August 18, 2009--Best Selling
How many copies a book must sell to jump to the top of the New York Times’ Bestseller list may be a closely guarded secret; but it's obvious, looking at the top-ten on this past Sunday's nonfiction list that those folks who spend all day watching Fox News spend all night, assuming they actually read them, reading books by the likes of Bill O'Reilly, whose immodestly-titled number ten-listed book, A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity—a tome about his self-proclaimed larger-than-life self; or Dick Morris, whose number four-ranked book is Catastrophe—about how we have to stop Barack Obama before he truns America into a socialist state; or Mark Levin's number two, Liberty and Tyranny—a Rush Limbaugh recommended conservative manifesto which see liberalism as a sinister movement; or at the top of the list, ultra-conservative blogger and talk-show personality Michelle Malkin's Culture and Corruption—who claims that most the key officials in the Obama administration are crooks, influence peddlers, and tax cheats. (See link below for the full list.)
What's especially good about these books, which perennially wind up on the list, is that the title says it all--Corruption! Catastrophe! Tyranny! Which can save a lot of reading time.
Liberals may pride themselves on being better ivy-educated and more interested in nuanced ideas, but from who appears to be buying books, it looks as if the self-anointed cultural elite are not among them. Though, perhaps, people of my political persuasion are buying and of course reading some of the other bestsellers.
For this more discerning set there is Ian Halpern’s number five, Unmasked about Michael Jackson’s final years; The End of Overeating at number six—the title tells it all; for middlebrows, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink, at the number three slot, Outliers—about why some people succeed; and at number seven Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior which details Teddy Roosevelt’s crusade for conservation.
To give you a sense of what awaits you if you check Malkin's list-topper out of the library, here's a glimpse of what’s been on her so-called mind.
In addition to listing in her new quickie-book all the Obama officials such as Peter Geithner who were revealed to have tax problems during their confirmation hearings, Malkin is also the one who started the false report that Michelle Obama’s “entire professional career was based on nepotism”; that it was proper to detain Japanese citizens in versions of concentration camps during World War II because conditions there were not all that bad anyway; and as part of her relentless anti-immigrant ranting, she has advocating amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in the USA. Some strict constructionist.
But if you are still looking for books to read this summer, I’d suggest either David Heymann’s number 12, Bobby and Jackie (I’ll bet you can figure out where he finds them on frequent occasion); and then, at 13, there’s always Tori Spelling’s Mommywood about, yes, motherhood in Hollywood, which has been lingering on the bestseller list for almost two months. Must be a page-turner.
As for me, I think I’ll pick up War and Peace again. I just can’t get enough of that Rus-lit.
What's especially good about these books, which perennially wind up on the list, is that the title says it all--Corruption! Catastrophe! Tyranny! Which can save a lot of reading time.
Liberals may pride themselves on being better ivy-educated and more interested in nuanced ideas, but from who appears to be buying books, it looks as if the self-anointed cultural elite are not among them. Though, perhaps, people of my political persuasion are buying and of course reading some of the other bestsellers.
For this more discerning set there is Ian Halpern’s number five, Unmasked about Michael Jackson’s final years; The End of Overeating at number six—the title tells it all; for middlebrows, Malcolm Gladwell, the author of Blink, at the number three slot, Outliers—about why some people succeed; and at number seven Douglas Brinkley’s The Wilderness Warrior which details Teddy Roosevelt’s crusade for conservation.
To give you a sense of what awaits you if you check Malkin's list-topper out of the library, here's a glimpse of what’s been on her so-called mind.
In addition to listing in her new quickie-book all the Obama officials such as Peter Geithner who were revealed to have tax problems during their confirmation hearings, Malkin is also the one who started the false report that Michelle Obama’s “entire professional career was based on nepotism”; that it was proper to detain Japanese citizens in versions of concentration camps during World War II because conditions there were not all that bad anyway; and as part of her relentless anti-immigrant ranting, she has advocating amending the U.S. Constitution to eliminate the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment that grants citizenship to anyone born in the USA. Some strict constructionist.
But if you are still looking for books to read this summer, I’d suggest either David Heymann’s number 12, Bobby and Jackie (I’ll bet you can figure out where he finds them on frequent occasion); and then, at 13, there’s always Tori Spelling’s Mommywood about, yes, motherhood in Hollywood, which has been lingering on the bestseller list for almost two months. Must be a page-turner.
As for me, I think I’ll pick up War and Peace again. I just can’t get enough of that Rus-lit.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
5:07 AM
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