HT-Nielsen fiction top 10 bestsellers list

metac

Copy cats are the bane of publishing, especially the new Indian scene. What probably helps them is that they strip away literary-ness, nuance and subtlety for the new English readers. And they tend to be smart in delivering easy to recognize pastiche, lingo and pop culture cinematic tropes. Public laps it up quick. There's a glut at the lower/ cheaper end of the book price spectrum, so democratized that it's dispiriting in all its 'accessibility'. I support the effort to simplify and target, but the narratives are all so 'from the same mold'.

At the upper end of English Lit, it's fascinating because of the pedantry, scholarly lassitude and utter disregard for the reader quotidian. Our 'literary superstars' can learn a thing or three from the brilliant, still fructifying socio and behavioural economics books that haven been gaining much recognition in the western markets. Those authors are great storytellers, unraveling complex theories with the help of superbly relevant and easy to understand analyses of hidden forces and ideas at work behind everyday life. This is greatly missing in the upper end; snobbery abounds too.

The search for a meaningful middle ground is on.

Nabs

Thanks for uploading the list