July 13, 2003
what makes a (British) bestseller?
Tim Adams read every novel in last week's top 10 list to see what makes it rise above the rest. Read 'em and weep.
An independent survey of Brits' reading habits,performed by myself on London's public transport over the last week,reveals:
*Harry Potter
*candy coloured chick lit
*a bargain basement £1 edition of Middlemarch
*some aspirational self-help bollocks
*Harry Potter
*the Bible
*Jhumpa Lahiri's 'Interpreter Of Maladies'
*sword 'n' sorcery Tolkein knock-off
*Harry Potter
*Access for Dummies
*novelisations of domestic TV detective series
*raghead-slaying SAS memoirs of doubtful authenticity
*my own remaindered copy of Don De Lillo
Oh,and Harry Potter.
Though this might have been a bad week....
How different would that be in the States?
Here in Washington DC it's about the same, only knock out one Harry Potter and replace it with a true-crime novel titled something like "Dead Wrong". Then, for each book on your list, add one work-related paper or book, most likely a dull bureaucratic briefing paper. Washingtonians are obsessed with work.
Posted by: Sugar Kane on July 14, 2003 09:59 AMdud: are you sure that Middlemarch and Access For Dummies weren't just false covers to hide Harry Potter?
Posted by: eldan on July 14, 2003 03:09 PMsugar : anything not actually bound between covers was disqualified,thus eliminating a tottering pile of reports,proposals and middle-management dreck. But there was plenty .Ditto for dickhead merchant bankers peering self-importantly into their laptops.
eldan : plausible theory. They're all of a similar size. But Middlemarch had the authentic appearance of a discounted classic,printed as it was in a Lilliputian micro-font on grey and granular industrial-grade toilet paper. No cash cow like Rowling would get that get kind of treatment.
Posted by: dud on July 16, 2003 02:00 AMPost a comment
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