This week at The Millions, we’re attempting to gather some of our thoughts about the transformation of book coverage in the digital age. Yesterday, Garth looked at the death of the newspaper book review section. Today, Max considers the revenue problems facing literary websites… and the vices and virtues of one of the solutions. On Friday, Max will hazard some early guesses about the next possible upheaval in the economy of literary journalism: the e-book reader.I.There’s been no bigger story on the book pages in recent weeks than #Amazonfail. The furor itself hardly needs to be rehashed here (briefly: a supposed classification “glitch” caused thousands of books with gay themes to be removed from Amazon’s bestseller lists and search results, making the books very difficult for readers to find), but the episode has entered into our evolving thinking about book coverage in the digital age. As Edan touched on in her #Amazonfail roundup, some might experience cognitive dissonance reading about the Amazon “glitch” on sites like The Millions.To understand this dissonance, you have to first know something about Amazon’s stakeholders. Yesterday, in considering the fate of newspaper book sections we tried to conduct a similar stakeholder analysis of The New York Times Book Review. We argued that readers, writers, publishers, and critics all have a stake in the NYTBR. Depending on whether you agree with our analysis, you may feel that the NYTBR is overserving or underserving one or more of those parties. Luckily for those who find the NYTBR falling short of their needs, there are plenty of easily accessible alternatives.Like the Times, Amazon occupies a unique niche in the literary ecology (though its footprint is more massive than the NYTBR‘s ever was). Also like the Times, Amazon can serve as a sort of proxy for a larger set of players – in this case, for the New Economy businesses that increasingly mediate book coverage. And Amazon shares some of the Times‘ stakeholders: readers (shoppers), writers, and publishers. Critics wouldn’t seem to play a role, except that Amazon has an important “hidden” stakeholder: the thousands of websites across a spectrum of topics and categories that participate in Amazon’s Associates Program. This program pays site owners referral fees when they send readers to Amazon and those readers then make a purchase. As many of our readers know, The Millions is a participant; readers support our site when they start here before shopping at Amazon. Thus the peculiar sense of a feedback loop generated by our coverage of the #Amazonfail story.II.So, how did small, eclectic sites like The Millions become the “hidden stakeholders” in “the world’s largest bookstore?” It’s all part of a now 15-year-old story: Internet content providers looking for a business model. Particularly for smaller sites without an easily classifiable or marketable focus, Amazon’s Associates Program has proven to be a good (and sometimes the only) alternative to an advertising model that simply doesn’t pay off. (And that, lest we forget, is increasingly not paying off for the print analogs to these sites.) Book coverage has become decreasingly viable in print, and it may be that online book coverage can only avoid the same fate via “alternative” revenue sources like Amazon’s program and others like it. For a website that has a tight focus and occupies a lucrative niche, revenue opportunities are comparatively plentiful. A visitor to a photography site probably likes cameras, and cameras are expensive enough that camera companies will be willing to pay good money to advertise to those readers. In a less lucrative niche (like, say, books), there may be far fewer advertising dollars to go around. Meanwhile, for sites with a broader focus, advertisers are often worried about not getting enough bang for their buck. (Why advertise cameras on a general interest site, when you can advertise to photographers?)The advantages that accrue to the hypothetical photography site in the search for advertising dollars extends to programs like Amazon’s. Plenty of enterprising website owners have made a small fortune writing about lucrative niches and earning commissions when their readers click through to Amazon to buy those big ticket items. But an interesting consequence of the Amazon program is that it has also provided a meaningful revenue stream for a diverse array of sites that might otherwise struggle to pay the bills.To take one example: For the eclectic mega-blog Boing Boing, covering diverse subject matter and appealing to readers from all over the map, there is no obvious target demographic. Boing Boing likely can’t command the ad rates that a more focused site of similar size could. But when Boing Boing has occasion to cover books, it links to Amazon, and it picks up some revenue whenever people click through the links and shop. Boing Boing gets enough traffic that Amazon affiliation is merely one of a number of different revenue opportunities open to it. For smaller sites, the opportunities available are few. (Read Levi Asher’s “Modest Success Story” on Litkicks and the ensuing comments for a taste of what the advertising landscape is like for small culture-focused sites.) And so Amazon can provide a business model, or at least an element of one. At its simplest, the model is as follows: get a lot of traffic by writing compelling content and then throw in the occasional Amazon link when applicable. In this way, Amazon’s Associates Program has helped breathe life into thousands of websites. Eclectic, mom-and-pop publications get a shot at making some money in a fairly unobtrusive fashion. And those publications, adapting