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New York, 2:50 AM
Wed Nov 11
68 posts in the last 24 hours

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    Dsmvwl  Admin  Promote to frontpage Approve user Ban user ×
    Image of clevernamehere clevernamehere
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    I think the people who complied the list need to really, really examine their bias.

    I cannot believe that 70% of books are written by men. I'd guess the ratio is more like 60f/40m although that may just be my reading habits.

    Assuming that it is a 50/50 split in gender, the odds of the entire list being male by chance are 1 in 1024. Obviously a best books list is based on skill, not chance but the numbers suggest a flat out bias. #booklists
     Reply
    clevernamehere was starred clevernamehere was unstarred
    Image of Rooo sez BISH PLZ Rooo sez BISH PLZ
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    This is just ... so obvious to me. Why does it never occur to these supposedly top-of-the-food-chain-esque literary critics that the very foundation of their critical methodology -- as well as the pedagogy which shapes the methodology -- is informed by these very same prejudices?

    I mean, duh. You go to the Oxford University reading list and, year after year, you see the very same 18th and 19th English authors held up as classics.
    Dusty, musty, rusty, fusty. Never a difference. Nothing from Asia. Nothing from Africa. Nothing from Iceland. Or Norway. Nothing from the 20th damn century, even.

    The only conclusion I can come to is that they get it and just don't give a damn. Which, as far as I'm concerned, is even more of a reason to just completely invalidate their "lists."

    Just -- don't designate your critiques the mostest wellest-informedest of the well-informed the next time if you can't see past your own noses, Cri-Tee-Kays, okay?

    /mini-rant #booklists
     Reply
    Rooo sez BISH PLZ was starred Rooo sez BISH PLZ was unstarred
    Image of LBB LBB
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    .
     Reply
    Edited by LBB at 11/06/09 3:46 PM LBB was starred LBB was unstarred
    Image of TheGintheCity TheGintheCity
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    Upfront, I do think it's ridiculous that there isn't single a woman on this list.

    However, from a purely "publishing person" perspective, if I completely ignore the gender issues, I'm impressed by this list. There's a good mix of different publishers (as opposed to say, last year's NYT top 10 list, out of which 8 books were published by one imprint). There's a mix of fiction/nonfiction/stories/graphic novels. These books are not your average bestseller list fare. I've read "Lost City of Z" and "Jeff in Venice" and loved both, and the Chaon is at the top of my "to read next" list.

    This is tricky, because as a woman who knows a LOT about books, I'm outraged. But I'm also just really glad that people are reading anything. #booklists
     Reply
    LBB promoted this comment TheGintheCity was starred TheGintheCity was unstarred
    Image of LBB LBB
    11/06/09

    @TheGintheCity: What about the genre issues? There's a mix of different formats, but the list appears to be of the "lyrical writing about miserable topics" type, even the graphic novel... and I refuse to believe that there wasn't outstanding, best-of-the-year-worthy work in genre fiction this year. The comment in the article about how there was an outcry for a science fiction title seemed disingenuous to me, as though they want to head off criticisms of how Literary the list is. #booklists
     Reply
    LBB was starred LBB was unstarred
    Image of TheGintheCity TheGintheCity
    11/06/09

    @LBB: This is tricky for me to comment on, because I'm not a fan of genre lit.

    However, I DO agree with you that in 2009, when one of the most "buzzy" books of the year was Pride & Prejudice and Zombies, this list warrants a nod or two to genre.

    (Also, FWIW, I disagree with you a bit about the "miserable topics" thing. Jeff in Venice is sexy and satirical, and even laugh-out-loud hilarious in parts, and Lost City of Z is a straight-up, balls-out adventure tale.)
     Reply
    Edited by TheGintheCity at 11/06/09 4:23 PM TheGintheCity was starred TheGintheCity was unstarred
    Image of clevernamehere clevernamehere
    11/06/09

    @TheGintheCity: I don't think this is a victory for reading. It is an industry list published in an industry publication. The Amazon bestseller list is more of a vistory for reading since it involved actual people buying actual books. #booklists
     Reply
    clevernamehere was starred clevernamehere was unstarred
    Image of hfree hfree
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    Wolf Hall, written by Hilary Mantel, won this year's Booker Prize. The Children's Book, by AS Byatt, and The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters, were short-listed. I'm not saying that the Booker Prize is the authority on the best books (especially as it is self selecting to Commonwealth nations), nor that all readers have the same tastes, but it is seen as reputable book list. It found plenty of women writers, what was Publisher's Weekly's problem? #booklists
     Reply
    hfree was starred hfree was unstarred
    Image of TheGintheCity TheGintheCity
    11/06/09

