Once again, I enjoyed the course, and felt it was well worth the time and money I spent on it.
However....
Yes, that's right. I'm not going to be totally positive about this course.
Other literature/fiction courses have left me anxious to read the books which were covered. I read "Left Hand of Darkness" after the Imaginative Writing course. In the Books that Have Made History course, I developed quite a list of "want to read them" books. After this Bestsellers course, though, I don't know that I am tremendously interested in anything which was covered, except perhaps a couple of the most recent. Now, admittedly, Dr. Conn was covering many books which were bestsellers during times when "interesting" meant something else. The Bay Psalm Book, and Common Sense were bestsellers, but at the time they were printed, people were not buying the equivalent of Stephen King books -- at least, no Americans were writing them.
OK, now that I look back, I think I might want to read To Kill a Mockingbird, in addition to John Adams and a few recent fiction bestsellers. And I'm tempted to try The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, what with the controversy surrounding it last year -- though Dr. Conn described the book so well, I'm not sure I would enjoy it as much until I can forget the ending act.
But let me sum up: From an educational point of view, this was an excellent Great Course. It talked about what made books "bestsellers" and how those bestsellers said quite a bit about the American culture during their heydays. It just wasn't quite as good as other literature courses at making me want to read the books which were its subject.
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