There’ll be lots of drinking in Heaven. Smoking and eating and sex

[venta]

This morning, moving some stuff of my desk, I uncovered a bookmark sent to me by CAMRA and advertising a book called "300 Beers To Drink Before You Die".

I just don't get this recent rash of books. 1000 Things To Do Before You Die. 501 Books To Read Before You Die. 999 Places To Visit Before You Die.

Firstly, I don't get them because they're really just filler; lists of things which probably won't be tailored very exactly to your tastes. They look like the sort of books you give to people when you don't know what to give them. Flicking through a few, I've not felt particularly inspired by the things they think I ought to do/read/eat/drink/shag.

But mostly I object to these books because I want to know who they're aimed at. If the target demographic believes that death is total oblivion and nothing comes after, then half the title is superfluous: "1000 Things To Do" would be fine as a title because, hey, you're not going to do them after you die, are you ?

If, however, the intended reader believes in life after death, then why limit yourself ? "1000 Things To Do" - and you can do them in the here and now or in the afterlife/your next reincarnation, whichever suits you best.

Why do publishers think that adding "Before You DIE" to a book title will encourage us ? Just in case life isn't enough of a struggle anyway, have another deadline!

Comments

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Maybe once you've been through death you won't feel the need to drink sangria on the beach at dawn or throw yourself off a bridge while tied to a small piece of elastic? 1000 Things To Do After You Die* could be an interesting book.



* Technically, everything I've done since 1994 counts, I suppose.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Technically, everything I've done since 1994 counts, I suppose.

<peers>

You don't look like someone who's been dead for over a decade.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Ah, I said after you die, not after you're dead. :)

If I could stay 21 the rest of my life that wouldn't be bad at all, come to think of it. I looked a lot less dead then than I do now...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Ah, I said after you die, not after you're dead

Y'know, I think one follows the other (and pretty smartly :)

However, I shall infer that you've done the former, but in my opinion unsuccessfully. Which is, of course, a good thing and I do not advocate further attempts unless otherwise unavoidable.

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I think it was successful in the 'actually dying' part (according to my medical notes, anyway), less so on the 'staying dead' front. It's not like I actually wanted to do the former, so I'm quite glad the latter wasn't successful either, of course. Without intervention it would all have been quite different and we wouldn't be having this discussion. Unless my 1000 Things To Do included being a zombie on the internet, which frankly rather appeals, and probably wouldn't actually alter the demographics of the internet all that much...

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

Well phrased, well phrased :)

[erming.livejournal.com]

I've often thought that all these things that with all these things they think you should do before you die, you clearly shouldn't be wasting time reading books on them, you should be out there doing stuff...

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

That's the thing with these sort of books, though, same as diet and self-help books - you feel like you've achieved something just by getting them off the shelf, never mind actually reading them.

(Seriously - do you know how many diet books shift a year? Either the diets simply don't work at all, or a lot of people are buying them and not using them)

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

Perhaps they're using them to barricade the fridge door? (Or, more likely in my case, to stand on to reach the biscuit cupboard.)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Why bother with all that tedious nonsense of eating healthily when you can instead spend £16.99 on a book which will miraculously make you think ?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er... Dr Freud would have a field day.

That should, of course, have said "make you thin".

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Think Yourself Thin¹, the venta Way

---

1 Or, alternatively, Thin Yourself Think.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Nah. Thinking the Venta Way largely involves thinking "oooh, pies!" a lot and is thus not especially calculated to make you thin :)

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Either the diets simply don't work at all

Got it in one :)

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I suspect these sorts of titles are aimed at emphasising the great importance of the items on their particular list. The stupid wording is really caused by the fact that "1000 things to do" has no natural deadline. It therefore breaks the "do X before Y" template. And of course things which have no deadline are, by implication, nonessential and therefore less noteworthy.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Why do publishers think that adding "Before You DIE" to a book title will encourage us ?

Great Expectations...Before You DIE

[venta.livejournal.com]

Crime And Punishment... Before You DIE

[rabbit1080.livejournal.com]

Die Another Day... Before You DIE.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Was that one even a book?
You Only Live Twice... Before You DIE

[venta.livejournal.com]

I wondered that but the man from Amazon, he say yes.

Love in the Time of Cholera, Before You Die.

This is turning into a rather more difficult version of the fortune cookie game.

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

You Only Live Twice... Before You DIE

Is that one about bopeepsheep?

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

*giggles*

[pm215]

The Remains of the Day Before You Die

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally (but only just), this very comment is number 84 on a list of 100 LJ comments to ignore before THE END OF THE WORLD!!!!.

[davefish.livejournal.com]

Perhaps there is more paperwork after death, with these examples being particularly bad for it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er... is that some civil servant idea of heaven ?

(With apologies to the nice civil servant I know who reads this, who doesn't deserve to be accused of clerical afterlife-expectations).

[secondhand-rick.livejournal.com]

300 Beers To Drink Before You Die.

Incidentally, are you supposed to drink them all in one sitting? That title would then make more sense.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

I don't need a book to tell me that if I drink 300 beers I'm going to die. Experience and extrapolation will have already warned me.

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

Gah, that would have been funnier if it had got in ahead of secondhand_rick's comment. But I did write it before, honest.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

YMMV - I thought it was funnier this way. ;-)

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

Mark Morford channels you. (Insert your own In Soviet Russia joke to taste.)