Discuss Rocmike3's answer to: Do you choose books off the best sellers list?

How do you choose your reading materials?

Rocmike3
Rocmike3 Answered:

It is an extreme rarity that I even look on the best seller list.  Most of the time these books have nothing to do with what I need, some are decidedly maudlin, and not one is even slightly related to my work.

I must admit that many of the books I read contain illustrations: mostly Feynman Diagrams describing nuclear reactions.

I suppose the main reason I avoid the best seller list is that it is a fantasy: one department of a major publisher sells a block of thirty thousand books of a given title to another department and reports the sale, then the "buyer" sells the same copies back to the original department -- without having to so much as print the hard copies.  The alleged sale of non-existent books is a scandal.  That is how we got such masterpieces as "The Accidental Tourist" on the best seller list when the book is such a disgusting loser that it might as well be a substitute for Sominex(tm). 

 

Even light will bend to do our bidding if we apply force correctly. The lowest servant in Heaven is still in Heaven, whoever rules in hell is still in hell, but they won't rule for long. No man stands taller than when he stoops to help a little child.
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n
n Thinks this answer is Helpful:

Just when I was beginning to doubt you RockMike, here you come through with some truth about how "best seller" lists are made.  If an independent book store sells two copies of a title, in a weeks time, that title gets on the "best seller" list for that week.  Doesn't mean it is a good book, it's just a "best seller" at one moment in time.
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