Heads and Tails and Book Sales
Monday, July 7th, 2008Barbara Fister has written an interesting post that stems from a discussion about the tendency to follow trends, read buzz books, watch hyped movies, etc. I don’t want to steal her thunder, because her post is excellent, so I’m just linking to it and adding a few thoughts and questions.
Barbara raises the question of how she decides what to read. I’ve always had a bit of an aversion to over-hyped things, which may be part of the reason why I fall outside the mainstream, but I also had the experience of someone passing on a book to me that they admittedly bought “just to see what was on the bestseller lists these days”. I loathed the book and it drove a key point home: Just because it was selling well didn’t mean it wasn’t total crap.
Ultimately, I’ve reached the same conclusion Barbara has about referrals. What about you? How do you decide what to read next? Do you think more people are reading the blockbusters, or has the internet expanded our access to more obscure titles?
