Books that make you dumb
Sting has clearly read Lolita, as he shoehorned a mention into 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' with one of the worst lyrics of all time. Gordon is a clever man, ex-teacher, lute player, sexual athlete, but is he intelligent enough for Yale or Harvard?
"That book by Nabokov" has been shown to be the favourite book of America's cleverest students, by a study that also ranked Harry Potter books ahead of the Bible, and revealed the work of erotic publishers Zane to be "books that make you dumb".
Books that make you dumb is an exhausting sounding project to compare the favourite books of US colleges with the average SAT scores (around A-Level, er, level) of their students, as such it's not at all scientific but a lot of fun.
Facebook allows you to add your favourite books to your profile, and produces lists of the overall favourites in networks (workplaces, and educational establishments mainly), so Virgil Griffith correlated that with the available SAT data to test, as he says you really could "feel dumber after reading that". The results are fascinating, and causing violent debate on the site.
The West Midlands network has a one-two-three of Harry Potter, The Lord Of The Rings and 1984, all ranked fairly highly, but also includes two Dan Brown books. So, how smart are we?
Of course the whole exercise is flawed, but there's something here. A librarian comments on the site: "I work in a library and they kind of match the judgements I make of people reading certain kinds of books (yes, we are judging you in the library based on your book choices)".
Are the books you publicly list as your favourite really what you like most? Or do you tailor that to your audience? I enjoyed Who Ate All The Pies - The Life and Time Of Mick Quinn, but I may have only added it to my Facebook profile as part of my careful strategy to mix high and low culture. That, and the fact that I love the look on people's faces when I tell them I'm reading it.
They've also applied the same methodology to music, Sting doesn't feature.
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