Pasty White Folks Battle It Out for Third

But first, some background.

Laura has rocketed through the Twilight novels over the past few weeks, although her embarrassment over same was enough that she resorted to reading the first few while on a business trip to Costa Rica. Soon enough, though, she broke down, and even got me to enable her obsession by picking up the fourth book at the Arlington Public Library. She was 52nd in line for it, although this pales in comparison to her 113th position in line for the third book, which she neatly circumvented by purchasing the book outright (though not, to her credit, from the library itself).

Coincidentally we both joined Goodreads a while back, although as my reading of late has been limited to New Yorker and Model Railroader I have not had much to contribute. This is not to say that I do not have trenchant observations to make on either Malcolm Gladwell's pieces or "A Prototype You Can Model."

To get somewhat closer to the point, Laura sent me this link to Goodreads' version of The Best Books Ever, promising that I would be furious and drawing particular attention to the #4 book on the list, which by a stunning coincidence is Twilight. I actually have no problem with this, as the list is a not unexpected conglomeration of any number of books of wildly varying quality, and readers at least had the good sense to keep Ayn Rand out of the top fifty. No, what struck me was that the #3 book, just behind Pride and Prejudice (hold the zombies) and To Kill a Mockingbird, was the Book of Mormon, which I was amused to note was credited to Joseph Smith as "translator." Presumably the numbers for Twilight will increase overnight, but for the moment the Latter-Day Saints have the lead over the Latter-Day Vampires.

On a completely unrelated note, this post is the eight-hundredth to grace (?) this blog. Hooray for us!

Update 8/12/2009: In comments to the list, a reader supports the Book of Mormon's inclusion in and position on the list by noting that "literally hundreds have died because of that book." To which I reply: Pikers. Sure, there were schisms and occasional violence as the Mormons fled west from Palmyra, NY (very near my old stomping grounds) to Utah, but unless you can pull something off on the level of two fingers versus three for crossing oneself, and let's not even mention these, take a number.