RARA-AVIS: Re: Apples and Oranges, sour grapes, and luck.

From: jacquesdebierue (jacquesdebierue@yahoo.com)
Date: 28 Feb 2009

  • Next message: jacquesdebierue: "RARA-AVIS: Re: Apples and Oranges, sour grapes, and luck."

    --- In rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Gonzalo Baeza" <gbaeza@...> wrote:
    >
    > I wish the best-seller lists were actually comprised of literary
    > fiction, even if a lot of it is stale and derivative. Most
    > best-selling fiction these days actually consists of formulaic genre
    > garbage such as James Patterson-style, assembly-line thrillers with
    > three-page chapters, borderline porn romances with effeminate vampires
    > and repetitive legal thrillers.
    >

    Good point. And the names of the authors on such lists tend to repeat, and repeat... and repeat. I was subsconsciously filtering all that trash out in what I said. Thanks for reminding me of what actually sells the most... Sometimes a good crime novel slips in, but the majority is as you described. On this subject, though, somebody pointed out to me that if one looks in the archives and looks up the bestseller lists from the thirties, forties, fifties, etc., the pattern of trash is quite visible. Not a new phenomenon.

    I hope yawl know that since recently books.google.com has a huge repository of serial publications, including many popular magazines, available online. It should be a good source for research or just to satisfy curiosity.

    Best,

    mrt



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