Comments on: True Confessions and Funny Books

By: Dorothy Menosky

Dorothy Menosky — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 02:24:09 +0000

Of course the list was published in parade.
I’m saying that Hornby (or whomever wrote the list) didn’t really read the books he is recommending. He (or whomever compiled the list) simply took it from the Amazon list.
All your theories are workable.

By: Keir

Keir — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:33:39 +0000

(And, Dave, I meant to say thanks for the links!)

By: Keir

Keir — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 19:33:08 +0000

Dorothy, as you know, at Likely Stories we never, ever deal in innuendo–please, I beg you, spell out your accusation! With “you say,” you seem to infer either that these recommendations were not published in Parade, or that they were indeed attributed to Hornby but not actually selected by him. I think you’re saying the latter but, if so, are you alluding that I am in collusion with Parade in perpetrating this terrible fraud? (I wouldn’t dream of fact-checking such a journalistic paragon.)

You wonder what? That Parade grabbed the list from Amazon and stuck it under Hornby’s picture and wrote the annotations for him? Frankly, I think it’s unlikely. (If anything, Hornby’s
publicist would have written them.)

And, if I may suggest a third option: by the time you visited Amazon, many other readers had, like you, clicked from the list to Amazon, and had in fact purchased the books that Hornby recommended. That would be a pretty plausible explanation as to why you later saw that people who had bought the first book had purchased the others as well, and in order even.

I’m just spitballing here, but I think it’s a workable theory.

By: Dorothy Menosky

Dorothy Menosky — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 17:40:27 +0000

I just looked at the list you say came from Hornby (in Parade – which I also read each Sunday after completing my little local paper). Interesting. If you go to Amazon and select the first book on the list, all of Hornby’s choices are listed under the “People who bought this book also bought…” Even in the same order.
Hmmm. I wonder.

By: Dave Lull

Dave Lull — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:38:16 +0000

You might also enjoy Tod Goldberg’s blog postings on the “Letters to Parade”:

http://tinyurl.com/y8aht3s