by Ben Blatt
Storm Front—John Sandford
Sycamore Row—John Grisham
Taken—Robert Crais
The Drop—Michael Connelly
The English Girl—Daniel Silva
The Escape—David Baldacci
The Fallen Angel—Daniel Silva
The First Phone Call from Heaven—Mitch Albom
The Heist—Daniel Silva
The Hit—David Baldacci
The Innocent—David Baldacci
The Last Man—Vince Flynn
The Litigators—John Grisham
The Longest Ride—Nicholas Sparks
The Magicians—Lev Grossman
The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Neil Gaiman
The Panther—Nelson DeMille
The Racketeer—John Grisham
The Target—David Baldacci
The Time Keeper—Mitch Albom
The Wind Through the Keyhole—Stephen King
Winter of the World—Ken Follett
Words of Radiance—Brandon Sanderson
Zero Day—David Baldacci
Modern Literary Fiction—Introduced Chapter 2
Starting with awards given at the end of 2014 and looking backward, this list consists of the last fifty novels written by women and the last fifty novels written by men that were on any of the following lists: New York Times Top Ten Books of the Year, Pulitzer Prize finalists, Man Booker Prize short list, National Book Award finalists, National Book Critics Circle finalists, and Time magazine’s best books of the year. I did not exclude a book from this list even if it had been a bestseller (for example Stephen King’s 11-22-63).
A Gate at the Stairs—Lorrie Moore
A Tale for the Time Being—Ruth Ozeki
A Visit from the Goon Squad—Jennifer Egan
Americanah—Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Bring Up the Bodies—Hilary Mantel
Dept. of Speculation—Jenny Offill
Euphoria—Lily King
Faithful Place—Tana French
Great House—Nicole Krauss
Half Broke Horses—Jeannette Walls
Half-Blood Blues—Esi Edugyan
How to Be Both—Ali Smith
Jamrach’s Menagerie—Carol Birch
Lark and Termite—Jayne Anne Phillips
Life After Life—Kate Atkinson
Lila—Marilynne Robinson
Lord of Misrule—Jaimy Gordon
Love in Infant Monkeys—Lydia Millet
Magnificence—Lydia Millet
NW—Zadie Smith
Olive Kitteridge—Elizabeth Strout
Room—Emma Donoghue
Salvage the Bones—Jesmyn Ward
Someone—Alice McDermott
State of Wonder—Ann Patchett
Station Eleven—Emily St. John Mandel
Stone Arabia—Dana Spiotta
Swamplandia!—Karen Russell
Swimming Home—Deborah Levy
Ten Thousand Saints—Eleanor Henderson
The Buddha in the Attic—Julie Otsuka
The Children’s Book—A. S. Byatt
The Flamethrowers—Rachel Kushner
The Goldfinch—Donna Tartt
The Interestings—Meg Wolitzer
The Lighthouse—Alison Moore
The Little Stranger—Sarah Waters
The Long Song—Andrea Levy
The Lowland—Jhumpa Lahiri
The Luminaries—Eleanor Catton
The Plague of Doves—Louise Erdrich
The Round House—Louise Erdrich
The Secret Place—Tana French
The Signature of All Things—Elizabeth Gilbert
The Snow Child—Eowyn Ivey
The Tiger’s Wife—Téa Obreht
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves—Karen Joy Fowler
We Need New Names—NoViolet Bulawayo
Where’d You Go, Bernadette—Maria Semple
Wolf Hall—Hilary Mantel
11-22-63—Stephen King
A Brief History of Seven Killings—Marlon James
A Dance with Dragons—George R. R. Martin
A Hologram for the King—Dave Eggers
All the Light We Cannot See—Anthony Doerr
An Unnecessary Woman—Rabih Alameddine
At Last—Edward St. Aubyn
Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk—Ben Fountain
Bleeding Edge—Thomas Pynchon
C—Tom McCarthy
Family Life—Akhil Sharma
Freedom—Jonathan Franzen
Harvest—Jim Crace
In a Strange Room—Damon Galgut
J—Howard Jacobson
Narcopolis—Jeet Thayil
NOS4A2—Joe Hill
On Such a Full Sea—Chang-rae Lee
Open City—Teju Cole
Parrot and Olivier in America—Peter Carey
Pigeon English—Stephen Kelman
Snowdrops—A. D. Miller
