Looking through the "Literature" section and expecting to find articles on Woolf and Morrison, Pound and Hazlitt, I instead find authors such as Dan Brown littered all over the place like candy wrappers. Not to insult Brown's validity as an author, but it appalls me that these bestsellers based on a story everyone loves to believe, is what defines what we talk about and is thought to be quality literature.

Popular literature has hit an all-time low to the point that fine literature is being overlooked by so many of us. It's almost to the point where we have to go to different stores to find quality literature. The tables nearest the entrance of stores such as Chapters are laden with hard-covered bestsellers written by Brown or have Oprah's Book Club's seal of approval sticker. We read what Oprah tells us we should read because someone else believes it is "best", without doing research to find quality. Rather, we gather bits and pieces, as if all works were separate, only caring to read the author that the New York Times deems "Brilliant" and "Dazzlingly unique" as if they were not all the same.

Instead of reading novels written by our own Canadian authors such as Atwood or Munro, who Chapters does not even consider "Best Selling Novels" and acutally read well-written literature, we would all rather read up on astrology or the latest fashions. It seems everyone wants to "escape" and to read for "enjoyment". We want to dissolve into a world where a beautiful young woman falls head-over-heels for some man who has some dark and foreboding secret, but if what we are reading is mass-market, bestselling cliched plot-driven books, it leaves me concerned to where humanity is headed.