Just who do you think you are?

Fair warning:  I'm getting up on my soapbox.

As mentioned in a previous post, and as you are all no doubt aware by now, Borders is going out of business.  As the sales markdowns have been getting higher, we have been diligently helping Borders clear books off their shelves.

Last week, I was perusing the Biographies section (40% off--it was my civic duty).  All the usual suspects were represented:  Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein, Gandhi, Bristol Palin....wait a minute, who?  Bristol Palin?  Really?  Then I started looking more closely at the shelves, and my horror began to deepen.  Susan Boyle...Linda Hogan...Ice-T...Paul Reiser...Jesse James...I was flabbergasted.  What important things had these people done to warrant having their lives' stories written down and mass printed?  Seriously, I was (and still am) dumbfounded by this discovery.

The only reason anyone has ever heard of Susan Boyle is because she is probably the least attractive person to ever almost win American Idol (apparently being female, older, generally physically unattractive, and able to sing very well is novel in this country).  Linda Hogan is famous, I guess, for being married to Hulk Hogan, who made his living pretending to wrestle people and act (poorly) in a few B-grade movies.  Ice-T got famous (infamous) for being in a music group that made songs about killing cops, and ironically now he's playing a cop on TV.  Paul Reiser...no idea.  He was in a semi-popular TV show in the 90's.  Jesse James is only known because he's on a TV show on the Discovery Channel about motorcycles, and he screwed up his marriage to Sandra Bullock around the time that she won an Oscar, which made his name well-known to everyone who doesn't watch the motorcycle show.  The subtitle of his book is "American Outlaw".  I guess he's trying to cash in on sharing his name with that other Jesse James...you know, the one who held up trains, robbed banks, and murdered people in the latter portion of the 19th century.  Something tells me the modern Jesse James would probably wet himself if he ever came face-to-face with the original model.

And Bristol Palin?  Famous only because she got knocked up out of wedlock right around the time that her mother became the Republican vice-presidential candidate.  The subtitle of her book says it all:  "My Journey So Far".  She's not even 25.  "My Journey So Far"? Really?  How much could there be to say?  Lived in Alaska, went to high school, got pregnant, got paraded on national TV because of my mom, and went on Dancing with the Stars (and lost).  Hey, I think I'll write a book about it!  What a great idea!  Plus, the subtitle suggests that, at some point in the future, there will be a sequel.  Anyone care to place any bets on that?

I am dumbfounded by the fact that someone thought these people's lives were important enough to write about, and shocked (and a bit scared) that they have actually sold books.  It is also, to me, presumptuous that they or their publishers should think that the story of their lives belongs in the same bookstore, let alone the same shelf, as people like Churchill, and Gandhi, and any number of other people who have actually left an indelible mark on this earth--people who have shaped it into what it is today, for better or worse.  Not to sound like a raging environmentalist, but how many trees had to die so Linda Hogan could tell her life's story?

Maybe it's a commentary on our society.  After all, publishers wouldn't publish books if they didn't think they would sell.  And, unfortunately, some of these books probably sold really well, which is pretty sad.  

Okay...off the soapbox now.  Just had to get that off my chest.