CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that on the week of October 26, David Limbaugh’s book “Persecution” had been on The New York Times bestseller list for 10 weeks, and was the only book on the list marked by a dagger. In fact, Limbaugh’s book had been on the list for only three weeks, and was one of several books that week marked by daggers.
Hi Ellen,
The sticks and stones adage may have it all wrong: Words — i.e. books — apparently can wound, especially if they come with daggers.
Daggers are the icons The New York Times attaches to bestselling books that reportedly have benefited by bulk sales. Lately, they have become a weapon in an on-going liberal vs. conservative battle for bestseller supremacy.
The daggers were initiated by the Times after two writers in 1995 rounded up credit cards from their co-workers to buy batches of their book in order to propel it onto the prestigious New York Times bestseller list. The strategy worked. (The supposedly confidential list of stores that report their book sales to the New York Times for the list apparently has always been the world’s worst kept secret). But the daggers didn’t deter bulk buyers. In 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning Washington Post reporter David Vise bought 20,000 copies of his own book, “The Bureau and the Mole,” from barnesandnoble.com at a discounted rate over four weeks in January and February (and then returned 17,500 copies and demanded a refund!). This caused his rivals to accuse him of also trying to manipulate bestseller lists. Vise claimed he was buying them to offer autograph copies of his book on his website.
Now my question is this: With publishers’ dire reports about slumps in reading and book buying in America, why are so many political partisans all of a sudden interested in the bestseller list? Even politicians seem to think that writing a book will give them some added cachet. Wesley Clark, John Kerry, and Dennis Kucinich all have books out, and books by some of the other presidential candidates are on the horizon. But do they have any political impact at all? Who reads these books except the already convinced? Is the bestseller list ever an accurate barometer of current political tastes? For example, does the fact that there are more liberals currently on the bestseller list than conservatives say anything at all about the political mood of the country? I have my doubts. For years, conservative books dominated the list. Still, in the last election, this country was divided right down the middle. What do you think this battle over the bestseller list is all about? Are we all just engaging in bulk buying ideology?
For the record, there is only one dagger attached to one of the top 10 books on The New York Times bestseller list for the week of October 26 (posted on the newspaper’s website): David Limbaugh’s “Persecution,” which, according to the Times, argues that “liberals are waging a war against Christianity.” The book, which has been 3 weeks on the list, came in at No. 9.
Margo,
Obviously, the liberals have taken a page out of the conservatives’ playbook: Spread the word via whatever medium you can. And, let’s face it, a book translates into potential television appearances. Sadly, this is where the louder you shout, the wider the exposure for pushing your book. Only a few anointed ones can still speak softly and garner a big print run — Bob Woodward, for example, because of his Watergate celebrity and tremendous enterprise as an author. Everyone else has to make as much noise as possible. Bill O’Reilly has the best gig of all: a nightly talk show that’s one long infomercial for his books, not to mention an assortment of other geegaws. His latest tack is to tell viewers how many liberal books are out there, and their best way to fight the deluge is — I kid you not — to buy his latest.
On the matter of bestsellers: Will the day ever come when people can speak about The New York Times list without treating it as the end all and be all for any given book? There are so many other telling measurements of what America reads: the more all-encompassing Amazon.com ratings and the populist USA Today list, for one; and, for another, Book Sense, which confines its survey to independent booksellers and therefore gives a more precise picture than the others, I believe, of what the people who really love books — the sellers and the buyers who visit these little islands of literary sanity — are choosing. I know, I know: Opinion makers read The Times. But, as the books on their list show, their methodology is designed to serve an opinion-maker audience, not to reflect the broad range of tastes and categories that can be found in book publishing. (Where are the lists for cookbooks? Diet books? Books about religion?)
In my view, no matter which side controls more slots on the bestseller lists, neither the liberals nor the conservatives are winning. We’re all losing by being exposed to so much vitriol. Let me suggest two new books that I believe make much better reading than the self-serving, mud-slinging books already mentioned: First, “Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship,” by Newsweek managing editor Jon Meacham, who calls the relationship between FDR and Winston Churchill “the most fascinating friendship of modern times.” As Meacham shows us, it was a chess player’s friendship, born of intense need and conducted with canny regard. But both men also liked each other, and his warm, detailed portrait goes down as easily as Doris Kearns Goodwin’s “No Ordinary Time.” Another is a related book, “Never Give In!: The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches,” as selected by Churchill’s grandson. The book, unfortunately, doesn’t include Churchill’s secret speech to the House of Commons, given April 23, 1943, in which he catalogued his country’s dire military situation and expressed faith in the United States. But the stirring testimonies during the dark days of the war and even after his political defeat show such grace and eloquence: “Never flinch, never weary, never despair,” he declared. I wonder what he’d make of the current whining.
Ellen,
Yes, I think you are right that the loudest and the loutiest seem to be getting the most attention lately. The liberals are learning that being conciliatory in this heated climate doesn’t get you anywere — or at least not on talk shows. But I do think it’s sad that the two books you mention are history books and not current political tomes. The only book in the current pack I’d recommend is Gen. Wesley Clark’s “Winning Modern Wars.” Unlike the others, it’s not filled with platitudes and campaign pitches (well, at least not until the very end), and it actually presents a coherent analysis of our war in Iraq, the battle against terrorism, and America as empire. Most reviewers will probably find it too wonky — his detailed retelling of what he calls “Gulf War, Round Two” is heavy sledding. I found it, however, enormously useful in tracking what went wrong (and right) in Iraq. Clark obviously is a man who has thought about what America’s foreign policy can and cannot do.
But where are the serious analyses by those with less self-serving aims? I would like to see more books like “The System: The American Way of Politics at the Breaking Point” by David Broder and Haynes Johnson. That book illustrates just how damaging the current extreme partisanship can be. The book dissects the political battle during the early Clinton years over health care reform. Evenhanded, Broder and Johnson, step by step, chronicle both the arrogance of the Clintons in their health insurance initiative and the crassness of Gingrich and company in exploiting the fight purely for political gain. We, the public, of course, are the losers. Maybe if that book had been bought in bulk, we wouldn’t be in the health care mess we are in today.
