Understanding the New York Times Bestseller List

New York Times public editor Clark Hoyt spent a column on the paper's bestseller book list. It's an interesting read to see some of the things that the survey of booksellers does and does not do. The people in charge will, at times, decide that a best seller has been on the list long enough and take it off. The list of stores they query changes all the time, and it's all done via computer. And still this scientific method bows to the decision by someone in the research department that a book can be on "too long," in his or her opinion, no matter how well it sells.