Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Popularity

What's the most popular book in your library? Have you read it? What did you think? How many users have it? What's the most popular book you don't have? How does a book's popularity figure into your decisions about what to read?

Very interesting question. I never really looked at those statistics before. I would have assumed that my response would have been similar to Marie's that if something is really popular I would be less inclined to read it but some of the most popular books are some of my favorites.

The most popular book in my library is the DaVinci Code which I read (I don't put books in my library thing unless I have read them). It is total trash, poorly written but entertaining escapism and I did enjoy it. 23316 readers have it and the only more popular books are the Harry Potters which are the most popular books that I do not have and have not read.

I was surprised to see that two of my favorite books are in the most popular category - 100 Years of Solitude and Enders Game. I also really enjoyed and Memoirs of a Geisha, Life of Pi and Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night time. I guess that a books popularity does not make me more inclined to read it but it obviously does not deter me from reading something either. It would have been interesting to see the ranking of 100 Years of Solitude before it became an Oprah book. I know that if I am hearing a lot about a particular book I may look it up and see whether I am interested or not.

Interesting question! Thanks Marie.


2 comments:

Marie Cloutier said...

I just took a look at the 100 most popular LT books and was surprised by how many I either own or have read. Life of Pi was terrific, I agree. :-)

Moo said...

You know it was an great question when even the author is surprised by the answer! I never thought to actually look at those statistics before.