Inflammatory Reporting 101

[coalescent]

Controversial though it may sound, men write better books than women, at least according to the staff of Britain's biggest book chain, Waterstone's.

Courtesy of the Telegraph Main article (Waterstone's "denied suggestions yesterday that its book tills were manned by male chauvinists"), comment ("Great to see William Gibson, but where’s Neal Stephenson?"), and of course the list, which is an HTML table I'm not going to attempt to reformat so I can post it here.

Comments

[coalescent.livejournal.com]

You know, it strikes me that they haven't actually reported the numbers of books by men and women, they just state that there are more by men. Have I missed something? And if not, can anyone be bothered counting the list and seeing what the split actually is?

[buymeaclue.livejournal.com]

You think I'm here for content? This is SPAAAAAAAARTAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I'm here for the SNARRRRRRRKAAAAAAAAAAA!

(Good questions, though.)

[drasecretcampus.livejournal.com]

I make it 27 books by women (although there are a couple of names I don't know for sure but I think I've looked them up). Three of those are Atwood, so 25 women on the list, about 67 men (Banks, Bryson, Hornby and others have two books).

Disturbing how many of these I have or would consider buying at a quid.