NY Times Bestseller list

This is fun:

1. LIES (AND THE LYING LIARS WHO TELL THEM), by Al Franken.

4. LIVING HISTORY, by Hillary Clinton.

5. TREASON, by Ann Coulter.

8. BIG LIES, by Joe Conason.

9. THIEVES IN HIGH PLACES, by Jim Hightower.

15. STUPID WHITE MEN, by Michael Moore.

That's the NY Times top 15 hard-cover nonfiction bestsellers. If I could figure out how to write something longer than three paragraphs, I would try to jump on this bandwagon. But alas, three paragraphs seems to be my limit. The best I can hope to accomplish is encourage -- nay, urge -- you guys to buy these books (well, you don't have to buy Coulter's book of you don't want...).

And get ready for the "book primary", as ideological partisans battle for supremacy of the book charts:

Both Cohen and Charlotte Abbot, Book News editor at Publishers Weekly, said selling trends will become clearer later this year, when new books by conservative journalists Bill O'Reilly, Tucker Carlson, and Bernard Goldberg match up against new books by liberal firebrands Molly Ivins and Moore.

In any case, as gratifying as it may be to see our ideological bretheren burning up the bestseller charts, we still have a great deal of work to accomplish:

As of last May, the top 44 radio stations of 50,000 watts and above owned by the five largest ownership groups carried 312 hours of nationally syndicated conservative talk and five hours of nationally syndicated liberal talk, according to statistics quoted at a Senate hearing.

Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch said it was all a matter of ratings: "Apparently conservative talk is more popular."

It's more popular because we don't have a choice.

Incidentally, I laughed when I saw this:

neither Conason nor his book about purported right-wing lies has gotten much hype at all -- and it's still at number 8.

Sure Conason hasn't gotten sued by Fox News or anything exciting like that, but the book has been hyped extensively online. Conason did a guest post on dKos and has otherwise promoted the book all across the left-leaning web. Not to mention his own Salon column as well.

Much as Dean's online efforts catapulted him into frontrunner status, we're going to see books successfully marketed online. And while those in the offline world might marvel at such successes despite the "lack of hype", we'll know far better.

Posted September 16, 2003 02:50 AM | Comments (97)