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The worst is when the book you have to buy is written by your own professor. Then when they leave for a new job, the book has no resale value because they're the only people who set that book 
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Mar 2, 2010 20:34
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 18:34 |
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It also depends on how widely distributed the book is. Like my college professor that set his own book, was only used on that one course he taught ever. Niche subjects are going to have high costs just from supply and demand. Whereas my friend whose dad was a high school teacher and ended up writing a high school textbook that was extensively used throughout Europe made quite a bit of money. Not Dan Brown money, but enough for a nice Volvo. Really nice textbooks though can really be worth the money. The ones with illustrations and diagrams etc. I think people mostly resent the ones that just seem to be copied across from a word document.
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Mar 4, 2010 16:26
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criptozoid posted:I have arrived at a conservative estimate of the number of books I may realistically expect to read between now and the time when I finally kick the bucket, and it hovers slightly around 1000. Life seems short when measured in unread books. If you get hit by a bus next week it may only be one more book!
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Mar 14, 2010 22:19
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SouthShoreSamurai posted:Searched all 5 pages, and I don't see any posts about the Sword of Truth series. There's a very large thread here about it, and there was one in the TV IV. The one here got pretty hilarious.
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Jun 30, 2010 23:33
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mcustic posted:Over my dead body! But seriously, my hatred for Franzen aside, I think that we can't even try to guess what will be considered a classic from our time. Probably something that has had commercial success but little critical acclaim. Think shopaholic and that kind of crap. It usually happens like that - most of the 19th century classics were their equivalent of soap operas at the time they were published. It's actually quite interesting. Wasn't Dickens or something the Tom Clancy of Victorian times? Broad populist literature? Same with Shakespeare. Harry Potter, Twilight, Shopaholic etc. are probably going to tell future generations more about our culture than what we consider high level literature today. (I still argue that the first Shopaholic is actually pretty good)
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Feb 12, 2012 19:17
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barkingclam posted:Maybe, if you want to essentially ignore the social context of Dickens work. Comparing somebody's popularity with something else doesn't mean you're comparing the quality of the work. As Mcustic pointed out it's hard to evaluate what will be seen as classics down the road, especially from our generation!
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Feb 12, 2012 20:53
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It's probably worth studying in 50 years why Stephanie Meyer has made more money than all the authors born before 1940 put together.
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Feb 13, 2012 01:28
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