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If you compare a 2007 survey on Cal reading tastes to similar surveys administered in 1997 and 1987, what can you infer about Berkeley students? Perhaps we should be afraid–very afraid. In the past 20 years, student preferences strayed away from poignant classics like “The Fountainhead” and “The Color Purple,” to lucrative bestsellers like “Harry Potter” and the “Da Vinci Code.” Alright, we admit it–we read and loved both bestsellers–but what does it mean that the most elite public education institution in the world prefers contemporary fluff over literary heavyweights? Could it be a sign of the apocalypse?
Perhaps, but it could also be that “(t)he 1987 survey, like the ‘97 version, was conducted simply by distributing sheets of paper to freshman English classes,” while the most recent one was a “web-based summer/fall 2007 Survey of New Students (SoNS)” from 2,875 freshmen in every major.
Obviously, that explanation isn’t as fun.
Take a look at a 20 years’ change in student reading preferences, extracted from a survey brought to you by Distinguished Teacher Award recipient and College Writing lecturer, Steve Tollefson, and make your own silly assumptions.
Top reads of UC Berkeley undergrads
1987 (ties indicated)
1. The Color Purple (Alice Walker)
2. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
3. Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
4. It (Stephen King)
5. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Hunter S. Thompson)
6. Black Boy (Richard Wright)
Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean Auel)
If Tomorrow Comes (Sidney Sheldon)
Less than Zero (Brett Easton Ellis)
Native Son (Richard Wright)
1997 (ties indicated)
1. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
2. A Hundred Secret Senses (Amy Tan)
Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
3. The Firm (John Grisham)
The Kitchen God’s Wife (Amy Tan)
4. How Stella Got Her Groove Back (Terry McMillan)
Joy Luck Club (Amy Tan)
5. 1984 (George Orwell)
The Bible
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
The Lost World (Michael Crichton)
The Brothers Karamozov (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
2007 (tie indicated)
1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (J.K. Rowling)
2. title unspecified (J.K. Rowling)
3. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
4. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
5. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)
6. 1984 (George Orwell)
7. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
8. A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
9. Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (J.K. Rowling)
Image Source: chotda under Creative Commons
A snapshot of student reading habits over two decades [NewsCenter]
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