Last week I said that I had been given a reprieve. With only one new book added to the list of bestsellers, I finally had a chance to catch up. Well, I did quite well, even if not spectacularly so. I got through Willie Mays which was quite a long book and have nearly finished out On the Brink. Assuming that I finish that book up this afternoon, that leaves me with only Anticancer remaining on my to-do list.

It turns out that this week is part two of my reprieve. Just one new book found its way onto the list this week, and it only just managed it, squeaking on at #15. Scott Patterson’s The Quants describes “How a new breed of math whizzes conquered Wall Street and nearly destroyed it.” If I understand the premise correctly, the book tells of some of the hedge fund managers who made fantastic amounts of money in the lead-up to the economic downturn, contributing to the disaster and witnessing their own personal disasters through it. It sounds like it will be interesting enough.

I ought to be able to catch right up by the end of the week, leaving me to anticipate what might make its way onto the list next week. As usual, I have no idea what books are the obvious up-and-comers.

At last, a reprieve. This week saw the addition of just a single book to the list of bestsellers. James S. Hirsch’s biography of Willie Mays (titled, none too imaginatively Willie Mays) hit the list in the #8 spot. It’s a long book, though, so it may take much of the week to get through it’s 600+ pages. And I’m still only a quarter of the way through Hank Paulson’s book On the Brink. And I still haven’t read Anticancer. So even with this one-week reprieve I’m not sure that I’ll be able to catch up all the way. But I can give it a try.

Of note is the fact that Malcolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw has ended its run in the top fifteen. Also, Mitch Albom’s Have a Little Faith and Gladwell’s Outliers have both started to falter. Since both have been long-time fixtures on the list, the end of their run may introduce a little bit of instability for a while. All of which is to say that I’d better catch up while I can. Something will have to fill the eventual void when those books drop off the list.

Rising fast toward the top fifteen is Lori Gottlieb’s Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough. That sounds like an intriguing title. Perhaps it will be on the list for next week.

The New York Times is understandably secretive about how they put together their list of bestsellers. All we know is that the list is based on weekly sales reports that come from a number of independent and chain bookstores across the US. Though the Times has not said so explicitly, most people assume that the list is based, at least primarily, on retail rather than wholesale figures. Therefore a book that has massive wholesale orders but few actual purchases should not become a bestseller. Fair enough.

The list of bestsellers has been changed a few times in the past, often to allow certain genres to stop dominating the list. For example, advice books now appear separate from the rest of the non-fiction bestsellers (for which I’m grateful). The editors also occasionally deliberately exclude “catalog” items that are either perennial bestsellers or that are very old but for one reason or another have made their way back onto the list (and the Bible is always excluded since otherwise it would always be #1). The list is geared toward new titles, not older ones.

Interestingly, the updated lists appears on the web a full 9 days before it appears in the print edition of the New York Times Book Review. The list that appears later today will be printed not this Sunday but the Sunday after. Such are the realities of print content versus online content.

Though many people have attempted to crack the formula that decides what books show up on the list, no one has yet mastered it. And I can admit to being completely befuddled. I often try to predict what books will appear based on the list of bestselling products at Amazon and other stores. Sometimes it is very obvious what will appear (if Malcolm Gladwell scribbles on a napkin and slaps it between two covers, people will buy it) but other times there seems to be little way of knowing in advance. I’ll let you know as the year progresses if I’m able to start figuring it out. But for now, I turn to the list every Friday prepared to be completely surprised. And generally I am.

The new list of bestsellers is out, and there are four new titles on it. It’s interesting to see how some books remain there week after week, only descending the list very slowly (see Have a Little Faith and Outliers). Others come and go in a flash, climbing quickly and falling off every bit as quickly (see Intellectuals and Society and Anticancer).

