Friday, October 27, 2006

An unusual list

From Mark Sanderson's "Literary Life" column at the Telegraph (London):

What do the following, mainly obscure, works have in common? 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 and Moorad Choudhry, Ultimate Healing: The Power of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche, The Holy Qur'an translated (in 1934) by Abdullah Yusuf Ali, Peterson's Study Abroad 2006, 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 and Greg Johnson and Build Your Own All-Terrain Robot by Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan.

According to Google, they are the 10 English-language titles most often consulted via their Book Search facility. Google users must either be extraordinarily learned or the facility is only used by bored-to-death academics.

--Marshal Zeringue