How to Write a Bestseller: Excerpts from a Speech Given at the Pacific Rp Ogram Leadership Dinner on Saturday, October 6, 2001 Dave Frohnmayer University of Oregon
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by CommonKnowledge Volume 8 , Number 1 The Enduring Value of Libraries (Spring 2002) | Pages 4 - 5+ July 2014 How to Write a Bestseller: Excerpts from a speech given at the Pacific rP ogram Leadership Dinner on Saturday, October 6, 2001 Dave Frohnmayer University of Oregon Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.pacificu.edu/olaq Part of the Library and Information Science Commons Frohnmayer, D. (2014). How to Write a Bestseller: Excerpts from a speech given at the Pacific rP ogram Leadership Dinner on Saturday, October 6, 2001. OLA Quarterly, 8(1), 4-5+. http://dx.doi.org/10.7710/1093-7374.1604 © 2014 by the author(s). OLA Quarterly is an official publication of the Oregon Library Association | ISSN 1093-7374 | http://commons.pacificu.edu/olaq How to Write a Best Seller Excerpts from a speech given at the Pacific Program Leadership Dinner on Saturday, October 6, 2001 by Dave Frohnmayer … As are so many things following Sep- tales of Agatha Christie. President, tember 11, this talk lies in the shadows of In the 30s, Faulkner brought us Light in University of Oregon terrorism and its aftermath. August, Hemingway gave us Death in the And in that shadow lie many ques- Afternoon, and John Steinbeck took us tions: What do we do, as a nation and a through the best-laid plans Of Mice and Men. people, when no one really cares any In the 40s Ernie Pyle wrote This Is more who wants to be a millionaire, when Your War, and George Orwell wrote the true meaning of “survivor” has put to Animal Farm. shame anything television could offer as By the 1950s some of our tastes were drama, and when the most ordinary of turning just a bit as we read Ray Bradbury’s citizens have proven to be the strongest Martian Chronicles and Ian Fleming’s links to human greatness? Casino Royale. Beyond our national response— We’re half way through the century actually as a vital cord in that response— now. And I’m really not trying to point out most of us are asking questions and any deep or meaningful trends—other than searching for answers in ways far deeper, that the writing and the reading of particu- far more personal and far-reaching than lar times seem to accurately reflect the we have in some time. hopes and fears of that time. So it is in that frame of reference, that By the 1960s, our hopes and fears were shadow, that I offer these thoughts on so varied as to see us reading everything “writing your own best seller”—hoping in from Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s the process to offer some light … to light Nest to Jacqueline Susann’s Valley of the Dolls. the way, if just a bit. … And in the 70s we embraced a seagull There are many amazing facets of our named Jonathan Livingston, a warren of society that one can look at that will give rabbits living in Watership Down and you clues as to where our culture is generations of African Americans whose going—where we are going. … true story was told in Alex Haley’s Roots. ... Take a look at best-selling books, past By the 80s our concerns were way out and present. I think we can learn something there and deep inside as we read Carl Sagan’s about ourselves by looking at this list. Cosmos, as well as Jane Fonda’s Workout And I think, in the process, we might Book—although some things never change, also be able to see what it is that we value as we pored over several books by Stephen enough to put it into our own best-seller, King, Tom Clancy and Danielle Steele. which—written or not—is the life we each And as the century ended, an interest- live—the leadership we offer in that life— ing thing began to happen. As we started the book we work on every day. to look ahead into a new century and a Best sellers of the past have included a new millennium, we also looked back. We wide variety of titles, reflecting of course their looked back at Ken Burns’ The Civil War, own times and the people of those times. and Scarlet, the sequel to Gone With the In the last century ... each decade Wind. But we also looked ahead, reading brought its own particular books. The first all we could about the future in Megatrends decade of the century gave us Jack 2000, all we could about our health in London’s The Call of the Wild and Upton Eight Weeks to Optimum Health, and all Sinclair’s The Jungle. about money in Wealth Without Risk. The teens produced a book called Here we are now—the 21st century ... America’s Coming of Age and another, The And as we sit here this evening, Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, that looking forward to the leadership opportu- 4 reflected the growing challenge of that age. nities—opportunities that will offer a The 1920s brought us the jazz tales chance for each of us to make a differ- of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the mystery ence—it is worthy to look at ourselves, see OREGON LIBRARY ASSOCIATION where we have been and decide just And then there’s Ballot Titles In where we want to go. Oregon: The Secrets to Life as Gleaned from What kind of best sellers do we want Oregon Ballot Titles—with a foreword by our lives to write? Bill Sizemore—a book of several volumes. Or if someone wrote a best seller about As you see, the books we read come our lives, what book would it be like? from all directions, they entertain, inform, Pride and Prejudice? inspire, make us laugh, make us think, The Odyssey? make us look back and look forward, as Heart of Darkness? well as look inward and outward. Pilgrim’s Progress? There are two types of books being The Trial? published and selling quite well that Being and Nothingness? impress me—and that I think have some Or maybe something a bit more relevance on what I am trying to say. ... contemporary … One of these is the book that takes a Misery? (Stephen King) seemingly small incident in history— Waiting to Exhale? (Terry McMillan) perhaps a small or simple thing done by Bag of Bones? (Stephen King) an individual or group of people—and Or A Man in Full? (Tom Wolfe) shows how it has made a real difference in There’s just about something for every our world today. life. Even our current best sellers give us a Two books of this sort that stand out lot of leeway—and say something about are How the Irish Saved Civilization and where our society is today. Longitude. The number one best seller this past The first book, by Thomas Cahill, tells summer in the non-fiction hardback category of how a small group of monks on a small is a book about a horse—Seabiscuit. island in the Atlantic kept some of Maybe it’s safer nowadays to look civilization’s key writings from being back through the life of a famous horse destroyed and then spread out across the than through the lives of famous people— continent of Europe teaching from these and you’re less likely to get sued ... sources and shaping the making of the The advice best sellers are of particu- Western mind. lar interest and range from the number The second book, Longitude, written one The Prayers of Jabez, a real surprise by Dava Sobel, tells the story of 18th from a publisher in Sisters, to books about century John Harrison and his five-decade improving things at work (Who Moved My long quest to create a timepiece that could Cheese), improving your body (Body for be accurately used to determine longitude Life) and improving your baby (Secrets of aboard sailing ships. It was his success that the Baby Whisperer). ... truly opened the world to more than Given this variety of best sellers, I’ve random exploration. had a few ideas myself that I’ve been What I like about these books is the playing around with: same thing I like about some of my Winning Friends and Influencing People heroes—John and Abigail Adams, While Running a University. It will be filled Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt. ... with lessons learned from a fictitious college They are stories of people who may not president on the utter frustration of trying to have at first realized it, but most every- keep all your constituents happy all the time. thing they did had meaning and pur- Great Recipes from the Chicken pose—most everything they did mattered. Dinner Circuit—a compilation of all the Those nameless monks in the 5th, 6th 5 ways I’ve been served chicken during the and 7th centuries who cared for the texts course of four decades in public life. Sure to be a best seller. See How to Write a Best Seller page 23 OREGON LIBRARY ASSOCIATION and from within our professional organiza- posed Anti-Terrorism Measures,” a state- tions. Any reactions on our part as a profes- ment outlining specific concerns about sion will have to reflect the need to honor impending anti-terrorist legislation. At its that variety. Our precious diversity often Web site, ALA has begun providing makes it difficult to speak in one voice on all assistance to libraries and librarians topics.