to the altered terrain, allow Amazon to expand its presence across the Internet.In theory, a variation of this model could be pursued by all manner of sites. With their broad focus and high traffic, newspaper websites are decent but not ideal venues for advertisers. Were it not so likely to give their omsbudsmen coronaries, newspapers might be willing to augment their advertising revenues with “affiliation,” and dire economic times may yet force their hands. Indeed, The Times (UK) includes a link to “buy the book” with every review, and operates its very own online bookstore.III.Despite all of the above, our partnership with Amazon is an ad hoc one, and the interests of Amazon and its Associates aren’t always aligned. We’ve been doing this long enough to know that Amazon isn’t the only game in town. We’ve been asked more than a few times why we don’t link instead to big independent bookstore Powell’s or to the smaller independents now collectively represented by IndieBound – those sites having been deemed more palatable by some.There’s no reason to dismiss those options out of hand, but right now an Amazon affiliation makes the most sense for many sites offering book coverage. There are several reasons for this, and we share them here – maybe to some small degree to justify our choice, but also to offer a roadmap that current or future players might follow in order to compete with the Amazon juggernaut.For starters, viewed purely as a database, Amazon is a remarkable resource. It has innovated tremendously in this area over the years and currently offers by far the best book pages out there. To borrow an example from the previous post in this series, take a look at Amazon’s page for 2666 and find “search inside the book,” outside reviews, book recommendations, all manner of meta-data, and vibrant discussion among and opinions from readers. Powell’s offers some of these features (including, in some cases, book scans from Google Books), but not quite all. IndieBound has not much at all in the way of book information. When it is suggested that we link to an “indie” when we link to books, the implication is that The Millions is a shopping site and that we can by our linking policy direct people where to shop. But the reality is that The Millions, like many sites that affiliate with Amazon, has an editorial rather than an “advertorial” mission, and one reason we link to Amazon is because it offers the most information about the books we write about, whether we recommend them or deplore them. As long-time blogger Matthew Cheney put it recently, “I want a link to give you the most information and options with the fewest clicks.”There are several more practical factors. Amazon’s tools, reports, and ease of linking are superior to those offered by other stores, and Amazon has a long enough track record that affiliates have little concern that those links may one day stop working properly. Without delving into the boring details, let’s just say that creating the book links for The Millions is not an effortless task, and that the ecosystem of tools that has grown up around the Amazon program lets us spend more time on the stuff our readers care about – namely writing about books. More importantly, other outfits simply don’t have Amazon’s track record in providing an affiliate program. Site owners participating in such programs have to feel comfortable knowing that their links are tracking properly, that the accounting is occurring properly, and that the program won’t change or even disappear. While Amazon isn’t perfect in this regard, it is the affiliation many sites are right now most comfortable using.While indie bookstores are typically seen as being at odds with Amazon, many do business with it. In fact, your favorite used bookstore is almost guaranteed to be selling books using Amazon’s platform. Amazon’s platform, particularly since its purchase of abebooks.com last year, is an essential tool for used booksellers. Authors and publishers may not like how easy it is for Amazon shoppers to click and buy a used copy over a new one, but from the standpoint of bookstores, Amazon gives thousands of local shops a global reach. Money-conscious readers, meanwhile, nearly always have cheaper, used copies to chose from. I don’t buy books all that often from Amazon, but sometimes when I do, I’ll opt for a used copy, and it can be startling to see the book arrive with a bookmark or a card bearing the info of the far flung shop that sold me the book. It’s a tiny personal connection facilitated by the giant Amazon.Both Amazon’s affiliates and used book vendors share the customer conviction that has given Amazon its formidable market share. Over the years, for The Millions and other website projects, I’ve done a great deal of research about different online business models, and, as far as affiliate programs go, the general consensus is that Amazon “converts” at the highest rate – that is, thanks to Amazon’s brand recognition and widespread familiarity with how to use and navigate the site, readers are more likely to buy from it than from other sites. This point is a purely monetary consideration, sure, but it also addresses something else that concerns purveyors of online book coverage. We want to get more books into more peoples’ hands – wherever they buy them from – and linking to Amazon seems likely to do that.While indie bookstores might someday soon surpass Amazon on many of the above points, there is a final element of the Amazon program that will be difficult for the indies to match. When you click from an affiliate site to Amazon and buy something, the affiliate gets a commission (with a few