    @hfree: I just have to comment that I'm 100 pages into The Children's Book and it is a-mazing. But I love AS Byatt, and not everyone does. #booklists
     Reply
    hfree promoted this comment TheGintheCity was starred TheGintheCity was unstarred
    Image of hfree hfree
    11/06/09

    @TheGintheCity: I'm glad to hear it. I love her writing as well. I picked it up from the library but it was a 14 day book and I knew it would take me longer to tackle it (Possession beat me up the first time I read it). #booklists
     Reply
    hfree was starred hfree was unstarred
    Image of TheGintheCity TheGintheCity
    11/06/09

    @hfree: I'm finding this easier than Possession. Rather than long passages of poetry to muddle through, this one has eerie, creepy, awesome fairy tales. #booklists
     Reply
    TheGintheCity was starred TheGintheCity was unstarred
    Image of Diziet_Sma Diziet_Sma
    11/06/09

    @TheGintheCity: I'm about 100 pages from the end, I've never read anything by her before, and I second that!
     Reply
    Edited by Diziet_Sma at 11/06/09 4:52 PM Diziet_Sma was starred Diziet_Sma was unstarred
    Image of Diziet_Sma Diziet_Sma
    11/06/09

    @hfree: That's exactly what I was going to say. Of course, the Booker is only the most prestigious book award in the world, so what do they know? #booklists
     Reply
    Diziet_Sma was starred Diziet_Sma was unstarred
    Image of Dodgergirl Dodgergirl
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    "What we like" is always going to have biases. It's about personal taste and judgment. It's really stupid to try to deny that, and pretty insulting to suggest that "what we like" is definitively THE GREATEST and THE BEST.

    Talking about how they "ignored gender and genre" reminds me of the discussion around Justice Sotomayor, when she dared mention that her race and gender had an effect on her world view. What they almost certainly mean by that is that they didn't give special consideration to female authors nor did they attempt to set up a quota system for books within different genres. What they almost certainly DIDN'T do was question whether their gender or race or class played a part in what books they chose to read in the first place, whether they undervalued certain genres because of personal biases, etc. etc. "Ignoring gender and genre" and attempting to construct a fair list for both men and women? Those are not the same things. #booklists
     Reply
    Dodgergirl was starred Dodgergirl was unstarred
    Image of Taren Taren
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    No no, there's never a bad time for lists! The great thing about a list like this (which is garbage for ignoring women) is that it can inspire discussion, just like what's going on right here. Someone says "hey, I read a great book(s) by a woman this year" and someone else says "me, too" and then we all get all sorts of book recommendations we might not necessarily have gotten before. Also, I love lists and read all that I see, even when I don't really understand what they're talking about (yeah, I'm talking to you, Lost). #booklists
     Reply
    cate3710 promoted this comment Taren was starred Taren was unstarred
    Image of velleity velleity
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    I think the PW is being slightly disingenious when they say they "ignored gender and genre and who had the buzz", because while those things may not effect who ended up on the list, but they probably affected what they chose to read in the first place, and therefore had an indirect influence on what ended up on the list.

    I don't want tokenism, but to say that these things 'just happen' is a cop-out, because they *never* just happen the other way, suggesting that there is some sort of bias somewhere along the line. #booklists
     Reply
    cate3710 promoted this comment velleity was starred velleity was unstarred
    Image of Rooo sez BISH PLZ Rooo sez BISH PLZ
    11/06/09

    @velleity: Slightly? Slightly disingenuous, you say? #booklists
     Reply
    Rooo sez BISH PLZ was starred Rooo sez BISH PLZ was unstarred
    Image of NellMood NellMood
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    I don't know, I've only read one book the PW list (Dan Chaon's, which I thought was brilliant), so I can't really speak to quality of the books on this list. In general top 10 lists seem pretty arbitrary, and aren't something I look to when trying to find books to read.
     Reply
    Edited by NellMood at 11/06/09 3:17 PM NellMood was starred NellMood was unstarred
    Image of applejuice applejuice
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    I thought Lizzie Skurnick also wrote a good column on this topic: [www.politicsdaily.com] #booklists
     Reply
    applejuice was starred applejuice was unstarred
    Image of Zombie Ms. Skittles Zombie Ms. Skittles
    11/06/09

    @applejuice: ...And then we scroll to the comments and the honeymoon is OVER.

