Lefty Geek-Chic

When a news item containing Google’s top-10 list based on Google’s Book Search crossed my desk, I paid attention, thinking it might be the basis of a good item for The Rap Sheet. After all, you just never see a top-10 list of books that doesn’t contain a healthy whack of crime fiction. Well, until now.

An item on the Inforworld blog says it best:

The list, which is based on searches done between September 17 and 23rd is lefty geek-chic at its best and, as Google’s own PR points out, bares absolutely no resemblance to other book lists like The New York Times Bestseller List or Amazon’s best sellers. ... Anybody who can tease some kind of zeitgeist out of this list wins the antivirus company shwag gathering dust on my desk.

So, OK, let’s be clear: this has absolutely nothing to do with mystery fiction. Or any other kind of fiction, for that matter. It’s interesting, though, so I’m passing it on anyway:

Google’s Top 10 Books for the Week of September 17:

• Diversity and Evolutionary Biology of Tropical Flowers, by Peter K. Endress

• Merriam Webster's Dictionary of Synonyms

• Measuring and Controlling Interest Rate and Credit Risk, by Frank J. Fabozzi, Steven V. Mann, Moorad Choudhry

• Ultimate Healing: The Power of Compassion, by Lama Zopa Rinpoche; edited by Ailsa Cameron

• The Holy Qur’an, translated by Abdullah Yusuf Ali

• Peterson’s Study Abroad 2006 (Thomson Peterson’s)

• Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, by Noam Chomsky

• Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage

• Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, by Thomas R. Arp, Greg Johnson

• Build Your Own All-Terrain Robot, by Brad Graham, Kathy McGowan

Google’s book search is here.