Buying guide: New York Times best sellers

This guide to the New York Times' bestselling books list looks at how the list is compiled and how to search for the books from the list you would find interesting. It also discusses along with where to find them both on the internet and on the high street.

The list

The different lists Looking at the lists on the internet initially brings you to the overview page. This page breaks down all the different sections, some including e books, others just including hard copy books. In order to find a book you would find interesting, firstly you should select a category, for example 'paper back mass market fiction'. Choosing a book Once looking at your chosen list you can see the top 20 in detail and a further 15 books' brief details. You see how many weeks the book has been in the bestselling list and can also read novel reviews of the books (although not all of them) in the Sunday Book Review. Archives The NY Times' archives allow you to look at bestselling books from a particular time, not just new books. For example if you wanted to look at best sellers of 2009 you could look through both weeks and months of the lists.

Buying the books

Once you've chosen a book that you want to buy you can shop around for the best price on the internet or the high street. The Internet One of the benefits of shopping on the internet is that websites, such as Ebay.com or Play.com, generally have a wide variety of low price books, either new or used. Similarly, if you are looking at the NYT list online, it's much more convenient to just change website and have the book delivered to your home. The high street If you are shopping on the high street on the book but would still like a low price option then charity shops or second hand books stores may have second hand cheap copies. You can check the quality of these in a way that you can't check second hand copies bought on the internet.
Furthermore, because the list is of bestseller books major high street book chains and independent stores are likely to hold copies, making it easy to find a book wherever you look.