The Art of Fielding—Chad Harbach
The Bone Clocks—David Mitchell
The Family Fang—Kevin Wilson
The Fault in Our Stars—John Green
The Garden of Evening Mists—Tan Twan Eng
The Good Lord Bird—James McBride
The Infatuations—Javier Marías
The Laughing Monsters—Denis Johnson
The Lives of Others—Neel Mukherjee
The Marriage Plot—Jeffrey Eugenides
The Narrow Road to the Deep North—Richard Flanagan
The Ocean at the End of the Lane—Neil Gaiman
The Orphan Master’s Son—Adam Johnson
The Pale King—David Foster Wallace
The Privileges—Jonathan Dee
The Sense of an Ending—Julian Barnes
The Sisters Brothers—Patrick Dewitt
The Sojourn—Andrew Krivak
The Son—Philipp Meyer
The Stranger’s Child—Alan Hollinghurst
The Surrendered—Chang-rae Lee
The Testament of Mary—Colm Tóibín
The Woman Who Lost Her Soul—Bob Shacochis
The Zone of Interest—Martin Amis
To Rise Again at a Decent Hour—Joshua Ferris
Train Dreams—Denis Johnson
Umbrella—Will Self
Yellow Birds—Kevin Powers
Male/Female Indicative Words—Introduced Chapter 2
The sources for the chart are as follows:
1. Facebook Status data: H. A. Schwartz, J. C. Eichstaedt, M. L. Kern, L. Dziurzynski, S. M. Ramones, M. Agrawal, et al. “Personality, Gender, and Age in the Language of Social Media: The Open-Vocabulary Approach,” Public Library of Science One 8(9): e73791. 2, 2013.
2. Chatroom Emoticons data: S. Kapidzic, S. C. Herring. “Gender, Communication, and Self-presentation in Teen Chatrooms Revisited: Have Patterns Changed?” Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 2011: 17, 39–59.
3. Twitter Assent or Negation Terms data: D. Bamman, J. Eisenstein, and T. Schnoebelen. “Gender Identity and Lexical Variation in Social Media,” Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18: 135–160, doi: 10.1111/josl.12080.
4. Blogs data: J. Schler, M. Koppel, S. Argamon, and J. Pennebaker. “Effects of Age and Gender on Blogging,” Computational Approaches to Analyzing Weblogs—Papers from the AAAI Spring Symposium, Technical Report, 2006, vol. SS-06-03, pp. 191–197.
Starting on page 37, I also discuss a method created by Neal Krawetz for guessing the gender of an author. It is a more basic version of the academic paper, and I chose to include it for its simplicity. Each word is weighted based on how common it is in the writing of one gender compared to the other, and I combined the scores of Krawetz’s “formal” and “informal” method. Also, as mentioned in the text, gendered pronouns were removed from the scoring system so that pronouns like she and he alone were not giving away results.
The point values in the original method developed by Krawetz were scaled so the average sample would have a 1:1 ratio of male-weighted words to female-weig
hted words. Because I removed gendered pronouns, which are considered indicative of female writing, the ratio of male word points to female word points was closer to 6:5 in the three samples. To account for this, I rescaled the scores so that the point ratio was 1:1 over the three samples.
If I kept Krawetz’s original method intact (leaving in all gendered pronouns and not changing the scaling) the results would have correctly predicted 63, 71, and 59 of all books in the classic, modern bestseller, and modern literary samples respectively. This is better than the 58, 66, and 58 discussed in the text. However, because I chose to examine if nongendered words have correlation to the gender of the author in popular literature, the scaling was necessary. Krawetz’s method is available at www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser under the “Genre: Formal” section.
