ShmoopTube
Where Monty Python meets your 10th grade teacher.
Search Thousands of Shmoop Videos
Special Interest Videos 21 videos
You should enjoy a bestseller as you would a delicious slice of pepperoni pizza: slowly, savoring each bite, sharing happily with your friends. Oka...
Have you ever picked up a book simply because they made a movie out of it? You wouldn’t be the first. It’s fun to see how filmmakers take the w...
Click on the "play" button...if you dare. Wow, you don't seem very scared. Well, we did what we could. Guess thrillers aren't our forte.
Where to Find Bestsellers 179 Views
Share It!
Description:
Let's face it, we all want to be reading what the cool kids are reading. Or, we want to at least get a copy of what they’re reading so we can slip Don Quixote inside the dust cover and fool everyone at the beach into thinking we're with it. Same difference.
Transcript
- 00:04
Where to Find Bestsellers, a la Shmoop. Honestly, you could find a bestseller just
- 00:10
about anywhere.
- 00:11
A doctor’s waiting room…
- 00:13
A bus seat…
- 00:14
A bathroom stall. But suppose you actually want to seek one
Full Transcript
- 00:18
out; not just stumble upon one by happenstance.
- 00:20
Who do you ask? Where do you go? Is there a dress code?
- 00:26
Whoa, horsey. Let’s take a step back. First of all… what is a bestseller?
- 00:34
In short, a bestseller is a book that… sells… the best.
- 00:39
In other words, more people across the country are reading that book than just about anything
- 00:43
else.
- 00:44
Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good. But it sure is popular. Just like that Karen Larsen
- 00:50
phony. Okay, sure. You want to be reading what all
- 00:54
the cool people are reading.
- 00:55
If it has such mass appeal, there must be something in there that will grab you as well.
- 01:01
You’ve tried calling, “Bestseller! Yoo-hoo, bestseller!” out your bedroom window, and
- 01:07
no response.
- 01:08
So… where to? You can look inside a newspaper, for starters.
- 01:12
First, of course, you’d have to get your hands on a newspaper, which isn’t the easiest
- 01:16
task these days.
- 01:17
You might have better luck tracking down Bigfoot, and then seeing if he’s got a copy of Grisham’s
- 01:21
latest legal thriller on him. Assuming, however, that you are able to locate
- 01:29
one of these elusive publications…
- 01:31
…check the Arts and Entertainment section, and you will see something called “The Bestseller
- 01:35
List.”
- 01:36
It’s just what it sounds like.
- 01:39
A list, sorted with the best-selling book at the top, that will show you at a glance
- 01:44
who the most popular books on the block are this week.
- 01:47
You can also find Bestseller Lists online. Which is probably the easiest way, since it
- 01:51
means you don’t have to leave your house…
- 01:53
…or engage in any stealthy newspaper hunting. Once you’ve identified the biggies, you
- 02:00
can either go to a brick and mortar bookstore…
- 02:02
…which may be even tougher to find than a newspaper…
- 02:05
…or, once again, go online. Like, to Amazon or some site like that.
- 02:11
Do a search for the titles that interest you, add ‘em to your cart, and purchase away.
- 02:15
You’ll be ready for hours of relaxing beach time before you know it.
- 02:20
And there’s an added bonus to staying ahead of the curve and reading Bestsellers before
- 02:25
they sit on the shelves for too long.
- 02:27
A number one New York Times best-seller is almost guaranteed to become a movie…
- 02:30
…so you can get a jump on the stories that are likely to be hitting your local AMC in
- 02:35
a year or two.
- 02:36
When people start getting excited about the movie coming out, you can look at them smugly
- 02:40
and say, “I know what happens.”
- 02:42
Worth the price of admission right there, isn’t it?
- 02:45
The Classics certainly have their place, and you can generally learn a heck of a lot more
- 02:49
about the human condition by reading those…
- 02:52
…but once in a while, you just want to read what all of your friends, parents, neighbors,
- 02:56
and neighbors’ cats are reading. So if you’re looking for some entertainment…
- 02:59
…and you don’t happen to have any tap-dancing hot dogs in your fridge…
- 03:03
…a best-seller may be the way to go.
Related Videos
Sure, Edgar Allan Poe was dark and moody and filled with teenage angst, but what else does he have in common with the Twilight series?
Dr. Seuss was a failure to start, but he soon learned to follow his heart. He wrote books about things that he knew, and soon enough, his book sale...
Emily Dickinson was a New England poet/hermit with a fascination with death and immortality. She wrote over 1000 poems in her lifetime, most of the...
