
Treasure Island (Stevenson, RL)
Twilight (Meyer, Stephenie)
Watership Down (Adams, Richard)
What Is the What (Eggers, Dave)
Wheel of Time Series (Jordan, Robert)

Are you surprised by this list?  Would you have guessed these books/authors from our discussion this week? I see a reflection of the life of a twentysomething in these books: Many would be assigned reading for college students; many are teen books, showing that twentysomethings often relate to teen protagonists; many are controversial or thought-provoking.

What do you think?