{"id":2057,"date":"2020-04-08T20:53:37","date_gmt":"2020-04-08T20:53:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=2057"},"modified":"2020-12-07T22:14:47","modified_gmt":"2020-12-07T22:14:47","slug":"books-and-reality-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/books-and-reality-shows\/","title":{"rendered":"Books and Reality Shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reality shows: fun to watch, and sometimes a bummer to binge.\u00a0 So if\u00a0The Real World<\/em> (not to mention the real world) has you down, why not dip into a fictional world for a change of pace?<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0Survivor<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Lord<\/a>The show has often been compared to\u00a0Lord of the Flies<\/em><\/a>, and with good reason: William Golding’s novel is the original combination of island survival and nasty (even deadly) jockeying for social position.\u00a0 But if you want to explore life on a desert island without worrying about who gets voted off, may we also suggest Robinson Crusoe<\/em><\/a>?\u00a0 It’s a stranger novel than the cultural echoes of it in movies like\u00a0Castaway<\/em> (and Robinson himself is less charming than Tom Hanks), and sheds a light on how eighteenth-century British people imagined the Caribbean: a place of quick fortunes and quicker ruin, shaped by cross-cultural contact and conflict.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0The Real Housewives<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The title character of Gustave Flaubert’s\u00a0Madame Bovary<\/em><\/a> was a literary scandal in her day: a frustrated housewife whose craving for romance and glamour leads her to stray from her husband and spend above her means.\u00a0 Imagine a French, female Jay Gatsby, with similar goals but less power to achieve them.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0The Bachelor<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Pride<\/a>“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”\u00a0 The famous first line of Jane Austen’s\u00a0Pride and Prejudice<\/em><\/a> introduces us to a world of competitive courtship.\u00a0 Landing a well-off\u00a0 husband is the only way for Austen’s women to move up (or avoid moving down) in the world, and in this fast-paced game of musical chairs it becomes crucial to understand other players’ true motivations: in\u00a0Bachelor<\/em>-speak, who is “there for the right reasons.”\u00a0 There’s no hot tub hijinks or fantasy suite here, but Austen’s witty style is its own sinful pleasure.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0The Amazing Race<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Around<\/a>Jules Verne’s\u00a0Around the World in Eighty Days<\/em><\/a> (audiobook) is an adventure romp that does what it says on the label: adventurer Phineas Fogg and his valet Passepartout (French for “go everywhere”) cross the globe in eighty days to win a bet.\u00a0 Verne, author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea<\/em> and Journey to the Center of the Earth<\/em>, is considered an early science fiction writer, and this too was a kind of science fiction in its day — the spread of railways and steamships had only just made this kind of trip possible.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0Love is Blind<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one is a bit of a stretch, but have you heard of the novel Blindness<\/em><\/a> by Portuguese Nobel laureate Jose Saramago?\u00a0 A mysterious plague has made all the residents of a town (except for one) blind, and the social order breaks down into chaos.\u00a0 If that feels too real right now, we understand.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0The Deadliest Catch<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>This long-running show explores commercial crab-fishing in the near-Arctic waters of the Bering Sea, one of the most dangerous industries in America.\u00a0 Ernest Hemingway’s short novel\u00a0The Old Man and the Sea<\/em><\/a> takes place in the warmer waters of the Caribbean, but the expedition proves no less dangerous.\u00a0 Hemingway’s simple, understated sentences have inspired generations of writers: like little waves on the surface of deep water, they suggest powerful undertows of emotions beneath.<\/p>\n

If you like\u00a0Big Brother<\/em>…<\/strong><\/p>\n

This one seems deceptively obvious: the name of the show comes from George Orwell’s\u00a01984<\/em><\/a>, in which a totalitarian state watches its citizens’ every move.\u00a0 But hidden cameras aside, perhaps the closer analogy is French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s play No Exit<\/em><\/a>, in which three people trapped in a room together slowly realize they have been carefully selected to get on each other’s nerves for eternity.\u00a0 As one character surmises, “L’enfer, c’est les autres” — “Hell is other people.”<\/p>\n

\"mini<\/a>
Poster created at the SEBS PASS course. Click on the image to see more. Contact us for library instruction for your course.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"TagSee the full list of online resources<\/a>, such as eBooks, audiobooks, videos, and newspapers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reality shows: fun to watch, and sometimes a bummer to binge.\u00a0 So if\u00a0The Real World (not to mention the real world) has you down, why not dip into a fictional … Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,27,32,34,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cookreads","category-little-free-library","category-rugrat","category-staff-picks","category-stressbusters"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nBooks and Reality Shows - Books We Read<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/books-and-reality-shows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Books and Reality Shows - Books We Read\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reality shows: fun to watch, and sometimes a bummer to binge.\u00a0 So if\u00a0The Real World (not to mention the real world) has you down, why not dip into a fictional … Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/books-and-reality-shows\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Books We Read\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-04-08T20:53:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-07T22:14:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com\/images\/I\/81WUAoL-wFL.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicholas Allred\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Nicholas Allred\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/books-and-reality-shows\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/books-and-reality-shows\/\",\"name\":\"Books and Reality Shows - 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