A night of the amazon dotcom carousel of crap

The link of tonight's blog entry is not recommended.

It is amazon's list of top hundred bestsellers. This is what middle america is buying, folks, and it ain't pretty.

Shallow materialism vies with...uh, weight loss books and, um, self-help from the latest televangelist.

Here is the cream of the crop of titles I found compelling. Note the similar syntactical structure.

- Good to Great: why some companies make the leap and others don’t.
- He’s just not that into you: the no-excuses truth to understanding guys.
- Guns, Germs and Steel: the fates of human societies.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money--That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not!
- The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference.
- The Politically Incorrect Guide to American History.
- The Road to Reality: A Complete Guide to the Laws of the Universe.
- Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives

These are the BEST of the crop, I mean to say! A few points are in order:

1. The Concept goes into ideally three words.
2. Then the Hook follows by delivering a specifc promise in accordance with a basic root instinct, or the setup for the first question.
3. The books are caturing to specific reader benefit, situated carefully within a sculpted context.
4. But here's the clincher: each of these books arises directly out of the personal life context of the author. If you test out this theory, you'll find that EVERY BOOK HERE is totally embedded in the life and personality of the writer. The importance of personal clarity in this process of product developement and marketing precision is key: these bestsellers are "high-touch" products, selling the intimacy with the author.

I emphasise these are the BEST. The rest, well, it's the regular carousel of crap you find on bestselling online lists. What a disappointment.

For myself, my book is tentatively entitled A History of Excellence. The focus is on what's right about history. So a possible title might be:

The History of Excellence: Twenty-Three Tales of What's Wonderfully Right About Human Nature.

This is good. But, to repeat one of the titles above, I need good to go GREAT. LOL! ;-)