Rating: 
Summary: It isn't the books,it's the book business.
Review: I just came across this book a couple of days ago at my local 'big box bookstore'.I enjoy 'books about books'and this one certainly falls into that category.I have never paid much attention to bestseller lists for a couple of reasons.First,I tend to read mainly non fiction.I have found the fiction writers I enjoy,and except for Steinbeck,Twain and one or two others, are not on the bestseller lists.So,of all the fiction out there,new and old,I find so much to read that I don't need a list to tell me what is a bestseller and must be read.Although I have read several of the best seller writers,I haven't been enthused enough to read all their stuff;Larry McMurtry being the exception.I guess he falls into the one a year bestsellers;
but even some of his are getting to feel like publish or perish books.To me, it seems that with most artists their early stuff is the best.I find that so with Steinbeck,Erskine Caldwell,McMurtry and most of my favorite writers.
Merle Haggard once stated that his earlier work was his best because he lived the experiences then but not any longer.I find the same with authors.
I found this book very good in that it demonstrates that best seller lists are something created and pushed by the book publishing and selling industry,and for their interests and not necessarily the buyers and readers of their products.In other words,it is primarily a marketing tool,and while probably very useful to them,not particularyy for the reader who finds his own treasures to read;and doesn't just read to follow what is being pushed in the media.
The book business has had a very rough ride in the last several years and has tended to play catch up or as often said,"lead the parade from the rear."This is very evident from reading this book.The customer (reader)will decide what to read not the marketeer.No matter how much the establishment tries to push their preference it doesn't change anything.
A couple of statements in the book are very telling:
"the bestseller list began to resemble a club that was hard to break into" pg.172
"Do you guys realize how much money the company would make if you only published bestsellers?" pg.173
""a publishing house that plays it safe,even if it satisfies
it's corporate parent,will sooner or later collapse." pg.197
"the bestseller lists of the nineties made for relatively depressing reading,except to accountants." pg.199
"In 1990,for example,the fiction list for the year contained not a single newcomer-all fifteen who made it were established,familiar bestselling writers,most of them on a yearly basis.It was,if you like,the triumph of brand-name merchandizing applied to books." pg.196. In other words the lazy approach.
A great read to see what bestseller lists are all about.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting As Far As It Goes
Review: "Making The List", is an interesting book that piques the reader's interest rather than satisfying it. This 10-chapter book contains 195 pages, and more than half, 100 pages, are just the lists of the best-selling books for a given year.Michael Korda provides informative, witty, and at times sharp edged commentary for the 10 decades of books that he comments upon. The analysis he offers is uneven, although it greatly improves once his observations originate during his tenure as a publisher. I have always wondered just how many books need to be sold to make the annual list. He does provide numbers occasionally, but they are the exception not the rule. Some of his remarks are readily apparent to readers who pay attention to the names of authors that routinely appear year after year. Being told that a short roster of names have virtually locked up the annual lists for almost 20 is not news.
Rating: 
Summary: Worthwhile for book-hounds
Review: Although this "Cultural History of the American Bestseller" is somewhat light on actual text -- it's mostly full of the bestseller lists themselves, going back to 1900 -- it's an entertaining read if you're interested in books. There's a natural tendency to be sort of skeptical of popularity, and one of Korda's themes is that many books that have been popular have also been extremely good. (Literary fiction, etc, always has a place on the charts.) And actually what's most revealing is how the mix of what's on the big lists has really changed very little, or at least it comes and goes in regular cycles. Romances go out -- then they're back in. The sprawling historical epic rises, falls, rises again. There's always some Tom Clancy equivalent cranking out a book of year, and topping the sales rankings every time. It's too bad Korda's text sometimes veers toward the superficial, and a more careful edit would have removed some of his repetitions, but the book is still a fun way to fill a few hours -- and the list of lists alone is a thing worth having.
Rating: 
Summary: ridiculous
Review: I wonder how much of these listings actually profile the reader. Some readers would never touch a best-seller even with an iron tong. This is of course pointless snobbery - what can you do if you are good and the people love you? You write a best-seller. Provided of course you find a publisher willing to muscle in his PR resources. But first you got to find him. Some best-sellers are also holding the record for the highest number of manuscript rejections. Publishers know nothing, they are business people.
