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Every new iteration of book charts completely mixes up my intuitions on which books are there, how long they stay, and how contemporary they are. For instance,
by inputcoffee 9y ago
Every new iteration of book charts completely mixes up my intuitions on which books are there, how long they stay, and how contemporary they are.
For instance, I thought after Bill Gates tweeted his regard for Pinker's Better Angels book, that would be in the top. I would not have expected "Nudge" to be there, but not (for instance) one of Gladwell's books or Freakonomics.
Fiction wise, I can see the effect that TV and movies exert but, with the exception of Potter, it seems they have to be on the air now. (Q: Will Game of Thrones show up when the show starts?)
- douche 9y ago> (Q: Will Game of Thrones show up when the show starts?) Not unless GRRM finally finishes The Winds of Winter. The show went completely off the reservation last season, and this one is in completely uncharted waters. At this point, reading the books is only going to infuriate you when you see the show.
- inputcoffee 9y agoI am a huge fan of both, and am willing to forgive him. I will say that I think the mechanism by which the shows push the books up the charts is to attract new readers to an old property. So someone who watches the show and wants more might pick up the first book and go from there.
- wutbrodo 9y agoBetter Angels is way too dense for me to imagine it ever getting up towards the top of the bestseller lists. Gladwrlls stuff is a lot more tuned for mass appeal.
- inputcoffee 9y agoI actually thought it might appear in the purchase list but not in the read list, or perhaps at a lower spot on the read list. The divergence in the lists makes for some great speculation.
- thaumasiotes 9y ago> Better Angels is way too dense for me to imagine it ever getting up towards the top of the bestseller lists. If Oprah recommended a book, a lot of people would buy it even if they had no intention of reading it, and similarly for other major cultural figures.
- wutbrodo 9y agoAh thanks for the info. I have no idea what books Oprah recommends but I'm surprised this was one of them. I've read it, and I liked but not loved it, but it certainly wasn't in line with what my vague understanding of Oprah's book club was.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoI'm not claiming that Oprah recommended any book. I'm saying that "Better Angels is too dense to be a bestseller" doesn't work as a counterargument to "a celebrity recommended it, so I thought Better Angels would have better sales".
- wutbrodo 9y agoI disagree. The reason I was surprised when I thought you were saying Oprah recommended it is that Oprah doesn't really recommend books like this. That's not unrelated to the fact that her audience would think "man, Oprah's book recs suck" if she kept recommending books too dense for her audience.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoOf the millions of people who bought Obama's biography, how many do you think read it? It's dense. But for a lot of people, the point of buying a book is to let other people know that you bought it.