Tuesday, January 31, 2006

"ABOUT AS FACT-BASED AS NANNY MCPHEE:" Today's Times features a column (TimesSelect login required) that, in the context of asking exactly where A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard should be shelved--Fiction? Non-fiction? Memoir? "Lives and Letters?" Self-Improvement?--provides some fascinating statistics about shelf space at the Upper West Side Barnes and Noble:
  • 76 shelves are devoted to "Self-Improvement."
  • 70 additional shelves are devoted to "Psychotherapy and Psychology."
  • 23 shelves are devoted to "New Age," with 7 additional shelves on Wicca.
  • 97 shelves are devoted to "Christianity and Christian Inspiration."
  • 48 shelves are devoted to "Judaica," with 6 of them in the subcategory of "Holocaust Studies."
  • 25 shelves for "African-American," compared to only 6 for "Hispanic."
  • 17 shelves for Buddhism, compared to only 7 for Islam.

No comments:

Post a Comment