Product Description

'I rejoice', said Doctor Johnson, 'to concur with the Common Reader.' For the last century, the tastes and preferences of the common reader have been reflected in the American and British bestseller lists, and this Very Short Introduction takes an engaging look through the lists to reveal what we have been reading - and why. John Sutherland shows that bestseller lists monitor one of the strongest pulses in modern literature and are therefore worthy of serious study. Along the way, he lifts the lid on the bestseller industry, examines what makes a book into a bestseller, and asks what separates bestsellers from canonical fiction. Exploring the relationship between bestsellers and the fashions, ideologies, and cultural concerns of the day, the book includes short case-studies and lively summaries of bestsellers through the years: from iIn His Steps/i - now almost totally forgotten, but the biggest all-time bestseller between 1895 and 1945, to iGone with the Wind/i and iThe Andromeda Strain/i, and iThe Da Vinci Code/i.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #454446 in Books
• Published on: 2007-11-25
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .32" h x 4.45" w x 6.86" l, .28 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

Review
His amiable trawl through the history of popular books is frequently entertaining Scott Pack, The Times breezily entertaining Kevin Power, Irish Times (Dublin) Sutherland effectively challenges the assumption that a book's commercial success somehow invalidates either its author's integrity or the critical acumen of its readers. Instead we are offered a plausible vision of the blockbuster or the bodice-ripper as narrative in its purest form. Jonathan Keates, TLS

About the Author
John Sutherland is Emeritus Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, and Professor of Literature at Caltech. He has published many books, including, most recently, iSo You Think You Know Jane Austen?/i and iSo You Think You Know Thomas Hardy?/i, and has edited 15 volumes in the Oxford World's Classics series (most recently Lytton Strachey's iEminent Victorians/i). He writes and reviews widely, including in the iTLS/i and iLRB/i, and writes regular columns in the iGuardian/i, iFinancial Times/i, iNew Statesman/i, and iSunday Telegraph/i. In 2005, he was chair of the Man-Booker fiction prize committee.