by Sarah Statz Cords
So did you notice any trends in how many review source stars were awarded to 2010 fiction and nonfiction titles, as opposed to how many “best of” lists the same books popped up on?
Because I am most interested in nonfiction, my eyes went right to the nonfiction results. A first question for me was, only 18 of the books on the most “best of” lists were nonfiction? Why would that be? It’s harder to come to a consensus on good nonfiction? “Best of…” lists tend to focus on fiction? Even without considering the numbers of stars those nonfiction titles received, there’s plenty of questions to be asked about NF and yearly “best” lists.
But, looking at our chart, I also notice that the review sources don’t seem to be particularly good at indicating when a nonfiction title will take off in the zeitgeist. At first glance, with the top titles Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks and Isabel Wilkerson’s The Warmth of Other Suns, garnering four stars each, the review journals seem to be doing a great job. But scanning further down the list reveals some weaknesses: Michael Lewis’s popular and timely business/investigative title The Big Short only garnering one star, although it popped up on 31 “Best of” lists? Keith Richards’s memoir Life only getting one star, and Stephen Sondheim’s memoir not getting any? And how on earth did everyone miss Laura Hillenbrand’s long-awaited return to nonfiction (after her bestselling title Seabiscuit)? Her book of World War II biography and history, Unbroken, also didn’t receive any stars.
Strange stuff. Looking at the nonfiction alone, I think I’d be tempted to say that the biggest review journals often used by library staff did not do a particularly fantastic job of indicating which titles would take off with readers (or at least critics who serve readers). Why would this be? Speaking personally, I wonder if reviewers for these publications always understand exactly what constitutes a “star”-able title. Only titles they think are “superlative”? Titles they may or may not have that were great, but will be big sellers and popular with mainstream reviewers? Perhaps one of the problems is that reviewers for these journals in particular aren’t given a lot of guidelines.
What do YOU think?
