I saw in an article the other day that there is a book called 14,000 things to be happy about. So I searched Amazon and sure enough there it was. The author is Barbara Ann Kipfer. She is also the author of The 1325 Buddhist ways to be happy, 1,400 things for kids to be happy about, and 4,000 questions for getting to know anyone.
Here's my thoughts. Thinking of things to be happy about, great. Making a list and spending some time focusing on them, great. Sharing those things with your friends and family and finding out what makes them happy, great. Writing them in a book and charging people money to read them, lame.
I applaud Ms. Kipfer because she has found a way to make money for herself and she probably feels like her books are uplifting and help people out. However, if I ran a book store I would never carry this book or any of the other three titles I mentioned. I bet any of you reading this blog could write any of these books and have them finished in a week or two. If I was an author I would probably be very frustrated that books like this would make it on the shelf next to mine.
What do you think? Would you be interested in reading these books or do you think you could write them yourself? Am I being to hard on her? Any other ridiculous books out there that you've seen?
1 hour ago
6 comments:
Is it like a novel or is it more like a coffee table book? I might display a book like that. Maybe even the one about questions to get to know people for our small group. But all in all, yes, it's lame.
Hey Jonathan! First of all I have to say that your blog brings me back to CBU and sometimes when I am reading what you have written I can almost hear you saying it! Second...I agree. I am usually not a fan of fluffy books and I tend to get annoyed when authors write the same version of their book with a few tweeks and different titles...but hey, if someone told me I could write a book like that and make a nice living off of it, I would probably do it. I wonder if that is how she feels or maybe she really believes in it...who knows. Just my thoughts, which I realize are all over the place. :)
Bekah - I'm going to check your coffee table next time I'm at your house to see if this book is there. If it is then We're going through every question in the book.
Shannon - Great to hear from you! I don't think I've talked to you since your wedding. I hope you guys are doing well. Thanks for posting on my blog. I always try to write conversationally (like I would actually say it) so I'm glad it came through well received by you.
Yes, you're right, extremely lame. I'm bummed out w/ a load of the book series' out there. All those "What Would The Purpose Driven Jabez Do With Her Chicken Soup." I'm sorry, they wouldn't make the coffee table/back of the toilet.
Thanks for the comment Nate. I don't want to get started in on "Christian" books but I will say this. There are a lot of books that come out and I think they do have something to offer. For example, I read the first half of the purpose driven life, and it seemed like it could be pretty helpful to some people. But when a good book is followed up with 20 spin-offs it really begins to look like the author and publisher are just taking advantage of people to make sales. From a business stand point, that is a great move for making sales, but from a Christian stand point it doesn't seem like the right thing to do. If the purpose of the books is really to help people, why not sell the first book and then make any follow up materials available for free on a website or something.
Remember in our home we had a few of the "Question" books? I actually liked going through them just for the sake of discussion. In this case, I am not sure I would care too much to read about what makes the author happy - unless maybe I was to discuss it with my own family and friends as a source to find out what makes them happy.
When our coffee table still had a home in our living room (it has been stored in the garage since our children took over the house) it held a few books. Mostly art and I think a NASCAR "yearbook" (for Mike of course!) and a Ripley's Believe it or Not.
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