Every decade gets the shitty books it deserves.
The seventies had Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
The eighties had The Preppie Handbook and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The nineties featured, among many others, The Starr Report.
NONE of these books, Mr. Max's included, will ever be read for anything besides a look at a very specific and terrible episode in American history.
Who the fuck is Tucker Max anyway?
Remember, the NYT list is not ranked by total number of copies sold. It's comprised of copies sold in a select and secretive sampling of bookstores. Like a political poll.
Is that right? I had no idea! Can you elaborate?
Or was this just poorly-executed sarcasm?
No, not sarcasm. The exact way they compile the list is very closely guarded, as are the names of the bookstores surveyed, weight given to bookscan, etc. Some business book guys kinda, sorta "broke the code" back in the 1990s and bought enough of their own book to push it up the list.
Interesting! Thanks for sharing.
No problem. I'd note that the NYT list isn't particularly useful for finding "good books." A life of reading is one in which a well-loved book inevitably leads to another, then another and another.
Still better than The Five People You Meet In Heaven.