    "I love women and have tried all my life to read their novels but I finally gave up this year.
    I am 78 and read only classic lit. Have read about half of the commonly accepted "greatest novels of all time"
    Women just don't write like men. They write for other women.
    They try too hard and they are too structured, too perfect in thier grammer and formatting etc. The avergae length of a sentence in all the women's novels written in the past 100 years is approximately 17 words.
    The average length of a male writer in the same time frame is 28 words."

    And it only took two comments to make me throw up my hands in disgust! #booklists
     Reply
    Zombie Ms. Skittles was starred Zombie Ms. Skittles was unstarred
    Image of Ratinski Ratinski
    11/06/09

    @Zombie Ms. Skittles: If you read further down, a lot of the commenters are calling Charles on his shit. Thank God. #booklists
     Reply
    Ratinski was starred Ratinski was unstarred
    Image of Rooo sez BISH PLZ Rooo sez BISH PLZ
    11/06/09

    @Zombie Ms. Skittles: "They write for other women."
    To which I say,"Whatever, dude. Since more women than men read books, if you say this like it's a bad thing, feel free to imperiously opine yourself right out of a job, there, windbag."
    *massive eyeroll* #booklists
     Reply
    Rooo sez BISH PLZ was starred Rooo sez BISH PLZ was unstarred
    Image of BeckySharper BeckySharper
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    PW is increasingly irrelevant in today's publishing world--they've been overtaken by smarter, nimbler, more thoughtful on-line publications like Publisher's Lunch and Galleycat.

    Laura Miller is 1000% right when she says that the list is just proof of how narrow PW's editors' horizons really are. It's pretty amazing, since women constitute a significant majority of book buyers, editors and publishers. #booklists
     Reply
    BeckySharper was starred BeckySharper was unstarred
    Image of Penny Penny
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    I never pay attention to these lists, I don't even read the NYT Book Review. I pretty much pick up books based on NPR reviews or word-of-mouth.

    NPR's series where they ask an author to choose three books within a particular genre or theme is great. #booklists
     Reply
    Penny was starred Penny was unstarred
    Image of librariesare4lovers librariesare4lovers
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    You should read Stitches as soon as you get the chance. It's amazing. #booklists
     Reply
    librariesare4lovers was starred librariesare4lovers was unstarred
    Image of futuremouse futuremouse
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    Sarah Palin's book isn't even out yet so I don't understand how this list can possibly be complete. I can tell you right now, come November 17 this list will read:

    1. Going Rogue
    2. Going Rogue
    3. Going Rogue
    4. Going Rogue
    5. Going Rogue
    6. Going Rogue
    7. Going Rogue
    8. Something by Dan Brown
    9. Going Rogue
    10. Going Rogue #booklists
     Reply
    futuremouse was starred futuremouse was unstarred
    Image of Lymed Lymed
    11/06/09

    @futuremouse: You forgot #5 will be Jesus Died For America And Other Stories About Why Lefties Hate Kittens by Michelle Bachman #booklists
     Reply
    Lymed was starred Lymed was unstarred
    Image of NellMood NellMood
    11/06/09

    @futuremouse: I love when book lists get mavericked up. #booklists
     Reply
    NellMood was starred NellMood was unstarred
    Image of lurkerbynature lurkerbynature
    11/06/09

    @futuremouse: Was there no Chicken Soup for the Generic Soul published this year? #booklists
     Reply
    futuremouse promoted this comment lurkerbynature was starred lurkerbynature was unstarred
    Image of prismatism prismatism
    11/06/09

    In reply to Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
    How about best within 10 particular genres? Questions like "who wrote the best domestic political nonfiction?" or "who wrote the best historical biography?" might be more likely to turn up a woman author than "who wrote the best book this year?" which seems pretty subjective. #booklists
     Reply
    cate3710 promoted this comment prismatism was starred prismatism was unstarred
    Image of cate3710 cate3710
    11/06/09

    @prismatism: It looks like they have a few other lists broken into genre, and many of them do seem to have women. #booklists
     Reply
    cate3710 was starred cate3710 was unstarred
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