One Sci-Fi Author Wrote 29 of the Kindle's 100 Most-Highlighted Passages 239
An anonymous reader writes "Today Amazon announced that a science fiction writer has become the Kindle's all-time best-selling author. Last June Suzanne Collins, who wrote the Hunger Games trilogy, was only the fourth author to sell one million ebooks, but this month Amazon announced she'd overtaken all her competition (and she also wrote the #1 and #2 best-selling ebooks this Christmas). In fact, 29 of the 100 most-highlighted passages on the Kindle were written by Collins, including 7 of the top 10. And on a separate list of recent highlights, Collins has written 17 of the top 20 most-highlighted passages."
It's pretty interesting to go through the top-100 list and look at the passages people think are worth highlighting. Taken out of context, many of them could be patched together and re-sold as a self-help book. None are quite so eloquent as #18 in the recent highlights.
Re:great book! (Score:4, Interesting)
Crap. I wasn't logged in. My comment. Great book for those interested. Kind of like The Running Man, but in many ways, much crueler.
And a complete rip-off of Battle Royale. Skip it and just watch that instead.
Which #18? (Score:5, Interesting)
Which #18 is the summary referring to?
"Press and hold, then drag your finger across text to select it. A dialog box will appear that lets you highlight the text, add a note, and so on. If several other Kindle users have highlighted a particular passage in the book you are reading, you will see that passage underlined. You can turn off these Popular Highlights in Settings. Notes appear as superscripted numbers within the text. To view a note the next time you visit that page, simply tap on the number."
or
"“Panem et Circenses translates into ‘Bread and Circuses.’ The writer was saying that in return for full bellies and entertainment, his people had given up their political responsibilities and therefore their power.”"?
They're both oddly appropriate for self-help...
Re:great book! (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree. I needed something to read early last summer. Based on hearing about it from a friend or two and all the promotion, I decided to give it a try. I was quite pleasantly surprised by the three books.
I'm interested in seeing the movie. Some of the bits in the trailers look great to me, although I imagined District 12's town to be less rural and the fence more imposing. I agree that PG-13 is going to be an interesting challenge. Given it's a book in which, just based on the jacket, you know 23 kids should die means they're going to have to deal with violence issues. Of course there is no way they could make it R, it would cut out the movie's target audience.
The movie has a big enough budget that they certainly should be able to do a good job. I hope it at least turns out decent.
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:4, Interesting)
When you highlight a passage, you have the option to share it. When you're reading, you'll see highlights that other people shared as dotted line underlines, along with a number indicating how many people shared that bit. You can turn off the display of shared highlights in the menu. Anyone who owns a Kindle would know that, so I suspect you're lying when you insinuate that you're a Kindle owner. Most likely a shill/fanboi for some other company.
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Kindle Reader app does not make the ability to disable this visible or obvious.
It's also not visible or obvious on all versions of the Kindle.
I think you need to go take a better look at the software on the different Kindle models.
obligatory snark (Score:5, Interesting)
From my own highlight list:
How much of old material goes to make up the freshest novelty of human life.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne, House of the Seven Gables (1851)
Re:How did they collect this data?! (Score:5, Interesting)
anyone? doubtful. most? also doubtful.
amazon tracking and collecting this sort of data is not any different than tivo and cable companies doing the same with dvr's (and not any less spooky), what programs are recorded and watched, when they're watched, what parts get replayed, skipped-over or paused on. and like tivo, amazon defaults to opt-in instead of opt-out (which is not exactly convenient to do with tivo.. and near or completely impossible with cable company boxes). tivo took a lot of heat after that most unfortunate of superbowl half-time performances -- amazon should here as well.
Re:Depressing (Score:5, Interesting)
Wait, you mean the most highlighted things come from the books the most people have? Say it isn't so!
Hunger Games isn't a bad series. Would you prefer the top highlights be from Twilight? Or some terrible self help book by the latest fad guru? Or the newest diet sensation?
Don't forget that not only have the Hunger Games book sold incredibly well, they were one of the promoted books for the "one free book a month for Prime subscribers" program.
Re:great book! (Score:5, Interesting)
What an asshole you are. You make up your own cultural norms by presumably abstracting from your personal experiences and then you passionately insult anyone who doesn't follow the limited views that result.
Norm 1: people read books to be "enriched" by them as efficiently as possible ("Why go through all the trouble reading the Harry Potter or Hunger Games series when you could read Dr. Seuss's books and become three times as enriched in a fraction of the time?"). This is patently ridiculous. Books can be enriching, but they can also be guilty pleasures, pure entertainment, sleep-inducing material, or a host of other things. Moreover, books are different things to different people. Your own view of a book will probably not be very universal, and that's not a bad thing.
Norm 2: an "adult or literate high-school upperclassman" should not promote a children's or young adult's ("Dick and Jane") series. Screw you; I'll recommend The Hobbit or Harry Potter or whatever I think is appropriate for whatever reason I feel like to whomever I wish. You're in no position to pre-judge the quality of my reasons in such a hypothetical case you judgmental prick. You're similarly in no position to judge the value of everyone's reasons for reading a particular book.
You do have some good points--calling Twilight "good literature" is pretty silly using the usual definition of "literature"; most people on /. are literate adults; and Dr. Seuss' books are remarkably enriching, especially to the young. Your good points are buried in crap and shrouded in assholery today, though.
Robert Scheckley (Score:4, Interesting)
Crap. I wasn't logged in. My comment. Great book for those interested. Kind of like The Running Man, but in many ways, much crueler.
And a complete rip-off of Battle Royale. Skip it and just watch that instead.
And all of the above got the idea from Robert Scheckley's 1958 short story "The Prize of Peril", which is not only the first depiction of this type of game, but also of any form of reality television in fiction, decades before it materialized in the real world. I have not read the hunger games, but I wonder how much all of these add to the original concept...
Am I the only one then...? (Score:5, Interesting)
That read the first book and thought "Really?? This is what all the excitement is about?" I didn't care for Hunger Games at all. It was an engaging read admittedly. I kept turning the pages. But the foreshadowing of where things were headed seemed pretty shallow to me (no, I did not cheat and peek at the ending). My closing thoughts were "well, someone's hoping to cash in on a screenplay here" and a sort of dirty feeling. I felt like one feels when you slow down at the sight of a roadside accident to see if there's anything gory.
I read the next two books just to see if it would get any good.
I have this vague sense of irony about the whole thing. As I listen to people tell me why they just like this book so much, some times I feel like a big part of the reason they liked it was because everyone else seems to as well. It's cool, because if you're read it, you're in the club. And the club says it's good. Given that a major theme of the book is humanity's ability as a collective to ignore stuff that is wrong, this seems hugely ironic to me.
If you enjoyed it, no offense meant. I respect that. To each his own. I liked the Mistborn series and Terry Pratchett novels far better than this among recent reads, and maybe you don't care for those.
Am I the only person that didn't care for Hunger Games at all?
Re:great book! (Score:5, Interesting)