What sort of readers read Wicked?
Posted: Tue Feb 26, 2008 7:41 am
Hello, Wicked readers, I'm back on track reading Maguire's book, and this time I mean to proceed.
I'll write some of the questions I'm asking myself as I read.
This book is very unusual, and I am trying to picture the kind of reader that would be attracted to it.
Of course, some would be the type that belong to a group and like to discuss books.
Others would read it because they've seen the old films or the musical.
Yet there is a wealth of unusual vocabulary, and some complex sentence structures, that you do not always associate with bestsellers.
So I'll keep this in mind as I read: who are the other readers in the real world?
Actually, here's an extract from the New York Times which partly answers my question:
"Son of a Witch," a sequel to "Wicked," spent 14 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Although "Wicked" stayed there for 26 weeks, it didn't arrive until 10 years after its publication. In one interview, Maguire joked that the musical was "a $14 million advertising campaign for the book." In fact, when the novel was published in 1995, he gave a reading in Chicago for which seven people showed up." *
Next, Carly's reference to audio books has been very useful for me: I'm used to reading only books I feel attracted to but Wicked is one of those books I wanted to be able to discuss but could not manage to read as my mind kept wandering.
Now I've started listening and reading at the same time, it's a new experience for me and I'm enjoying it.
An added bonus for someone like me is that I hear some lovely English from an educated voice: usually the only type of English I hear is from television.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magaz ... ted=3&_r=1[/quote]
I'll write some of the questions I'm asking myself as I read.
This book is very unusual, and I am trying to picture the kind of reader that would be attracted to it.
Of course, some would be the type that belong to a group and like to discuss books.
Others would read it because they've seen the old films or the musical.
Yet there is a wealth of unusual vocabulary, and some complex sentence structures, that you do not always associate with bestsellers.
So I'll keep this in mind as I read: who are the other readers in the real world?
Actually, here's an extract from the New York Times which partly answers my question:
"Son of a Witch," a sequel to "Wicked," spent 14 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list. Although "Wicked" stayed there for 26 weeks, it didn't arrive until 10 years after its publication. In one interview, Maguire joked that the musical was "a $14 million advertising campaign for the book." In fact, when the novel was published in 1995, he gave a reading in Chicago for which seven people showed up." *
Next, Carly's reference to audio books has been very useful for me: I'm used to reading only books I feel attracted to but Wicked is one of those books I wanted to be able to discuss but could not manage to read as my mind kept wandering.
Now I've started listening and reading at the same time, it's a new experience for me and I'm enjoying it.
An added bonus for someone like me is that I hear some lovely English from an educated voice: usually the only type of English I hear is from television.
*http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/magaz ... ted=3&_r=1[/quote]