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Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books?
New York, 3:08 PM
Fri Dec 18
69 posts in the last 24 hours
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Is It Time To Stop Listing "Best" Books? |
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11/06/09
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
11/06/09
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
11/06/09
11/06/09
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
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11/06/09
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.)
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11/06/09
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
11/06/09
11/06/09
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
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11/06/09
"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
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11/06/09
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
11/06/09
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
11/06/09
NPR's series where they ask an author to choose three books within a particular genre or theme is great. #booklists
11/06/09
11/06/09
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
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