This sneak peek teaser - featuring literary giants John Grisham and Danielle Steele - from Chapter 2 of The Bestseller Code, a groundbreaking book about what a computer algorithm can teach us about blockbuster books, stories, and reading, reveals the importance of topic and theme in bestselling fiction according to percentages assigned by what the authors refer to as the “bestseller-ometer.” Although 55,000 novels are published every year, only about 200 hit the lists, a commercial success rate of less than half a percent. When the computer was asked to “blindly” select the most likely bestsellers out of 5,000 books published over the past thirty years based only on theme, it discovered two possible candidates: The Accident by Danielle Steel and The Associate by John Grisham. The computer recognized quantifiable patterns in their seemingly opposite, but undeniably successful writing careers with legal thrillers and romance. In Chapter 2, Archer and Jockers analyze this data and divulge the most and least likely to best sell topics and themes in fiction with a human discussion of the “why” behind these results. The Bestseller Code is a big-idea book about the relationship between creativity and technology. At heart it is a celebration of books for readers and writers—a compelling investigation into how successful writing works.

What if an algorithm could predict which manuscripts would become mega-bestsellers? Girl on the Train. Fifty Shades. The Goldfinch. Why do some books capture the whole world's attention? What secret DNA do they share? In The Bestseller Code, Archer and Jockers boldly claim that blockbuster hits are highly predictable, and they have created the algorithm to prove it. Using cutting-edge text mining techniques, they have developed a model that analyses theme, plot, style and character to explain why some books resonate more than others with readers. Provocative, entertaining, and ground-breaking, The Bestseller Code explores the hidden patterns at work in the biggest hits and, more importantly, the real reasons we love to read.

A novel set in the 60's by a writer who lived through them.

An exploration of the possibilities of hypertext fiction as art form and entertainment

What do weight loss, evil emperors and tales of redemption have in common? We readers have many dirty little secrets-and our bestselling books are spilling them all. We can't resist conspiratorial crooks or the number 7. We have bought millions of books about cheese. And over a million of us read more than 50 nearly identical books every single year. In Why We Read What We Read, Lisa Adams and John Heath take an insightful and often hilarious tour through nearly 200 bestselling books, ferreting out their persistent themes and determining what those say about what we believe and how we relate to one another. Some of our favorite (and revealing) topics include: --Repeating the Obvious: Diet, Wealth, and Inspiration --Black and White and Read All Over: Good and Evil in Bestselling Adventure Novels and Political Nonfiction --Soul Train: Religion and Spirituality --Hopefully Ever After: Love, Romance and Relationships --Reading for Redemption: Trials and Triumphs in Literary Fiction and Nonfiction --Controversy and Conspiracy in The Da Vinci Code Explore the nature of what and how we read-and what it means for our psyches, our society and our future.

Performing Without a Stage is a lively and comprehensive introduction to the art of literary translation for readers of foreign fiction and poetry who wonder what it takes to translate, how the art of literary translation has changed over the centuries, what problems translators face in bringing foreign works into English and how they go about solving these problems. This book will also be of interest to translators, writers, editors, critics, and literature students, dealing as it does, often controversially, with such matters as the translator's fidelity to the author, the publishing and reviewing of translations, the nearly nonexistent public image of the stageless translator, and the value for writers and scholars of studying and practicing translation.

How are linguistic wars for global prominence literarily and linguistically inscribed in literature? This book focuses on the increasing presence of cosmetic multilingualism in prize-winning fiction, making a case for an emerging transparent-turn in which momentary multilingualism works in the service of long-term monolingualism.