SOURCE: "Britain's '100 Best Books,'" in Contemporary Review, Vol. 270, No. 1575, April, 1997, pp. 206-10.

[In the following essay, May considers several implications of Waterstone's list, emphasizing the survey methods and respondents's backgrounds.]

Anyone who can write, so the saying goes, can write a book. And anyone who can lay their hands on a bit of money can publish it. That's the easy part.

What's difficult is to sell the wretched thing, to persuade the public to part with their pounds, dollars, francs, marks, whatever. Few individual books, at least in the eyes of publishers, merit substantial marketing campaigns. Those that do get exclusive promotion are those which would probably sell well anyhow, with or without hype. It had been expected, at least by some, that the demise of retail price maintenance in the book trade in Britain (which forced all shops to charge the same price for a...