exceptions) no matter what it is. If someone clicks on a link to 2666 and in wending his way through Amazon, ends up buying a $1,700 grill, The Millions gets a commission on that grill. As you can imagine, this doesn’t happen very often. However, the open secret of literature and culture sites that get a modest amount of traffic is that the commissions earned on books alone are not all that impressive (though for sites that earn commissions on a lot of book sales, they can add up). Instead it is the big ticket items that sometimes get bought that help make Amazon’s program more worthwhile than others from a financial standpoint. The grills pay the bills. This is another gray area in an a revenue discussion that is sometimes portrayed in black and white. Amazon sells books at prices that undercut many small players in order to draw people in who will buy big-ticket items with bigger profit margins. For many people, the discussion ends there, but the truth is that the commissions on those big ticket items help subsidize the very same literary and cultural coverage that is having so much trouble finding a workable business model in newspapers and other traditional media. Amazon in some small way, and likely not intentionally, is helping to fund small online publications like The Millions. And there are other well-respected book sites that seem to have come to the same conclusions that we have.IV.In the end, the Amazon question is not one of pricing or sourcing, but one of financial viability. If the future of book coverage is truly online, profit expectations will have to be low (were they ever anything else?), but a world in which writers and editors can be compensated for their labor is a better one for readers. There aren’t many meaningful revenue options for book sites, and some do without entirely, but Amazon offers a model that can go a long way toward supporting a small publication.That said, affiliation raises two problems. One is the potential editorial conflict inherent in affiliate programs in the first place, the notion that the presence of these links will tempt writers and editors into becoming shills rather than dispassionate critics. Despite this, participation in affiliate programs hasn’t been met with much concern. And though these programs are sometimes described as a threat to readers, in an online marketplace with thousands of places to read about books, it’s unlikely that disingenuously positive book reviews written just to sell books would garner much of a following, nor would the effort make anyone very rich.The other, bigger problem with Amazon is one of size and control. Is it a good thing for us to give more power to this behemoth link by link, post by post? This will be the focus of the final installment of this series, as we examine Amazon’s heft and how it has been able to make its own rules in an emerging market – rules that could have big implications for publishing and the future of book coverage online.Part 1: Garth looks at the death of the newspaper book review section.Part 3: Max hazards some early guesses about the next possible upheaval in the economy of literary journalism.[Image credits: Rachel Kramer Bussel, spcbrass, mccun934]
I’m surprised not to see Sarah Waters on either list.
I was so happy to see that readers included Jhumpa Lahiri after a snubbing by the panel.
Oh, and ditto Murakami.
I think something to take away from the whole exercise is that it is silly to ascribe merit numerically. Number one, number three, number thirteen—these are basically meaningless distinctions (unless, I suppose, you are running a race). Consider the Modern Library 100, which creates a fairly arbitrary, often ridiculous, hierarchy between books, using basically the same process used for this list (which is, to reiterate, *not* a round-table consensus-type situation, but one based on tallies). Folks seem a little grumpy about The Corrections’ number one spot. Of course it feels a odd to call The Corrections “the best novel of the millennium.” But I don’t see how any of the novels we talked about this week would be less troublesome in that lauded position (unless, naturally, they happen to be your particular favorite).
We’re all just having a good time, right?
I would take the readers’ list over the panel’s anytime. The Corrections is only notable for the Oprah huff, other than that its professorial navel-gazing which is why it was at the top.
I thought that The Interpreter of Maladies came out in ’99.
What is it with people and “professorial?” I keep hearing this adjective leveled at things I find conspicuously intelligent, but maybe it’s meant to denote some tone or rhetorical trait to which I (a quasi-professor) am as deaf as a human to a dog-whistle. Do people hate professors? I’ve always sort of liked them. At any rate, between Chip, Gary, Denise, Enid, and Alfred, there seems to be something for everyone in The Corrections. But maybe not?
You conducted a big poll and went through all of the trouble of tabulating and organizing and compiling this list and that’s what sits at the top? Why even bother with the whole exercise? One thing has been made definitely clear though: what most professional writers want, more than anything, is not to be the best writers they can be, but the best that the market wants them to be, to be rich and famous. Yawn. So the best example of fiction writing so far this decade is an enormous, encyclopedic novel written by a very tall white guy who wears glasses. The more things change the more they stay the same. I think this comment should end with a cliched statement like that in honor of your cliched, safe, zeitgeist-approved choice.