Below are the 47 words and their point value according to the Krawetz method. The points shown for male words are the points given by the original method. The points shown for female words have been scaled by roughly 1.19 for the purposes of Chapter 2.
Male Indicative Words (according to Krawetz’s method)
a +6
above +4
are +28
around +42
as +60
at +6
below +8
ever +21
good +31
in +10
is +18
it +6
many + 6
now +33
said +5
some +58
something +26
the +24
these + 8
this +44
to +2
well +15
what +35
who +19
Female Indicative Words (according to Krawetz’s method)
actually +49
am +42
and +4
be +17
because +55
but +43
everything +44
has +33
if +22
like +43
more +7
not +27
out +39
should +7
since +25
so +54
too +38
was +1
we +8
when +17
where +18
with +52
your +19
Fifty Author List—Introduced Chapter 3
The fifty authors included in this list were selected to represent a mix of literary fiction and bestsellers, both modern hits and classics. I chose from among this book’s earlier lists while also making several additions (like Elmore Leonard) to cover a broader range of genres and time periods. This list is also used in later chapters of the book, but in Chapter 4 and beyond Harper Lee is included in place of Thomas Pynchon. Mosteller and Wallace’s author identification method requires at least two works, a known sample and an unknown sample. However, when this list was assembled Harper Lee had published only one book. Thomas Pynchon was chosen as a replacement so as to investigate his onetime authorship controversy.
Jane Austen—6 novels
Dan Brown—4 Robert Langdon books
Willa Cather—14 novels
Michael Chabon—7 novels
Agatha Christie—66 novels
Suzanne Collins—3 Hunger Games books
Joseph Conrad—14 novels
Charles Dickens—20 novels
Theodore Dreiser—8 novels
Jennifer Egan—4 novels
Dave Eggers—6 novels
William Faulkner—19 novels
F. Scott Fitzgerald—4 novels
Gillian Flynn—3 novels
E. M. Forster—6 novels
Jonathan Franzen—4 novels
William Gaddis—5 novels
Neil Gaiman—7 novels
John Green—4 novels
Ernest Hemingway—10 novels
Khaled Hosseini—3 novels
E L James—3 Fifty Shades books
James Joyce—3 novels
Stephen King—51 novels
D. H. Lawrence—12 novels
Elmore Leonard—45 novels
Sinclair Lewis—19 novels
Jack London—20 novels
Stephenie Meyer—4 Twilight books
Toni Morrison—10 novels
Vladimir Nabokov—8 novels
George Orwell—6 novels
Chuck Palahniuk—14 novels
James Patterson—22 Alex Cross books
Thomas Pynchon—8 novels
Ayn Rand—3 novels
Veronica Roth—3 Divergent books
J. K. Rowling—7 Harry Potter books
Salman Rushdie—9 novels
Zadie Smith—4 novels
John Steinbeck—19 novels
J. R. R. Tolkien—LOTR and The Hobbit
Mark Twain—13 novels
John Updike—26 novels
Kurt Vonnegut—14 novels
Alice Walker—8 novels
Edith Wharton—22 novels
E. B. White—3 novels
Tom Wolfe—4 novels
Virginia Woolf—9 novels
Pulitzer Prize Winners—Introduced Chapter 5
Throughout this book I referred to a collection of Pulitzer Prize–winning novels. A listing of these can be found at www.pulitzer.org. Unless noted for a particular study, only the winner for each year’s “Pulitzer Prize for Fiction” was examined (and not finalists). The span of years considered often varied depending on the particular study, but is specified within the main text. Some years do not have winners.
New York Times Number One Bestsellers—Introduced Chapter 5
The section on the decline in reading level relied heavily on New York Times Number One Bestsellers between 1960 and 2014. The listings were accessed from www.hawes.com. Over the years the criteria for which books are considered for the New York Times bestseller list has changed. For the statistics in this book the hardcover rankings were used.