Once again I’ve been unable to catch up. I got through three-and-a-half books this week, leaving me one-and-a-half behind (though, to be fair, I should finish up one of them tonight, meaning that as Friday comes to an end, I’ll be only one book behind). I don’t like my chances of reading all four of these titles this week, especially since two of them are quite substantial. So I’ll be hoping again for a quiet week on the list come next Friday. It would be nice to be all caught up.

Here are the new additions to my reading list. I’m glad to see that all of them are available on Kindle, saving me a pretty good chunk of change.

Shooting straight up to the #3 spot is another book about the great financial meltdown–Henry Paulson’s On the Brink. This is a pretty big book (almost 500 pages) and is likely to be a tough go. I suspect there will be a lot of overlap with Too Big To Fail.

Entering the list at #5 is Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Another big book, this one sounds unique. “Race, poverty and science intertwine in the story of the woman whose cancer cells were cultured without her permission in 1951 and have supported a mountain of research undertaken since then.”

At #8 is Staying True by Jenny Sanford, estranged wife of South Carolina’s Governor Mark Sanford. “In this candid and compelling memoir, the first lady of South Carolina reveals the private ordeal behind her very public betrayal—and offers inspiration for anyone struggling to keep faith during life’s most trying times.”

And at #12 is Making Rounds with Oscar by David Dosa. Oscar is a cat who comforts dying patients in a nursing home. That seems a strange premise, but not altogether unexpected in this day when pet stories are all the rage (thanks for nothing Marley!).

I guess we can’t accuse the Times of building a list that is without variety! One memoir, one biography, one book that combines economics and politics and one that is about death, dying and felines. It’s going to be an interesting week.

Last week I wrote that the bestseller list had stabilized with an average of three new books added each week. Sure enough, this week saw exactly that new many new titles. I am finding that I can read three of these books per week without too much trouble; it is the fourth book that I just haven’t been able to get to without doing so at the expense of something else. And so I remain about one-and-a-half books behind. I still have yet to read Anticancer and am only halfway through Intellectuals and Society. Meanwhile, three new books have been added to my reading list.

Jumping straight to the #2 spot is Ozzy Osbourne’s I am Ozzy. This is (obviously) his memoir, telling the story of his life from childhood up to The Osbournes and beyond. I have no love for Osbourne or his music, so anticipate reading this book band-aid style–rip it off quickly and get it over with.

Starting at #3 on the list is Andrew Young’s tell-all The Politician. I have heard little about this book except that it utterly unmasks John Edwards. I am not a big fan of tell-alls, so am not entirely enthusiastic about reading this one. Nevertheless, I will prevail. Unfortunately it is not yet available in Kindle format, so I’ll have to read it in hardcover (which means paying hardcover prices).

And at #9 is Courting Disaster by Marc Thiessen. Here is the ultra-short description from the Times: “‘Enhanced interrogation’ saved American lives and Obama is risking them, a Bush speechwriter says.” Now that sounds more interesting. I bet the Times disagrees.

Rising fast just below the list is Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph E. Stiglitz. That looks like quite an interesting title so I’m hoping it makes its way onto the list next week.

We seem to be settling into a nice routine here, where each week a few new books are finding their way onto the list of bestsellers. This week there are three new titles.

Starting at #7, Just Kids is the memoir of Patti Smith, the “Godmother of Punk.” A member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Smith was instrumental in the early days of the punk rock movement. I know next to nothing about her, though by this time next week I suspect I’ll know a lot more than I ever cared to.

Added at the #13 spot is a book I was hoping would make its way to the list–Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society. I haven’t read enough Sowell so was looking for an excuse to read this one. I am somewhat intimidated by the combination of its size (400 pages or so) and its subject matter (intellectuals–a descriptor that most definitely does not apply to the likes of me). Yet I suspect it will be very enlightening.

And coming in at #14 is Evidence of the Afterlife by Jeffrey Long. You know from the title that I will be interested in this one. Dr. Long studies near-death experiences and uses this book to suggest that they stand as compelling evidence of the existence of an afterlife. We shall see.

Tomorrow marks the end of the first month of this 10MillionWords project. In the next day or two I will offer up some reflections on that first month.

