Journalistic institutions provide their takes, but Modern Library is gearing up to make the most of a century's-end book list
The Freedom Forum's Newseum and New York University's journalism department recently added to the century's-end compulsion to quantify things and have issued top-100 lists of the best news and best journalism stories of the century, respectively. Both provide some food for thought on possible book links.
While the Freedom Forum list (it can be found at http://www.freedomforum.org/newseumnews/1999/2/24topstories.asp) lists only important events, leaving it up to booksellers to tie in appropriate books, NYU's list makes note, although not consistently, of titles that are related to its choices, including Rachel Carson's Silent Spring, John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World and Tom Wolfe's The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. It can be found at http://www.nyu.edu/gsas/dept/journal/Dept_news/News_stories/990301_topjourn.htm.
When contacted by PW, neither the Freedom Forum nor NYU seemed to be particularly interested in promoting their lists with booksellers, either online or in stores. NYU is, however, shopping a book proposal for an anthology of its selections, but at press time PW could not confirm any deal. "It would be nice to salute our own," said NYU bookstore marketing manager Kristie Hedayati. "But we have limited space and we're planning to start construction soon, too."
This lack of bookstore-follow-through is good news for Random House's Modern Library, which will unveil a more comprehensive top-100 best nonfiction list at Book Expo America on April 29 and, as with its previous top 100 fiction list, plans to market and merchandise the heck out of it.
"We don't see these lists as stealing our thunder, we're going to have a much different list, including all types of nonfiction," said Random House publicity chief Carol Schneider. "We were happy to see all those books on the NYU list and it's sparked some dialogue at our offices." Modern Library publishing director David Ebershoff was "gratified to see that 10 of the books mentioned in the NYU list are in the Modern Library."
The Modern Library board met in October and December to discuss their nonfiction selections. Their final votes are now coming in, and will not be tallied internally (as the earlier fiction list was), but by Albert Madansky, a statistics professor from Ebershoff's alma mater, the University of Chicago. Modern Library board member Stephen Jay Gould "brought up the point that our ranking methodology wasn't as sound as it could be," Ebershoff noted. Ebershoff said he's glad "it's off his head" to crunch the final list. And Madansky also teaches a Great Books of Business course, "so he's the perfect person."
Modern Library's nonfiction list will be unveiled by Random House president, publisher and editor-in-chief Ann Godoff, who will announce the top 10 choices, while the other 90 will be flashed on overhead screens at the Book Expo America event. Computer stations will also be set up, and attendees will be able to vote for their top 10 choices via the BEA Web site or by paper ballots, which will also be handed out. (Consumers and others not attending BEA will be able to cast votes at the Random House Web site.)
Since the list is to be kept secret until this event, other promotion won't roll until the following day. One or several members of the Modern Library Board are tentatively scheduled to promote their picks on the Today show on April 30, and a free merchandising kit will be mailed to booksellers. Components of the kit include easel-back posters and bookmarks featuring the nonfiction and fiction lists, as well as a new nonfiction reading group guide, to complement the earlier fiction guide (and still available online at Random House's Web site.)
All this merchandising paid off for the Modern Library with its fiction list, said Ebershoff. Not only did sales soar for the number-once fiction choice, Ulysses (some five times more than typical yearly sales), but reorders increased across the board for Modern Library's fiction canon. And Modern Library's subsequent program of bringing back to print some books that made the fiction list has also been successful, with more than double the books' initial 10,000-copy shipments sold.
But Random House insists that with these lists, the dialogue is all. A last-minute addition to the merchandising kit was ballot material to enable bookstores to continue the debate among its customers. "Let me tell you, it's been fun to be in on these meetings, with people like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Daniel Boorstin arguing the merits of a history book," Ebershoff said. Stay tuned.