In later sections the same listings from www.hawes.com were used. In some cases, such as author nationality in Chapter 6, all bestsellers were included instead of just the number one bestsellers. This is noted in the text.
New York Times Bestsellers—Introduced Chapter 6
The section on U.K. bestsellers and author nationality relied on the weekly top ten bestsellers in The New York Sunday Times. Books were taken from the fiction “Hardcover” list. As the text states, only the years 1974, 1984, 1994, 2004, and 2014 were included in the statistics. A full analysis of a forty-year time period was unfeasible due to intermittent gaps in the data, but the years in between showed a similar pattern to those discussed in the text (which is to say that the years discussed are not outliers).
Publishers Weekly Top Ten—Introduced Chapter 7
This sample, in which James Patterson came out as the most clichéd, was composed of Publishers Weekly top ten bestselling novels of the year. The years 2000 through 2013 were considered. While normally this would be 140 books, 13 books were repeats from previous years or were excluded by myself for being novels targeted at a much younger age range (such as Diary of a Wimpy Kid). The 127 books considered are following:
The Brethren—John Grisham
The Mark: The Beast Rules the World— Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Bear and the Dragon—Tom Clancy
The Indwelling: The Beast Takes Possession—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Last Precinct—Patricia Cornwell
Journey—Danielle Steel
The Rescue—Nicholas Sparks
Roses Are Red—James Patterson
Cradle and All—James Patterson
The House on Hope Street—Danielle Steel
Desecration—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Skipping Christmas—John Grisham
A Painted House—John Grisham
Dreamcatcher—Stephen King
The Corrections—Jonathan Franzen
Black House—Stephen King and Peter Straub
Last Man Standing—David Baldacci
Valhalla Rising—Clive Cussler
A Day Late and a Dollar Short—Terry McMillan
Violets Are Blue—James Patterson
Blindsighted—Karin Slaughter
The Summons—John Grisham
Red Rabbit—Tom Clancy
The Remnant—Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye
The Lovely Bones—Alice Sebold
Prey—Michael Crichton
The Shelters of Stone—Jean M. Auel
Four Blind Mice—James Patterson
Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales—Stephen King
The Nanny Diaries—Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix—J. K. Rowling
The Da Vinci Code—Dan Brown
The Five People You Meet in Heaven—Mitch Albom
The King of Torts—John Grisham
Bleachers—John Grisham
Armageddon—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
The Teeth of the Tiger—Tom Clancy
The Big Bad Wolf—James Patterson
Blow Fly—Patricia Cornwell
The Last Juror—John Grisham
Glorious Appearing—Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
Angels & Demons—Dan Brown
State of Fear—Michael Crichton
London Bridges—James Patterson
Trace—Patricia Cornwell
The Rule of Four—Ian Caldwell and Dustin Thomason
The Broker—John Grisham
Mary, Mary—James Patterson
At First Sight—Nicholas Sparks
Predator—Patricia Cornwell
True Believer—Nicholas Sparks
Light from Heaven—Jan Karon
The Historian—Elizabeth Kostova
The Mermaid Chair—Sue Monk Kidd
Eleven on Top—Janet Evanovich
For One More Day—Mitch Albom
Cross—James Patterson
Dear John—Nicholas Sparks
Next—Michael Crichton
Hannibal Rising—Thomas Harris
Lisey’s Story—Stephen King
Twelve Sharp—Janet Evanovich
Cell—Stephen King
Beach Road—James Patterson and Peter de Jonge
The 5th Horseman—James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—J. K. Rowling
A Thousand Splendid Suns—Khaled Hosseini
Playing for Pizza—John Grisham
The Choice—Nicholas Sparks
Lean Mean Thirteen—Janet Evanovich
Plum Lovin’—Janet Evanovich
Book of the Dead—Patricia Cornwell
The Quickie—James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge
The 6th Target—James Patterson and Maxine Paetro
The Darkest Evening of the Year—Dean Koontz
The Appeal—John Grisham
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle—David Wroblewski