“If we are looking for a single category to explain why women are better represented among best-selling authors today, the Literary/None category is our best candidate. Most best-selling books fall into this category, and its change over time closely matches the overall gender ratio, shifting from extreme bias in the 1980s to close to parity in the 2000s.” Rosie Cima has put together a beautifully thorough and thoughtful analysis of gender, best-seller lists, and publishing for The Pudding. For a more exegetical analysis, consider our own Sonya Chung‘s exploration of writing across gender lines.
Approaching Parity
Bibliophilic Crack
In the spring of 2006, John Unsworth taught a graduate seminar on “Twentieth-Century American Bestsellers.” It led to one of history’s finest class projects–a browsable database of bestsellers, 337 in all. As with any bestseller lists, you’ll find a range of titles, everything from Thomas Wolfe to Tom Clancy, but click through and find that each entry includes an extremely detailed description of the book’s history (these were compiled by graduate students, after all); a mini-essay on its reception; images of covers, page layouts, and even some ads; and more. It is, in short, bibliophilic crack. (Thanks Craig)
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The New Republic’s New Reader
The New Republic, which was recently acquired by Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes, has started a super clean, neat little news reader.
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The Chosen Ones
“The second prophecy was even more intense than the first one, and introduced a lot of new rules I didn’t even know existed, but everyone else seemed to kind of already know about them. But you know what? We’re a misfit band of teens who will do anything for each other now, like stand up to that town bully who’s not even scary to us anymore, now that we’ve faced pure evil and lived.” An excerpt of Mallory Ortberg’s best-selling YA novel.
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DeAndre McCullough Dies
DeAndre McCullough died last week at the age of 35. McCullough was famously portrayed as the young protagonist in David Simon and Edward Burns’s book The Corner, which went on to become its own HBO miniseries. The Wire later adopted aspects from both the book and the miniseries. The obituary Simon wrote is not to be missed.
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We Appreciate Your Support
Thanks to all The Millions readers who have supported the site over the last several months. If you are heading back to school now, check out our Support page to see how you can support the site without taking any extra dollars from your pockets. Advertisers: We have been seeing some great ads on the site of late. Check out the Blog Ads Book Hive to advertise on The Millions and other great literary sites.
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Happy 10th Birthday, Melville House
Melville House turned 10 years old this week, and one way to celebrate the occasion is by reading this lovely profile of the indie publisher’s founders.
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