Comments on: what makes a (British) bestseller?

By: dud

dud — Wed, 16 Jul 2003 07:00:39 +0000

sugar : 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.

By: eldan

eldan — Mon, 14 Jul 2003 20:09:46 +0000

dud: are you sure that Middlemarch and Access For Dummies weren’t just false covers to hide Harry Potter?

By: Sugar Kane

Sugar Kane — Mon, 14 Jul 2003 14:59:44 +0000

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.

By: dud

dud — Mon, 14 Jul 2003 13:36:19 +0000

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