Many readers buy nothing but best-sellers. Not a good policy either. The percentage of good books presented in best-seller listings, is just as small as the percentage of good books in the total of books ever printed. LetÕs not forget, most of the real good books are out of print. The discerning reader - a rare breed - doesnÕt care how the PR industry labels a book. And thatÕs the way it should be. There are still differences. Good books can be best-sellers, best-sellers are not necessarily good books.
No doubt, the avid reader of best-sellers is getting a fair representation in those listings, and I am quite willing to concede that those readers may represent a majority. Still: what about the others? ItÕs really like this fast food thing: McDonalds is a huge enterprise, and not without reason. But does this make connoisseurs of French cuisine yearn to ÒreallyÓ rather eat at McDonalds? KordaÕs argument is ridiculous. In matters of culture and taste, there is no such thing as democracy and egalitarianism.
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: It was on May 22, 1946, that I finished reading and enjoying Fifty Years of Best Sellers 1895-1945, by Alice Payne Hackett. So when I saw this book I thought it would be fun to read, and it is. The author incivisvely comments on the best seller lists during the 20th century, and of course it is fun to see which books one read were best sellers. I was surprised to see that I had read 101 books which were number 1 best sellers in a year, either in fiction or non-fiction. This surprised me since I do not use, or at least I have not for many years, the best seller list to decide what to read. It is also interesting to see which great books never made the list. For instance, The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, I have thought an outstanding book ever since I read it back in 1981, and it won a Pulitzer Prize, but never made a year best seller list! If nothing else, this book will open your eyes to how much poor choosing some people do when they decide to buy a book...
Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: It was on May 22, 1946, that I finished reading and enjoying Fifty Years of Best Sellers 1895-1945, by Alice Payne Hackett. So when I saw this book I thought it would be fun to read, and it is. The author incivisvely comments on the best seller lists during the 20th century, and of course it is fun to see which books one read were best sellers. I was surprised to see that I had read 101 books which were number 1 best sellers in a year, either in fiction or non-fiction. This surprised me since I do not use, or at least I have not for many years, the best seller list to decide what to read. It is also interesting to see which great books never made the list. For instance, The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara, I have thought an outstanding book ever since I read it back in 1981, and it won a Pulitzer Prize, but never made a year best seller list! If nothing else, this book will open your eyes to how much poor choosing some people do when they decide to buy a book...
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Korda takes a potentially fascinating topic-an analysis of American bestseller lists in the 20th century-and gets in the way of his subject. He's desperate to remind readers of his own long-forgotten books and otherwise allows his prejudices to intrude far too much in the discussion. A more analytical, thoughtful and less subjective and breezy approach would have made for a much better book resulting in a four or five-star rating, rather than just two.
Rating:
Summary: Literary History
Review: Making The List does jut what its title suggests; it takes the best seller list since the early 1900 up until 1999 and analyzes them in order to make meaning out of the tendencies and the reocurrences. The analysis itself is only slightly above average as Korda mostly only states the obvious. The real reason to get this book is to be able to analyze each list by yourself. Some books on those lists I've never heard of, others are still very well present today (Rebecca, Old Man And The Sea...). And some of the tendencies are quite strange; during the 60s, the biggest best selling novel was in fact The Bible. And it's quite frightening to see how unorignal the lists for the 90s were; only the names like King, Clancy, Steele, Clark, Cussler and Grisham seem to appear on those lists. I really enjoyed going through this book. It's brief, straight to the point and very concise. A great piece of literary history!
Rating:
Summary: Not destined for any list
Review: Michael Korda is destined to get many pats on the back from his literary buddies for this book and why not? He whines about how things aren't what they used to be. He shovels dirt on the works of the "big book" writers like Clancy, King and Grisham. And throws in just enough French phrases to earn admission to any cocktail party he wants. All this book is, in sum, is this: Korda lists books in paragrah form then does it again in list form. This is meant as a cultural history of what books Americans bought throughout the century, but it really is a brief history.
These pages would have been better served had he spent more time analyzing why we read what we read. Rather, he says in effect, "We are in World War II, so there are a lot of war books on the market." And the 1980s was filled with "get-rich-quick books" that Korda said were popular among top executives but did nothing for "underlings" to rise to the top. Wouldn't he surmise that because these books were in fact bestsellers (read by millions of people), that maybe some "underling" read one and made it big. Of course not because Korda whole-heartedly admitted early on that editors and writers are liberally biased. In reality, Korda spent 200 pages waiting to throw in the comment that, "In 1981, I was the editor of four of the year's bestsellers (not a record -- I believe the record is seven, which I think I hold -- but still not bad)." If Korda is such a reknowned editor, why is he using phrases like, "I think," which he does more than once. Why not check it out? Overall, I enjoyed looking over the lists but grew tired of Korda's commentary on how no real literature is out there. Although the structure of the book business has changed, the same market principles are still place: If you have a product people want, it will sell.
