>>>How do you know whether a book is a bestseller?
>>
>>http://www.answers.com/topic/bestseller
>>
>>Scroll down a bit.
>
>Most of it is Wikipedia, and I loved this bit (missing in this copy, but go Wikipedia):
>
>"Unread bestsellers
>
>Bestsellers have gained such great popularity that it has sometimes become fashionable to purchase them. Critics have pointed out that just because a book is purchased doesn't mean it will be read. The rising length of bestsellers may mean that more of them are simply becoming bookshelf decor. In 1985 members of the staff of The New Republic placed coupons redeemable for cash inside Strobe Talbott's "Deadly Gambits: The Reagan Administration and the Stalemate in Nuclear Arms Control" and none of them were sent in [9]."


Guilty as charged. I have about three shelves of unread books at the moment, most of them hardcovers. Thick biographies that cost $25-30 even at Amazon are especially big offenders. My intention is still to read all, or at least most, of them, but the backlog persists. And with new books coming out all the time....

At least I have gotten a lot better about using the library instead of buying everything.