I am falling behind a little bit. I got through only three of last week’s four bestsellers by the time the new list was released. And this week’s list contains two new bestsellers. That gives me three to get through before next Friday. No problems, I hope.

Shooting straight to the top is Game Change by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin. This book has already been much-discussed since it’s release a week ago. It did not take long for the media to jump all over the revelation that Harry Reid once referred to Barack Obama as a negro. That’s not the kind of press Reid was looking for. Game Change tells the behind-the-scenes story of the 2008 election campaign, looking at both the Republican and Democratic candidates. But it does so without any footnotes, references or sources beyond anonymous interviews. That’s generally not a good sign. But I will read it nonetheless (all 464 pages of it).

Showing up at thirteenth on the list is Anticancer by David Servan-Schreiber. “All of us have cancer cells in our bodies,” says the cover. “But not all of us will develop cancer.” This book has already sold over a million copies in previous editions but this new and updated version has just hit the list again.

Strangely, neither of this week’s books are available in Kindle format. Too bad, that.

The Times has just released this week’s list of bestsellers. I am not surprised to see that it is not radically changed from the week before. This is, after all, quite a slow time for book sales. I’m guessing things will pick up a little bit more by the end of the month when publishers once more begin to pump out a-list titles.

It’s worth noting that, after seven weeks in the top spot, Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue has finally been bumped to number two. It has been replaced by Have a Little Faith. My guess is that Palin’s book won’t have a whole lot of staying power–that once it begins to fall it will fall fast. We’ll see.

While there are no books making a first-time appearance on the list this week, there is one that has not been on for a while (though it has spent 17 weeks there in total)–Born to Run by Christopher McDougall. This is a book I’ve been looking for an excuse to read. And now, just like that, it’s made an unavoidable appearance on my list of things to do. Excellent! I’ll be reading that this week.

I’ve finally finished up the way-too-long The Book of Basketball and have just Born to Run and Last Words to complete before I am entirely caught up. Of course I’ve got a few more than that to review. Check in next week as I try to do some reviewing.

I was an early adopter of Amazon’s Kindle. I loved it for a couple of months and then fell out of love with it, kind of like the dog my parents got me when I was a kid. At first having a dog was a lot of fun and I loved having him tow me around the yard in the winter. I even enjoyed walking him for the first week or two. But then he showed his true colors–he made a mess of the yard and ate a few cats and just generally misbehaved and suddenly all I could see was his flaws. Eventually mom and dad gave him away. They told me they had given him to a family that had a mentally challenged son and who lived on a farm where the dog could run and run, tongue lolling out, eyes bright, just the way a dog ought to be. In retrospect that sounds like the kind of thing parents say when they’ve really dropped the dog off in the middle of the countryside to fend for himself. I should ask them about that sometime. Or not.

But I digress. I loved my Kindle at first. It was like so many other new technologies–it wowed me with all its great new features. I saw all the joy but little of the pain. But then I got used to it and couldn’t see past its obvious flaws. It was slow; it was ugly; I kept wanting to write all over the screen with my ever-present highlighters; it was not good for doing serious reading. In the end I traded it to a friend for a stack of commentaries. We both thought it was a good deal. Last I heard my buddy was still in love with it.

But now there is a Kindle 2. I had Amazon send one to me while I was in Atlanta last week. I justified purchasing it on two grounds. First, it is significantly cheaper than its predecessor. Second, Amazon worked out many of the flaws (like the way-too-long page-turn times and the oops-I-touched-the-side-and-it-turned-a-page flaw). Third (oh wait, I said two) it will pay for itself very quickly with all the bestsellers being only $9.99 (compared to $20-$30 at the local bookstore). And fourth, it now offers Whispernet service in Canada (though it carries a $2 surcharge, much to my chagrin). And just think how much room we’ll save in the house without all those books demanding shelf space. Overall, the 10MillionWords project offered me good reason and good justification to turn back to Kindle.