It’s not the destination, it’s the journey?
I’m surprised at how _Kafka on the Shore_ did on the reader’s list. I felt like it was one of Murakami’s weakest novels ever (and maybe that’s a testament to his skill and ability).
Both _White Teeth_ and _Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell_ were excellent books. Definitely among my favorites of the millennium.
The whole point is to spur debate, right? Now’s when the fun begins. My personal quibble: no Aleksandar Hemon? I nominate Nowhere Man. (Oh, by the way, Hemon is also a tall white man with glasses. Oh well.)
I personally love tall white guys who wear glasses. Sexy!
And is anyone really surprised that the top book is one that’s been a commercial and critical success? In order to get the #1 spot, a book had to have the most votes, and it would be difficult for a less well known book to win, simply because the fewer people who have read a book means fewer people voting for it.
I know people who hated The Corrections or thought it mediocre, and that’s fair. But I also know people who hate a book simply because lots of other people like it…
That said, I enjoyed The Corrections very much, I had fun nominating my favorite books, and I loved reading the write-ups for all the ones that made the list. I can’t wait to get my hands on American Genius and Mortals, two books I knew very little about before the list was published.
Where oh where is China Mieville? As far as I’m concerned, he’s the tops–at least in fantasy/science fiction. But THANKS for excluding the author of Angels and Demons, whats his name!
EUROPE CENTRAL should be among this august list, but I can only assume few of the Millions voters have read it. It’s long and difficult, don’t you know, and its subject matter is not trendy. Vollmann’s execution of his great ambition is intimidating — few of the authors here (Bolano, perhaps a couple of others) could conceive of such a project, let alone complete it. And following its example will not make you a more marketable young writer.
Sorry to be so snarky, but, really….
Also, KAVALIER AND CLAY, TREE OF SMOKE, and OMEGA MINOR
How about Netherland?
The stand-out quality of The Corrections, and the reason it deserves a spot at least near the top (if there has to be a list at all), is that it’s a genuine novel of social criticism (that is, not social criticism masquerading as a novel, or vice versa). Franzen deserves praise for revitalizing the form. It’s more Jane Austen than John Updike.
Interpreter of Maladies did come out in ’99, and as such, should be disqualified. (That’s not to take away from its quality or the quality of Lahiri’s writing. Just that it doesn’t meet the criteria for inclusion.)
I think both of these lists are full of great novels and story collections. The comments are focusing largely on what wasn’t included and the consensus seems to be that the big, difficult novels got the shaft. I’m not sure this is entirely correct, as 2666 placed pretty highly on the list. Perhaps a book like Tree of Smoke lost out because it’s taking a while for readers to digest it, but again, 2666 puts the lie to that theory. To suggest that a book like Europe Central didn’t make the list because nobody must’ve read it is nutty. I read it. It wasn’t in my top 5. It’s an incredible book and it digs into consciousness in a way I’d never seen before, but I happen to think The Corrections is a better novel. Big and difficult doesn’t always equally better and more impressive, despite what the commentors on this site so often suggest.
While I agree with Tom, I still wouldn’t give it anywhere close to the top spot. I thought it was pretty middling, and I don’t necessarily think we need any sort of “return to form” in an era where new voices, traditionally kept out of mainstream publishing, are finally coming to the forefront.
I think Junot Diaz deserves that number one.
But hey, great list! It’s nice to just have a compiled list of suggested contemporary reading, which – for some reason – is difficult to come by. (But I’ll take suggestions) .
Dang it – several sources I looked at said 2000 for Interpreter of Maladies, but I guess that’s just when she won the Pulitzer… So, Unaccustomed Earth got several votes – how about we swap that in (and counting the combined votes she got for her three books, Lahiri deserves to be on there.)
I think the panel’s list is stronger, but both are missing some key books… but that’s always to be expected. I enjoyed these lists!
Oops, I was one of the people who nominated Interpreter of Maladies on my reader’s choice list, and somehow also convinced myself it came out in 2000. But Unaccustomed Earth is great! I’m curious, did The Namesake get many votes? I’ve never liked it as much as her short stories.
Actually, Laura, it looks like The Namesake didn’t get any votes, but Unaccustomed and Interperter got almost the same number, and combined would have moved Lahiri up the list a few spots (it seems like most folks agree with you that Lahiri’s short stories are where it’s at).
