Sam Tanenhaus, editor of The New York Times Book Review, insists that getting on the Times’ 10 Best Books of 2010 list is not a prize. There’s no ribbon. No ceremony. No giant check handed to a weeping recipient. “We’re not the Pulitzer Prize committee or the National Book Awards; we’re not even the PEN/Faulkner award,” Tanenhaus said on the phone from his desk at the Times. “Those other prizes, the actual prizes, result in books getting featured in chain book store tables. We’re just one small player in a diverse field.”
Choosing the books is an agonizing process. But “we know in the end, if a book doesn’t make it on the list, it doesn’t really matter,” he said. “When the cultural and literary histories are written, they will likely not cite us. It’s not that big of a deal.”
But for writers and readers, it is a big deal. The list was published online two weeks ago and appeared in print in this Sunday’s Book Review. It has already been pored over, blogged about, debated.
“Let’s face it, the Times’ Book Review is a taste-maker, and it matters,” said Jennifer Egan, who made this year’s list with her novel A Visit From the Goon Squad. “I’m impressed when I see someone on this list, and I know what it feels like to not cash in on the literary sweepstakes. I’ll tell you, it’s a lot more fun to be on the list.”
Other authors having fun right now: Jonathan Franzen, of course, who will make plenty of end-of-the-year lists with Freedom; Ann Beattie, a tenacious spokeswoman for the post-1960s generation in The New Yorker Stories; Emma Donoghue, whose Room “reveals how joy and terror often dwell side by side.” William Trevor, the Irish author and playwright, also made the list with “timeless,” “eloquent” Collected Stories.
In non-fiction, scholars (Jennifer Homans, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Stacy Schiff) weaved massive, difficult subjects (ballet, cancer, Cleopatra, respectively) into elegant narratives. Isabel Wilkerson, a former national correspondent for the Times, wrote a reporters’ book with a novelist’s hand with The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration. Stephen Sondheim’s Finishing the Hat, an analysis of his lyrics and a sometimes brutal critique of others’ work “is insightful and candid.”
Tanenhaus and Bob Harris, deputy editor of the Review, oversee the selection process. They begin with about 500 books assembled from their weekly Editor’s Choice column, which includes about nine or ten books each week, and make additions. Then, they choose the 100 Notable Books of the year. “That’s the most difficult,” Tanenhaus said. “A hundred books sounds like a lot, but it’s not really.” About “seven or eight” editors and reviewers, including Michiko Kakutani, Janet Maslin, and Dwight Garner, weigh in by email and in-person meetings about the books they feel “deserve special mention,” according to Tanenhaus.
The editors also consider coverage in other publications like The New Yorker, The New Republic, and The New York Review of Books. “If a book seems especially good but hasn’t been reviewed much or paid attention to, maybe this is an opportunity to help,” Tanenhaus said.
The criteria is “originality, scope, and depth,” Harris said in a podcast interview posted on the Paper Cuts blog. Authors who balanced a “broad sweep” with “precise detail” eventually made the list.
Are there fights over which books to include in the final list?
“Sometimes, sure,” Tanenhaus said. “These are people who are passionately devoted to books and literature. They know a good book when they find one.”
The process takes months and begins in the fall, as early as September, according to Tanenhaus. “It’s complicated because we know there are some books that will still be coming out.” For example, Patti Smith’s Just Kids, which won a National Book Award last month, was not included in the top 10 list, or the Notable Books list because of publication schedules.
“It’s totally imperfect,” Tanenhaus said about the final list. “You could replace those ten books with another ten books.”
Choosing end-of-the-year top 10 lists is so subjective, so un-algorithmic in this modern world of algorithms (Nielsen Bookscan metrics, Amazon rankings, Google search results). For publications like the Times, the editors have the luxury of control. They can take ownership of the word “best” the old-fashioned way: taking stock of a year in literature based on titles that were discussed at industry mixers, critiqued over lunches, handed to the president in a Martha’s Vineyard bookstore, sparking an entire industry’s excitement for its publication.
For readers, and some critics, too, books can define a year based on whether they were devoured long past bedtime; FedExed to them by a special friend, who wrote a thoughtful inscription on the jacket; or featuring a character that lingered long after they finished reading the final chapter.
Of course, not all of the year’s most memorable reads come from new works. Some books published decades ago will be personal emblems for readers in 2010. Egan said was “absolutely wild about” David Copperfield this year.
As for the Times’ list, “while I am ecstatic to be an insider this time, I also recognize that it does not decide the value of a work of art — I think time decides that,” Egan said. “The most tangible outcome of these lists is commercial, maybe, and believe me, I’ll take it.”
An illustration on the Book Review’s print cover features the 10 Best list, with each book jacket cut up and folded origami-style into a ribbon shape. Some authors’ faces are featured in a round circle, where “No. 1” or “The Best” might be printed, with pages of their book fanning out around them like a lion’s mane.
“I’m an individual and I’m an author myself,” Tanenhaus said. “I sympathize with the authors. It doesn’t feel great to be number 11 number 12. Also, this is very unofficial,” he said. “But we do it with the understanding that for other people, it’s way to keep a conversation going and keep an interest in books. That’s what we’re here for.”
