Welcome to Litsy!

This book is a very interesting look at bestsellers, specifically breaking them down objectively. While there will never be a replacement for the reading experience, seeing the components of novels broken down and evaluated by a computer program is fascinating. I still have no interest in reading it, but I'm looking at 50 Shades in a new light!

#BookNDinner! It pays to be near the front of the line 😆. @BookBabe & I are at a #Friendsgiving celebration this fine evening. Accompaniment includes: turkey; mashed potatoes; stuffing; gravy; sweet potato casserole; rolls; various beers and a Sprite, lol; cheese and crackers; and, I'm going to stick with the cookies for dessert 😊. MMMMmmmm 😋! Happy reads & happy eats 😎👌🏻! (No, I wasn't allowed to bring tots, not enough room in the oven 😔.)

As a person with a stats background, I have to say that I really would have preferred more actual methodology than what we get in the epilogue. They also needed more discussion about what else they could do with this algorithm and analysis of bestsellers. You could do a lot with trends over time, etc. That all said, it is interesting the commonalities the machine found between very different types of bestsellers.

I'm pretty OK with the science in this book, but sometimes the tone gets a little off. Like why do we need this digression here? The lady doth protest too much, methinks. If you worry about non-bookreader people judging you about your choices either drink more or get new friends. (This section leads into discussion about how the algorithm predicts bestseller status or not. This book needs more actual math which is a thing I thought I'd never say.)

Die Müdigkeit mag nicht. Also lese ich im Bestseller-Code weiter. Interessant, ja. Aber im Ernst: ich glaub nicht, dass man Bestseller "machen" kann - man kann nur die bestmögliche Geschichte schreiben.