Overall, the Kindle 2 seems significantly improved from the first generation. It’s thinner, lighter, snazzier and faster. Heck, it even stays in its folder now, thanks to some handy little clips (I always thought the idea of trusting in gravity to keep a $400 machine in a leather folder was quite a weakness of the Kindle 1). Of course there are a few downsides, such as a still-awful keyboard and an Apple-style battery that can only be replaced by Amazon. It is not a thing of beauty and is not half the machine it will be in a few years, I’m sure. But it is beginning to show a bit of the promise we hoped for it from the beginning. Still, there’s probably a 50/50 chance that in six months I’ll be several commentaries richer and one Kindle poorer. Especially if Apple wows me with the long-awaited tablet.

As I promised yesterday, here is the second part of the roundup of the titles that are on the list of bestsellers as of January 1. I’ve read most of these, though there are a couple that I’ll be finishing up this week.

What the Dog Saw by Malcolm Gladwell. In this book, his fourth, Gladwell deviates just slightly from what he has done in his previous three bestsellers. Here he simply shares some of his best or favorite or most highly-regarded columns from over the years. Like the other books, this one made a fast-track to the bestseller list and has remained there now for 10 weeks.

Outliers by Malcom Gladwell. Speaking of Gladwell, here he is again with book #3, Outliers. This one has remained on the bestseller list for 58 weeks now. Incredible. As I mentioned in my review, I certainly wouldn’t mind taking home just one of Gladwell’s royalty checks. They must be something to behold. In Outliers he does what he does so well, drawing together strange and unusual facts and building them into a fascinating whole. Though it may not be his best, Outliers is still a great read.

The Imperial Cruise by James Bradley. So you liked Flags of Our Fathers, did you? And maybe you liked Flyboys too? The success of those two books is the only possible explanation for this dog being on the bestseller list. Here Bradley engages in some incredibly bold anti-Americanism in his attempt to piece together a history of American involvement in Asia as it pertained to the background of the Second World War. I will soon write a review of this one but for now suffice it to say that Bradley’s biases are so clear that he very quickly loses all credibility. This is a truly bad book.

A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity by Bill O’Reilly. This is Bill O’Reilly’s memoir, sort of. It is not a true memoir. Instead he looks to past events and shows how these led him to become who and what he is today–a social conservative who despises injustice. He sees himself as a crusader against whatever is unfair or unjust in the world and in A Bold Fresh Piece of Humanity he shows how such a sense of justice was instilled in him from a very young age. Again, I will provide a review of this one soon.

When the Game Was Ours by Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. This book looks at one of sports most interesting and most important rivalries–that of Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, the men who revitalized basketball. Players who hated each other during their years on the court (and who were relentlessly driven by each other), in their years after basketball Bird and Johnson found kinship and even friendship. Here they write about their long rivalry and life after the game. Quite an interesting book (as basketball tales go), I will have a review of this one soon enough as well.

The Book of Basketball by Bill Simmons. I am hard-pressed to think of a sport I enjoy less than basketball. And yet, just my luck, there are two basketball books on the list of bestsellers. When the Game Was Ours was interesting enough since it was predominantly biographical–it is never too terribly hard to read stories of people’s lives. The Book of Basketball, on the other hand, is a history of the game from one of its greatest fans. It is really long (700+ pages) and really dry, at least for someone who has no love for the game. I continue to make my way through it.

Last Words by George Carlin. I know little about Carlin (beyond that he was a comedian) and have not yet read his book. I hope to do so this week.

Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin. The first, but surely not the last book on the recent financial meltdown, Sorkin’s book attempts to be both first to the shelves and exhaustive. While it was the first, I doubt it will prove to be truly exhaustive as facts continue to present themselves. Still, it is an interesting read that provides plenty of great information about the crisis that continues to unfold around us.

And that’s that–the fifteen titles that started the year on the New York Times list of bestsellers. Reviews, reflections and more will follow next week.