Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America
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Narrated by:
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Peter Conn
About this listen
Best-selling books have played a critical role in influencing the tastes and purchasing habits of American readers for more than 100 years. But there is more to America's great best-selling books than the sales figures they rake in. American bestsellers also offer us ways to appreciate and understand particular periods of American culture.
In this series of 24 lectures you'll enjoy a pointed look at key best-selling works and their places within the greater fabric of American cultural history. Guided by an award-winning teacher, you'll explore representative bestsellers at various stages of American history, from the first book published in the English-speaking New World to the blockbuster authors who dominate the 21st-century publishing industry.
The result is an expert look at the evolution of American culture - its tastes, its hopes, its dreams - through the unique lens of the books that have captivated its readers at various points in American history.
Each of the 22 works discussed - from literary masterpieces (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) to enduring self-help books (How to Win Friends and Influence People) - has had a crucial and unique impact on American society.
Studying these representative works will give you a deeper understanding of how American literature can both mirror the events of its time and, in many instances, have a pronounced impact on them. These lectures are your opportunity to see our nation's best-selling books as more than just popular forms of entertainment that have managed to make their authors lots of money, but as stunning microcosms of American cultural history.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your My Library section along with the audio.
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Clark Griswold was onto something...at least with his annual holiday meltdown. And since the last three weeks of my life have been riddled with humbug—another breakup, a broken toe, an office promotion I deserved and didn’t get—I’m not at all in the mood to celebrate nor have the happ, happ, happiest Christmas EVER.
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My fiancé brought me tea and scrambled eggs in bed that morning, and we snuggled together, talking about buying our rings, and about our perfect wedding next year. Then we headed into town. He held my hand and gazed at the ring I liked best, a smile spreading slowly over his face. Then a glass of bubbly to celebrate. I felt flushed, excited and ready for the rest of my life with the man I loved. We race to get on the train home. It screams to a halt and I run towards its open doors. Made it. I think he’s right behind me — but when I turn around, he’s gone.
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The Answer Is No
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Lucas knows the perfect night entails just three things: video games, wine, and pad thai. Peanuts are a must! Other people? Not so much. Why complicate things when he’s happy alone? Then one day the apartment board, a vexing trio of authority, rings his doorbell. And Lucas’s solitude takes a startling hike. They demand to see his frying pan. Someone left one next to the recycling room overnight, and instead of removing the errant object, as Lucas suggests, they insist on finding the guilty party. But their plan backfires. Colossally.
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Narrator doesn’t get Backman’s satire or rhythm
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Starship Troopers
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Johnnie Rico never really intended to join up—and definitely not the infantry. But now that he’s in the thick of it, trying to get through combat training harder than anything he could have imagined, he knows everyone in his unit is one bad move away from buying the farm in the interstellar war the Terran Federation is waging against the Arachnids. Because everyone in the Mobile Infantry fights. And if the training doesn’t kill you, the Bugs are more than ready to finish the job.
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The definitive version!
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When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.
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Hmm
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By: Freida McFadden
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What listeners say about Great American Bestsellers: The Books That Shaped America
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Robert Lyons
- 02-12-23
Not bad some ok nuggets
Bit long but ok as author knew subject matter very well….Some good classics discussed
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1 person found this helpful
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- Alexandria Zambrano
- 12-23-15
Just what I'd expect from this series.
Narrator was great, and demonstrated good knowledge of history. Books were well chosen. Wonderful lecture.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Dave
- 06-15-15
Much More Than I Expected
Bought on a whim. A better guide through American history than most American History text books. This series of lectures on page turners flys by much quicker than the running time.
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9 people found this helpful
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- JMM
- 09-14-15
GREAT!! Much prefer LISTENING!
Great readers! Very enthusiastic. A good addition to great content.
Five more words are NOT necessary!!
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- Customer
- 08-23-22
Fascinating
Excellent narration and much more than the title suggests. I consider this course a well-done survey of US cultural and social trends.
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- ricketsj
- 05-25-15
Engaging, focused on context of the book.
I really enjoyed this, particularly as the lectures focused on the context in which a book was published, which informed why it may have been a bestseller. He also discussed the plots of the books enough that if you had not read it (one went back to the days of the Puritans) you could still understand how it fit in its period of history.
It's final lecture on 'mega-authors' (I don't think that's the word he actually used, but it's how I think of them) was a little depressing. It's an important comment on how the business of publishing impacts what will be presented to readers, but it's also something that people need to be cognizant of if they want to understand why some of the great novels of the past may not even have been published today. The lecturer does this without sniping at the actual writing of the mega-authors, which I think is important.
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9 people found this helpful
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- chetyarbrough.blog
- 06-09-15
BESTSELLER
Professor Peter Conn prefaces his lectures on “Great American Bestsellers” by noting a bestseller’ label is not necessarily a measure of good or great writing but of popular consumption. Historically, bestseller has meant high purchase volume for a book; usually, higher than expected. In the modern age, a bestseller label is often degraded by publishers; i.e. it is used as a marketing ploy rather than a measure of sales volume.
However, by more accurate measure of popular consumption, Conn argues bestsellers shape American culture, either by reinforcing or changing the direction of cultural norms. The books Conn identifies are American bestsellers because they fulfill two criteria. One, the books Conn selects and reviews are widely purchased. Two, Conn’s bestseller’ selections arguably reflect or shape American’ belief.
Though guardedly praising bestseller’ literature, Conn argues that each American author in his lectures provides a window into American culture. Conn suggests there is no surprise that today’s most prolific bestseller’ author is an attorney, an attorney in the most litigious country in the world. Conn’s final lecture notes today’s most prolific bestseller’ authors are–number one John Grisham, two Stephen King, and three Danielle Steele.
In 24 lectures, Conn surveys many of yesterdays’ bestsellers; some of which have outlived their relevance but many that continue to speak “…volumes about the nation’s cultural climate” (a partial quotation from the publicist of the series). Conn’s lectures provide insight and motivation to visit or re-visit books that reflect on America’s past and offer hope for America’s future.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Karen Deck
- 07-01-15
Very Interesting and Enjoyable!
I am very impressed on how these lectures were put together. Not only did Professor Conn give a detailed summary of each book, he gave us SO much more. I found myself going from one lecture to the next with eager anticipation. I don't necessarily want to read all the books talked about in these lectures; however, Professor Conn has piqued my interest in several of them. This was a very enjoyable series.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 02-23-15
fantastic course
Loved the course. Would definitely recommend this series of lectures to anyone interested in American literature.
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- GraceAgnes
- 01-22-23
Good summaries
All those books you read in high school and college lit. classes, put into historical context. The times they were written in and how those events influenced the author. All the contemporary best selling authors were not left out. Well presented, I learned something.
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