Protecting the Best Seller List

From Orson Scott Card's column on the final Harry Potter book:

In the stupidest maneuver in the history of literary criticism, the NYT succumbed to the whining of the poor, poor "adult" authors during the era when the first three or four spots on the list were all occupied by Rowling's Harry Potter series.

They created a new "children's literature" list and ghettoized the Harry Potter novels there, which amounts to a footnote. So the supposed "newspaper of record" will now show the bestsellers of the year 2007 without any mention of the conclusion of the single largest publishing phenomenon in history.

This is so typical of The New York Times. If they think something shouldn't have happened, then by not reporting it, they make it so it didn't happen.

But it did. And by removing Harry Potter from its bestseller list, The New York Times reveals itself as the toady of the elitists.

And what will occupy the top of the list instead? James Patterson in a sad little collaboration, followed by a Nora Roberts thriller. Not until we get to Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns do we get to a book that the NYT is likely to be proud to have on their list. And then there's Janet Evanovich, proving that she's incapable of having a new idea in Lean Mean Thirteen, followed by the latest Danielle Steele.

Wow. It's a good thing Harry Potter won't interfere with that!