Garth:
I think “professorial” has become a synonym for “intellectual.” On the one hand, I understand how someone would criticize a writer for this trait. Some writers, like many professors, can take the soul out of a story. The heady language, the “ideas,” obfuscate the feelings and emotions.
But, for the most part, the label of “professorial” is lazy. I’ve heard the tag thrown at Pynchon and DFW, for example, but I’ve encountered some of the most beautiful, well written, emotion-filled passages in both of their books.
I understand the criticism some readers have about “The Corrections.” The language, at times, does seem to take on the self-pity and cynicism of its characters. I too struggled with this, and I think it’s fair to call attention to it– as many notable critics have. But, overall, I’m certain Franzen was well-aware of this. So the questions should be why does he write like this and, secondly, is he successful? In all, Franzen has an incredible talent for family drama, and the book is incredibly well-written and challenging– two traits any great novel should have.
What I don’t agree with are the knee-jerk reactions to the book. Franzen tends to catch the same lazy criticism as Pynchon and Wallace and Delillo. And you are right to challenge the term “professorial” in this case, which, in essence, is a cynical attack on ambition. These attacks, many of which come from those who haven’t read the books in question, stem from a misunderstanding about the writing process and, in general, irreverence for authors who experiment and try to push the form.
Most writers, to counter W.S., aren’t out to be famous. To accuse Franzen of this is ridiculous because “The Corrections” is an anomaly. Serious writers with literary ambitions don’t make the long dollar– most artists without a mind for entertainment aren’t the ones living in luxury.
And irreverence: this is a trend I don’t understand. Many like to bash “high-art” as pretentious and elitist and snobbish. It’s as if great art is all a facade, a hoax. The people who make it are intellectuals and the people who consume it want to look smart. No, great art is ambitious, challenging, and requires a finer taste.
And to “The Millions” crew and the writers who participated: thanks for the list. I don’t agree with some of the books, but who cares? The numbers game is a matter of preference, and there isn’t a dud on the list. Thanks for sparking conversation, reminding me of books I’ve read, and encouraging me to read the books I haven’t.
I have to agree with PJ about Aleksandar Hemon. Nowhere Man didn’t make a big splash when it was published, but it is (I hope) one of those books that will keep growing in stature as the years pass. Few writers have ever captured the dislocations of the refugee/exile experience as vividly as Hemon. The book is structurally dazzling, and the way Hemon reinvigorates the English language puts native speakers on notice that their mother tongue has grown tired of being taken for granted and has found herself a new lover.
I’m okay with the White Teeth snub because, though it’s a fantastic book, the ending’s pretty damn lame. I wonder if Tree of Smoke didn’t make it because, well, it’s massive, and it’s hard to vote for something you can’t finish.
“Most writers, to counter W.S., aren’t out to be famous. To accuse Franzen of this is ridiculous because “The Corrections” is an anomaly. Serious writers with literary ambitions don’t make the long dollar– most artists without a mind for entertainment aren’t the ones living in luxury.”
Right. Most writers long to live in penury and anonymity. Especially writers like Franzen, which would explain his habitual need to tell other people why whatever it is he is working on at any given moment is exactly what the publishing world, and the reading public, needs.
I think the problem with your argument is your example. Franzen is a middlebrow novelist working with traditional material to make what amounts to more of the same. The Corrections is just another in a long line of novels that flatters its audience into thinking that their lives have some kind of universal truth to them, as if a Chef, a Writer and a Businessman are avatars for all of humanity. The Corrections, to me, said nothing new about anything and did it in a way that was neither innovative nor exciting. I guess that it was picked number one by the panel shouldn’t really come as a surprise when you see who made up the panel.
I too think Oscar Wao deserves the top slot (and agree about Hemon and would have loved to see Colum McCann somewhere) but as some have observed the rankings are pretty subjective anyway.
On a separate note, while I am amused at some of the sharp rhetoric flying around, I also think it’s great to see so many so passionate about books and reading. Three cheers to the Millions for sparking such lively conversation!
The lists are very solid top to bottom, but am I the only person surprised by the lack of love on either list for Atwood’s Blind Assassin? Seems like a rather prominent omission.
I’m also curious if any of Philip Roth’s books from the decade got any votes.
I voted for the Blind Assassin, PScott! That was the one I felt sad about.
