About the Authors

Lisa Adams and John Heath are lifelong book-lovers and smart alecs who now teach literature and writing. They have authored and co-authored such eclectic works as Who Killed Homer?, S'mores: Gourmet Treats for Every Occasion, Bonfire of the Humanities, The Talking Greeks, Business and Marketing Writing, and Actaeon, the Unmannerly Intruder. They live in Menlo Park, California, with their cat, dog, and daughter.

About the Book

Why We Read What We Read is a sort of irreverent romp through American culture as seen through the top-selling books of the past 16 years. But if that's not enough for you, try on this sizzling marketing copy for size:

What do American reading habits say about our current values, desires, and fears? Is there something that links our top-selling books, certain persistent themes that resonate these days in the American psyche?

It turns out that our bestselling books have quite a lot in common—and quite a lot to say about us.

We want comfort. We want change. We want connection. But we may be looking in all the wrong places.

Delving into nearly 200 of the most popular titles to hit the shelves since 1990, Why We Read What We Read demonstrates that that top-selling books are not merely flukes, not merely predictable favorites from a handful of genre masters. Examining mega-sellers by Nora Roberts, J.K. Rowling, Dan Brown, Nicholas Sparks, Bill O'Reilly, John Grisham, John Grey, Spencer Johnson, Rick Warren, and hundreds of other authors, Why We Read What We Read discovers a reading public that seeks an eerily uniform brand of comfort and encouragement from these disparate (and perhaps unlikely) gurus.

But it turns out that most of these favorite books do exactly the opposite of what readers say they want. In lively and slightly irreverent style, Why We Read What We Read ferrets out the appeal of all these titles while analyzing their addictive and potentially counterproductive impact on readers. It also highlights those bestsellers—found all over the literary spectrum—that present a more complex, realistic vision of human experience and thus give readers a better shot at the growth and answers they seek.

Why accept inspirational books that obstruct change, romances that keep us lonely, thrillers that comfort, and political screeds that undermine democratic values? To achieve the growth we crave—and to accept the complexity we cannot avoid—we have to change the way we read.

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