Huh. The paperback bestsellers list is like a greatest hits of beach-reading. Or not even a greatest hits.

I pity the novice spy-novel readers who pick up The Bourne Supremacy hoping for Matt Damon hijinks in Prague; the novel takes place almost entirely in China, and the hero is noticeably middle-aged. (Actually I think the Bourne novels became more elaborately flimsy as they went along, even as they strove for realism in details like Bourne aging. But the basic setup of the first novel is so death-defyingly implausible, I can't imagine it's very easy to maintain that level of damn-the-torpedoes excitement without sacrificing more and more logic.)

I didn't see the first Bourne movie and I haven't read the books. I think I might bypass the books and just embrace the movies since they look like I would enjoy them and I know they are not true to the books.

msbelle, definitely see the movies, at least the first one--it's very fun.

I've finally started on the stack of books you gave me. Loved Faking It.

And as for the list, I totally get that it is mostly beach reading and things that large quantities of people will like, but I think quite a bit of what I read falls into those same categories. I think I just must read older stuff.

I am very conscious of not wanting to be reading what everyone else is. And I get that that makes no sense if it is a good book taht I would enjoy. But nothing depresses me more than seeing someone on the subway with the same book as me.

ETA - of course there are things that depress me more. blah blah hyperbole cakes.

Glad you like it Megan. I would like my Crusie toaster now please.

Ludlum is great fun if you like spy stuff, but his "Road" books are laugh-out-loud funny. Anyone who remembers the first Bush administration will find "Road to Omaha" a riot.

I guess Anna Karenina is a beach read? Gosh, kids today! Is there a movie coming out, or is Tolstoy just super-cool this summer? (Or is it an Oprah book?)

The NYT book review last page this week noted that 175,000 books are published annually in the US. I think. It is to boggle. I am (temporarily) ordering books for the library's "New Books" area, and it's really overwhelming just reading reviews.

I am very conscious of not wanting to be reading what everyone else is.

I'm not quite that self-conscious in my reading choices, but that bestseller list is pretty much a list of "You have a limit of brain cells, so don't bother with these until vacation rolls around, and even then, be selective."

Which I have to be anyway, since I almost never buy new (especially mass-market) books if I can help it.

Megan's right -- you'll probably enjoy the Bourne movies just fine, maybe better, without reading the books. I will say, however, that Ludlum always had an entertaining eye for the skillset of a spy. Book-Bourne is the king of tiny details, psychology, and elaborate plans, the sort of thing that is usually too cumbersome to pull off in movies. Also, his politics are way subtler.

I guess Anna Karenina is a beach read? Gosh, kids today! Is there a movie coming out, or is Tolstoy just super-cool this summer? (Or is it an Oprah book?)

It's an Oprah book. The first one she endorsed without even reading it.

HA! I knew someone would catch that (AK). I wonder why it is on the list? Oprah doesn't do books anymore and there is no movie.

eta: I guess she does do them still. I thought she had stopped.

"The Secret Life of Bees" is supposed to be pretty good. Nicholas Sparks is always bad.

I know very little about any of the other books. Really, i only read the bestsellers list to see if Al Franken is doing better than Ann Coulter (or whatever the lefty/righty authors of the week are) or the reverse.