Saturday Sound Off: Making A List, Checking It Twice

November 15th, 2008 by Sandra_Ruttan | Filed under Column.

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Making A List, Checking It Twice by Sandra Ruttan

It’s list season.

Not just lists for Santa Claus, or lists of things to do before the end of the year, or lists of who to send Christmas cards to. No, it’s time to compile the “best of” lists.

This week, Rolling Stone published their list of the top 100 rock singers of all time. The #1 choice sparked an automatic debate - is Aretha Franklin a rock singer? The commentators on CNN discussing it quickly concluded that the point of lists was to generate controversy and discussion.

That’s how I feel about the monster lists that happen in the book world. Every time there’s a list, there will be disagreement. Perhaps we want to feel good because people can get passionate and fired up about books, but I can’t help feeling the lists are meaningless.

Unless…

Don’t you think the top 10 or 50 list would matter more if you knew all the books considered? What if I say that my best reads of the year were Salt River by James Sallis, Savage Night by Allan Guthrie and The Good Son by Russel D. McLean? Would it make you run out and buy those books? Would you question my sanity?

What if I named 50 other books I read in the year, from which I selected three favourites? And what if I went on to name ten other books I read in the year, from which I made a list of three favourites? What if it was clear I picked a top 3 from only 13 reads? Wouldn’t that affect the way people viewed my list?

I think it would. Change the context, consider the controversy last year over the self-publishing definitions of Mystery Writers of America, and how that affects which books are eligible for Edgar consideration. Sarah Weinman gave the overview and insight, and from there the discussion raged. For me, it’s simple. Charles didn’t have the final say over whether or not the book he wrote would be published by the line: Dorchester did. The book had to meet editorial approval, and he was paid. Dorchester is a publisher recognized by the MWA.

He may work with Dorchester for the Hard Case Crime line, but he’s not self-published.

And so, I can look at the list for last year’s Best Paperback Edgar category, and know of at least one highly regarded book that wasn’t even considered. Was the shortlist really the best of all published?

No. It was what the judges selected as the best of all submitted that were eligible under the Edgar rules. Sort of like having the highest grossing movie to come out on the last weekend in June when there’s a blue moon. In other words, hedging the requirements to still make it get the ‘highest grossing movie’ honour when it paled by comparison to a release from a previous year.

In the past I’ve done lists, but I’m not going to this year and the main reason is because I haven’t read enough books this year to feel a list from me has much merit.

As an author, I’ll undoubtedly look over some of the other lists that are put together, but I’m not going to get hot and bothered over them. I don’t expect my latest title to be under consideration for any of them, because books that come out near the end of the year often aren’t read in time to be considered, so they end up in a netherworld of books published in 2008, read in 2009, but not eligible for the lists that limit themselves to the best of what’s published within the calendar year.

As an author, I’ll be reminding myself as well that lists are meant to generate controversy and discussion. With that in mind, I’ll take my disagreements with a grain of salt and move on, for what inevitably follows the lists of the best of 2008 will be the lists of the most anticipated reads of 2009.

In other words, lists primarily featuring the 2009 releases that have had the most advanced publisher promotion.

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