Rating:
Summary: MAYBE MICHAEL'S MASTERPIECE
Review: Michael Korda is not sanguine on the turn best-seller book publishing took in the 1990s. "At the end of the day,"Korda writes " the bestseller lists of the nineties made for relatively depressing reading, except to accountants. In fiction it became enormously difficult to break through the sheer weight of numbers generated by perhaps two dozen. or fewer, top writers who virtually dominated the list, and in nonfiction. a range of celebrities , merchandise, and self-help books that made it equally hard for all but the most exceptional book to get to the list."
You will learn much about the publishing and bookselling industries-- as well as America's reading habits for the past 100 years -from this delightfully candid and witty work.. I admire many of Korda's books,- the thirteen that he's written (eight nonfiction, five novels) and more than a few of the hundreds that he's edited. (And this I can prove.! I spent seven years of my own life writing a biography of one of his famous authors.) However with all that Korda-(possessor of unsinkable intellect and energy, even in the face of prostate cancer-) has previously contributed to our insider knowledge of books and publishing , MAKING THE LIST is his most indispensable work. You might not think so at first because it is short and so much fun to read, but the distilled knowledge, observations and insights of his long career (which began in 1958) may leave you with (a) an enriched understanding of the relative place in the world of some of your favorite books and authors, (b) a savvy historic view of where modern publishing came from , and where it may or may not be going., (c)comprehension of those historic periods (by decade) which resemble one another culturally, and those which clash. ( For example, hot sex is pretty much gone from mainstream commercial novels right now. In this regard today's fiction could be at home in 1895, when the first list was started, and vice versa...) With Korda as your guide you will learn how the parameters of best-sellerdom rise and fall...and rise.: as the only editor with the distinction of having himself written a number one hardcover bestseller
(on the annual bestseller list of Publishers Weekly) Korda reveals that this book ,POWER! ,earned its top spot with a net sale around 200,000 ,after returns, although there were 350,000 in print. Today the top nonfiction title would sell at least three or four times that amount.... In some eras nonfiction sold more than fiction, but nowadays (in case you haven't noticed) the brand name new-title-every -year novelists virtually have a "lockhold "on the list, often achieving hardcover sales in the millions....Thirty or forty years ago it was expected that the hardcover book business was almost terminal- except for libraries. Today, many books sell more in hardcover than in paperback. The price differential is small enough that readers don't want to wait.
Korda closes MAKING THE LIST with the observation that the bestseller list defines what Americans are reading: "Like a mirror, it reflects who we are what we want, what interests us, and what we really want to know....and the longer we look into it, the more we clearly see--OURSELVES." This belief may explain why Korda muses so sadly and regretfully at the lack of originality, intellect and art on recent lists. I would urge him to cheer up, and remind him that.some of the most influential books of the 20th century fell below the radar of the top ten or (later) top fifteen biggest sellers of an entire year., even though many enjoyed a good run on the easier-to-crack weekly lists. As a feminist, I couldn't help but notice that in the 1960s and '70s - at its height - my revolution didn't make it to the annual lists. Betty Friedan, Kate Millett, Germaine Greer, Susan Brownmiller etc etc. - those whose transformative books changed every woman's life -did not sell nearly as many books as , for example, EVERYTHING YOU ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SEX, BUT WERE AFRAID TO ASK or THE SENSUOUS WOMAN by the mysterious "J." But Friedan et al were read widely and deeply enough to light women's pilots all over the world. Again, in the early 90s, when feminism was declared dead ,Gloria Steinem, Susan Faludi, Anita Hill, Naomi Wolf and others dramatically reawakened interest with their popular and widely debated works. But neither did they make it to the Publishers Weekly annual lists. even though as Steinem travelled around the country promoting REVOLUTION FROM WITHIN her admirers rose at dawn and waited for hours on lines that were many city blocks in length.
Maybe one day Korda will give us a sequel to MAKING THE LIST called MAKING TROUBLE. In the meantime everyone who loves books and reading (or writing) is urged to check out MAKING THE LIST.
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