I read it and thought

it was a wase of my time.

I could NOT understand how so many people could rave about the book nor why.

> what do you remember about it?

Let me see... seeing as it was about 20 years ago I read it... I recall that if you want to go fast you put yourself into a dive and tuck your wings in.

It was padded with pictures. The text was big. It bored me. It was relaying a message.

> Did you hate it? Love it? Pass it along?

Hate is a pretty strong word, so lets just say I didn't like it. And the only thing I passed along was a recommendation NOT to read it.

> Do you rememeber who Sullivan and Fletcher
> were?

Seagulls. They have seagull names. I don't recall that they were seagulls. But they do have seagull names so they must be.

> Did it seem "important" to you at
> the time?

The only thing important about it was that I HAD to read it for school. It was required reading.

> For those youngin's in the crowd, Jonathon
> Livingston Seagull is one of the all time
> best selling books reportedly to the tune of
> 30 million copies in the early 70's.

> My research is looking at the content of the
> book (as well as other books too)...

> the TIMING of the book. Who bought it? How
> did it become a monster best-seller?

It became a monster best seller because of HYPE.

If you saw a book called Johnathan Livingstone Seagull on the bookshelf you would not pick it up - the title does not grab you. The only reason you would pick it up and read it would be if there was no choice (like me, I had to read it for school) or it was recommended by someone, or HYPE compelled you to check it out. And wehther you liked it or not, hype would compel you to urge others to read it too - heaven forbid you were different to the crowd and didn't like it, what would others think.

It wouldn't surprise me if massive bookclub deals were done and other tricks were employed to get it up the charts. - How do you get the school board to pick the book as one of the required reading elements? That's sure to generate massive sales as the school buys in copies for all the students.

> It sticks out from my stack of best-sellers
> like a sore thumb...this dumb short little
> book full of pictures of seagulls went on to
> become a movie, and it stayed on top for 3
> years.

Odd, isn't it? Me thinks it is like one of those Desperate Acts of Randomness - unrepeatable, even by the author.

> Any ideas? I'd appreciate any feedback you
> might have on this. OH, and if you LOVED the
> book, take my "dumb short little
> book" with a grain of salt, OK?

Yep. Herd mentality. The sheeple followed each other. Bought it. Highly recommended it, even if you didn't 'get it', because that's what everyone else was doing.

Here's another couple of thoughts:

Blair Witch.

Did sales of "Catcher in the Rye" take off after the movie Conspiracy Theory?

Was there a Seaside or Seagull fad going on at the time?

Had, what started out as a last ditch efort by the publisher to at least make their money back on the book, turn into mass hysteria by sheer accident?

What was going on in the world - in the US - in the initial instances of the book's release that enabled it to resonate with certain people.

WHO were the people who bought the book? What part of the book hit the spot with them?

Questions. Lots of 'em. But I'd say it's more to do with HYPE and Herd Mentality after a one in a million shot than anything else.

Michael Ross