I HAVE MORE hard-bound books than shelves to store them so when an expert proves that some of my personal library is making me dumb, I take his conclusions seriously. For example, I own a hard cover edition of The Color Purple and that title is statistically proven to make me dumb. However, I also have a copy of Lolita, the book read by the smartest people in the study. Griffith mapped the average Scholastic Aptitude Test score against the the 100 most popular books on Facebook. He discovered Harry Potter is the most popular book. The Bible is the second most popular book. At least among college students, Harry Potter is, like the Beatles, indeed bigger than Jesus. The smartest religious book is The Book of Mormon. The dumbest religious book is The Holy Bible. The dumbest philosophy book is The Five People You Meet In Heaven and the smartest philosophy book is Atlas Shrugged. The dumbest book--the one that statistically links its readers to being the lowest achievers on standardised college admission exams in the States is Zane.
Virgil Griffith -- "Books that make you dumb"
