After the Books of Summer Have Gone

Summer might be the best time to read a good book at the beach, but there’s never a guarantee that printed blockbusters will hit the shelves. While Hollywood churned out smash hits like “Superman Returns” and “Talladega Nights,” the publishing industry stayed relatively quiet.

Many of the summer’s literary offerings were soon forgotten. Only five books remained among the top 15 New York Times bestselling non-fiction hardcovers as of this week. Novels apparently fared worse than non-fiction works, with only three novels older than a month making the Times’ companion list.

Readers decided to stick with familiar titles. “Marley & Me,” the oddly popular memoir of a newspaper man’s ill-behaved dog, dominated the non-fiction section along with interesting and layman-accessible tomes by Thomas L. Friedman, Steven Levitt, and Malcolm Gladwell, respectively.

Even the new seemed old as both polemics and press published the equivalent of refried beans about the war in Iraq. Surprisingly, those rehashed books sold, although unsurprisingly, not for long.

The one major change amidst all this constancy was the disappearance of “The Da Vinci Code” from the bestseller ranks. Author Dan Brown’s juggernaut was most likely done in by the ploddingly dull film adaptation released in May. It should be mentioned that Ron Howard directed, even though his name is synonymous with ploddingly dull.

No heir arose over the summer to succeed “The Da Vinci Code,” but that is not shocking.

Patricia Cornwell published a disappointing novella, “At Risk,” that centered on caricatures instead of forensic investigations into gruesome murders. James Patterson, who seems to let Andrew Gross handle the writing duties these days, issued another generic thriller, “Judge & Jury.” Patterson, following in Tom Clancy’s footsteps, threatens to become the Franklin W. Dixon or Gertrude Chandler Warner of this generation. A spate of chick-lit also hit the market and fizzled, lacking creativity or, at the bare minimum, controversy.

Perhaps cognizant of the summer book lull, large bookstore chains like Borders and Barnes and Noble set out display tables with the classics. Next year, think about reaching for Hemingway instead of Hoag. Or just watch a movie.

—Staff writer David Zhou can be reached at dzhou@fas.harvard.edu.