Monday, November 27, 2006

Oh, To Be A Name Brand

The bestseller lists are clogged with name brands, authors who sell books with their name only -- names that often appear on the cover of the book in even larger type than the title itself. Charles Frazier -- the author of the phenomenal bestseller "Cold Mountain" -- hoped to become a literary name brand (someone who sells books and gets polite reviews, but looks like he'll fail on both counts with his followup "Thirteen Moons." Mitch Albom pulled the tricky feat of being known for the nonfiction memoir "Tuesdays With Morrie" and yet becoming a fiction bestseller of similarly sappy, inspirational tomes. You have to go to #16 and "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield to find a newcomer to the charts. On the nonfiction list, Barack Obama continues to hold sway at Number One weeks after the election. He'd make the perfect VP candidate alongside Hillary. A white woman as President, a black man as her VP and Bill Clinton as First Lady? The ticket alone would make heads explode in the Deep South. The Top 15 fiction titles per the NYTImes.

1. Cross by James Patterson
2. For One More Day by Mitch Albom
3. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
4. Nature Girl by Cark Hiaasen
5. Wildfire by Nelson DeMille
6. Born In Death by J.D. Robb (aka Nora Roberts)
7. Lisey's Story by Stephen King
8. Santa Cruise by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark
9. The Collectors by David Baldacci
10. First Impressions by Nora Roberts
11. H.R.H. by Danielle Steele
12. The Rising Tide by Jeff Shaara
13. Act Of Treason by Vince Flynn
14. Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier
15. Echo Park by Michael Connelly

2 comments:

MR said...

I gotta say, this business about Obama being a serious 2008 candidate is all a fantasy. Perhaps VP, but there is 0 chance he is our next pres. All this talk is for his book and for the media to sell newspapers (or get viewers)...

www.minor-ripper.blogspot.com

Michael in New York said...

I agree. He has no resume other than a brief stint in office. I don't care that he's "young." Bobby Kennedy was young but he had a TON of things he'd accomlished. Obama hasn't run a business or held many posts of importance before vaulting into the Senate. Doesn't mean he wouldn't be agreat president; just that it's highly unlikely that he would get elected. He needs to be VP in order to gain that experience.