Also, I've seen an interesting dividing line among my friends and the books they read. Sometimes people buy a book to better themselves. Sometimes they buy a book because they are passionate about reading it.
Often times, the best books fall in both camps. More often, the best books start in one and trick the reader into the other.
This kind of division cuts both ways.
Slate is, for the most part, entertaining as much for its hubris as it is for its wisdom.
Ray, they really are genres. Epistolary novels were quite popular among women in work camps. One woman would read one letter aloud while the others are toiling. After each letter, discussion ensued. Whereas the travel literature was marketed and sold to a different audience, indeed.
Regardless, both were derided by the reviewers of the time as drivel. By golly, everyone should be reading the Bowdlerized versions of Shakespeare, and non-fiction collections of important sermons.
