Exurbia and Rick Warren
Following up on my last installment on the election, I came across this excerpt from a column by the NY Times op-ed writer, David Brooks.
“Bookselling News: Exurb Opportunities?
Selling a red-state book in blue-state bookstores. . .”
“In today’s New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks
recounts problems he had spreading the word about his On Paradise
Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense (S&S,
$25), which is about the exurbs—where President Bush apparently won
re-election. The book was published earlier this year.”
Brooks writes:
“In my book I tried to describe the culture in these places—the
office parks, the big-box malls, the travel teams and the immigrant
enclaves,” he writes. “But when it came to marketing the book, I
failed in two important ways.
“I couldn’t figure out how to tell the people in exurbia that I had
written a book about them. Here I was writing about places like Loudon
County, Va., and Polk County, Fla., but my book tour took me to places
like downtown Philadelphia, downtown Seattle and the Upper West Side.
The places I was writing about are so new, and civic life is as yet so
spare, there are few lecture series or big libraries to host author
talks. The normal publishing infrastructure is missing.
“I was about to give a reading in Berkeley when I asked a few of the
bookstore employees if they sold many copies of Rick Warren’s book,
The Purpose-Driven Life. They weren’t familiar with the book, even
though it has sold millions and millions of copies. I realized there
are two conversations in this country. I was in the establishment
conversation, but somehow I needed to get into the Rick Warren
conversation and I could never find a way.”
PW Daily for Booksellers, Tuesday November 9, 2004
I just returned from a business trip to Texas and on both legs of the trip I noticed a passenger across the aisle reading, you guessed it, The Purpose Driven Life. And while in Texas I by chance tuned in Larry King and there was Rick Warren. Warren answered calls from listeners and interestingly 3 of the 6 or so calls were from Canadians. The total numbers on the book are now 20 million and PDL holds the all-time U.S. record for sales of a hardcover non-fiction book. PDL has now officially sold about 600,000 copies in Canada but the numbers could be a fair bit higher as this is what Harper Canada has shipped and they presumably do not include copies purchased from, say, Amazon.
What does this indicate about Canada? Whatever you think of the book it could be a signal of spiritual ferment. Reg Bibby in his recent book, Restless Churches: How Canada’s Churches Can Contribute to the Emerging Religious Renaissance, is gung ho about the future prospects for Canada’s churches. Bibby points to recent polling that shows 26 -30% of all Canadian adults claiming to be in church on a weekly basis. This is the highest attendance rates tracked in a poll since 1985 and could point to something happening. Bibby also claims that there is renewed religious interest among Canadians who don’t attend church. Do all of the 600,000 Canadians who have purchased PDL attend church? I doubt it. I also am more skeptical of a religious resurgence in the Canadian mainline churches than Bibby but nonetheless Bibby’s overall assessment may very well be on target.
I’m hoping to crank these pieces out a couple of times a week. If you have any comments or questions let me know at bookblog@regent-college.edu.
One of our readers sent in a quote from Czeslaw Milosz so I will give the late Polish poet the last word:
As is well known, the philosopher Adorno said that it would be an abomination to write lyric poetry after Auschwitz, and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas gave the year 1941 as the date when God “abandoned” us. Whereas I wrote idyllic verses, “The World” and a number of others, in the very center of what was taking place in the anus mundi, and not by any means out of ignorance. . . . Life does not like death. The body, as long as it is able to, sets in opposition to death the heart’s contractions and the warmth of circulating blood. Gentle verses written in the midst of horror declare themselves for life; they are the body’s rebellion against its destruction.
Quoted from First Things, November 2004, p. 28.
Bill Reimer
November 26, 2004
“Bookselling News: Exurb Opportunities?
Selling a red-state book in blue-state bookstores. . .”
“In today’s New York Times, conservative columnist David Brooks
recounts problems he had spreading the word about his On Paradise
Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense (S&S,
$25), which is about the exurbs—where President Bush apparently won
re-election. The book was published earlier this year.”
Brooks writes:
“In my book I tried to describe the culture in these places—the
office parks, the big-box malls, the travel teams and the immigrant
enclaves,” he writes. “But when it came to marketing the book, I
failed in two important ways.
“I couldn’t figure out how to tell the people in exurbia that I had
written a book about them. Here I was writing about places like Loudon
County, Va., and Polk County, Fla., but my book tour took me to places
like downtown Philadelphia, downtown Seattle and the Upper West Side.
The places I was writing about are so new, and civic life is as yet so
spare, there are few lecture series or big libraries to host author
talks. The normal publishing infrastructure is missing.
“I was about to give a reading in Berkeley when I asked a few of the
bookstore employees if they sold many copies of Rick Warren’s book,
The Purpose-Driven Life. They weren’t familiar with the book, even
though it has sold millions and millions of copies. I realized there
are two conversations in this country. I was in the establishment
conversation, but somehow I needed to get into the Rick Warren
conversation and I could never find a way.”
PW Daily for Booksellers, Tuesday November 9, 2004
I just returned from a business trip to Texas and on both legs of the trip I noticed a passenger across the aisle reading, you guessed it, The Purpose Driven Life. And while in Texas I by chance tuned in Larry King and there was Rick Warren. Warren answered calls from listeners and interestingly 3 of the 6 or so calls were from Canadians. The total numbers on the book are now 20 million and PDL holds the all-time U.S. record for sales of a hardcover non-fiction book. PDL has now officially sold about 600,000 copies in Canada but the numbers could be a fair bit higher as this is what Harper Canada has shipped and they presumably do not include copies purchased from, say, Amazon.
What does this indicate about Canada? Whatever you think of the book it could be a signal of spiritual ferment. Reg Bibby in his recent book, Restless Churches: How Canada’s Churches Can Contribute to the Emerging Religious Renaissance, is gung ho about the future prospects for Canada’s churches. Bibby points to recent polling that shows 26 -30% of all Canadian adults claiming to be in church on a weekly basis. This is the highest attendance rates tracked in a poll since 1985 and could point to something happening. Bibby also claims that there is renewed religious interest among Canadians who don’t attend church. Do all of the 600,000 Canadians who have purchased PDL attend church? I doubt it. I also am more skeptical of a religious resurgence in the Canadian mainline churches than Bibby but nonetheless Bibby’s overall assessment may very well be on target.
I’m hoping to crank these pieces out a couple of times a week. If you have any comments or questions let me know at bookblog@regent-college.edu.
One of our readers sent in a quote from Czeslaw Milosz so I will give the late Polish poet the last word:
As is well known, the philosopher Adorno said that it would be an abomination to write lyric poetry after Auschwitz, and the philosopher Emmanuel Levinas gave the year 1941 as the date when God “abandoned” us. Whereas I wrote idyllic verses, “The World” and a number of others, in the very center of what was taking place in the anus mundi, and not by any means out of ignorance. . . . Life does not like death. The body, as long as it is able to, sets in opposition to death the heart’s contractions and the warmth of circulating blood. Gentle verses written in the midst of horror declare themselves for life; they are the body’s rebellion against its destruction.
Quoted from First Things, November 2004, p. 28.
Bill Reimer
November 26, 2004
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