....by an overwhelming majority of people I listened to today in my part-time job were:

(and wow, how wonderful that these are the faces of English publishing and most representative of our literary history and culture to people all over the world)

1. Harry Potter (which granted is not from the USA, but I would argue that the Hollywoodization of the movies means the USA has somewhat appropriated the franchise as a part of our culture. Interestingly enough, there were quite a wide variety of reasons including "I can learn about survival skills from their adventures" to "I want to ride a flying broom")

2. Twilight (most common reason: "My friends saw it")

3. Any book by Dan Brown, but especially the DaVinci Code. (most common reason: "It's thrilling")


And even though I'm abashed by the emergence of these three books (series) into world domination, the MOST embarassing thing is that I've read all three (and in the case of Twilight, the whole series.)

Oh the shame, the shame of it all.