W.S., there are undoubtedly things to be said against The Corrections, but you’re getting a touch personal there.
PScott,
I considered a couple of Roth books — namely The Human Stain — but in the end, they didn’t make my top 5. If we did this same thing for the 90s, I might have picked American Pastoral #1 overall. There were actually quite a few authors whose best work seemed to happen in the late 90s, and as such, just missed the cut.
It’s interesting that The Corrections has been labelled “professorial,” considering that the occupation and the ivory tower are the target of some keen (and hilarious) satire in Franzen’s novel. Also, evidence for Franzen’s beliefs in the pleasures of writing and reading is all over the place. Alas, the suggestion that something is trying to be intelligent does leave the impression of elitism. As readers, though, it’s up to us to enter a dialogue with the writer and not just approach art as a cheap fix, but as a means of communicating something of value. I think Franzen does this well.
I love Oscar Wao and Jhumpa Lahiri! I got two copies of The Known World for m birthday years ago and COULD NOT FINISH IT! I just lost interest in the plot around page 300, and did not feel like slogging through to the end.
I actually read Middlesex last week and loved it. I read Cloud Atlas earlier this year and enjoyed it qute a bit (except the longest story in the middle). The Road I was forced to read by my book club and thought it was okay.
I have read 9 of the top 20 “readers choices” (6 of the top 10) but almost none on the critics list.
I look forward to reading The Corrections soon.
It seems unfair to exclude The Savage Detectives considering its English translation came later and its impact was most certainly felt in this millennium as opposed to the last.
Also, I found it more inventive than The Savage Detectives in nearly every way: http://wwtawwta.blogspot.com/2009/05/2666.html
p.s. W.S. = Will Speers?
LB
I’m very surprised that “Life of Pi” did not make the list. Regardless of what you think of Yann Martel’s other work, this one should stand the test of time.
Life of Pi? Really?
Went searching for Norman Rush’s Mortals, found it in the remainders at Book City in Toronto for six bucks. Not bad.
Out Stealing Horses is a personal favourite. I was pleased and surprised to see it in the Pro list as it seldom gets a mention
Shout out to “Gould’s Book of Fish”, by Richard Flanagan.
“The Corrections” is the best novel of the millennium, so far? C’mon. Seriously?
How utterly boring.
That choice is more a reflection of a writerly clique than the book’s worthiness.
For the record, I have read six of the twenty critics’ choices and seven of the twenty readers’ choices. The Corrections is one of those. I was underwhelmed. Franzen can write a sentence, but the book lacked depth.
As one example of a flaw, the scene with the talking poo is derivative of Mr. Hanky of South Park fame. Mr. Hanky has been around since 1997, so South Park gets credit. And, I guess, my biggest problem with the book was that Franzen seemed primarily interested in zaniness (like the fish down the pants which seemed for all the world like a Seinfeld (Kramer) bit.) rather than saying anything new about the human condition. And, no, his one-dimensional shots at big pharma, the cruise industry, etc. do not qualify.
Still, the two lists are outstanding and provide the spur I need to catch up on some of the millenium’s best (if sometimes overrated) writing.
I was so pleased to see Austerlitz make both lists; I admire Sebold so much and I’m planning on starting The Emigrants soon. What is it with our need to “rank” in order, by number? I like the idea of bounded sets or intersecting circled sets of favorites instead of lists. With a list, where do I start…at the top? I’m interested in the intersections and what else is being read. I’m probably gonna start with Gilead, Cloud Atlas, and Never Let Me Go, based on how near they were on the list to other favorites that I’ve read. It’s all so…whacked. But what a great load of fun.
I contributed titles, but none of mine made it in the top 20…I figured they wouldn’t, but I’d love to see the entire list of submitted titles if that exists somewhere! It’s fun to see which titles got chosen the most, but I’d be more interested in seeing everything that was nominated and how many votes each title received. Max, would that be a possibility?
Hi Leah, Thanks for taking part. I’m not sure if we’ll be publishing the readers’ list of titles – probably not – but we have published the panel’s list.
Corrections??? How can that be? It is a novel of cartoons.
Very high on my top 20 list would be Kathryn Davis’s “The Thin Place,” Kate Walbert’s “A Short History of Women,” and Jane Gardam’s “Old Filth.”
My fave book of the decade is “Sacred Games” by Vikran Chandos. How can these idiots omit it?
I’ve read only Murakami, but looking forward for top-list… Thanks!