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Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve: What the Numbers Reveal About the Classics, Bestsellers, and Our Own Writing

Ben Blatt

3.84 · Rating details · 1,546 ratings · 379 reviews

Data meets literature in this “enlightening” (The Wall Street Journal), “brilliant” (The Boston Globe), “Nate Silver-esque” (O, The Oprah Magazine) look at what the numbers have to say about our favorite authors and their masterpieces.

There’s a famous piece of writing advice—offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in between—not to use -ly adverbs lik Data meets literature in this “enlightening” (The Wall Street Journal), “brilliant” (The Boston Globe), “Nate Silver-esque” (O, The Oprah Magazine) look at what the numbers have to say about our favorite authors and their masterpieces.

There’s a famous piece of writing advice—offered by Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, and myriad writers in between—not to use -ly adverbs like “quickly” or “angrily.” It sounds like solid advice, but can we actually test it? If we were to count all the -ly adverbs these authors used in their careers, do they follow their own advice? What’s more, do great books in general—the classics and the bestsellers—share this trait?

In the age of big data we can answer questions like these in the blink of an eye. In Nabokov’s Favorite Word Is Mauve, a “literary detective story: fast-paced, thought-provoking, and intriguing” (Brian Christian, coauthor of Algorithms to Live By), statistician and journalist Ben Blatt explores the wealth of fun findings that can be discovered by using text and data analysis. He assembles a database of thousands of books and hundreds of millions of words, and then he asks the questions that have intrigued book lovers for generations: What are our favorite authors’ favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? What makes a great opening sentence? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring?

All of Blatt’s investigations and experiments are original, conducted himself, and no math knowledge is needed to enjoy the book. On every page, there are new and eye-opening findings. By the end, you will have a newfound appreciation of your favorite authors and also come away with a fresh perspective on your own writing. “Blatt’s new book reveals surprising literary secrets” (Entertainment Weekly) and casts an x-ray through literature, allowing us to see both the patterns that hold it together and the brilliant flourishes that allow it to spring to life. ...more

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Published March 14th 2017 by Simon & Schuster

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Jan 08, 2018 Brina rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, writing-life

Two months ago my seventh grade son chose to write his independent book report on I Don't Care if We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever because it details how two friends used a computer algorithm to attend games at thirty different major league baseball stadiums in thirty days. In essence, the book's primary author is a grown version of my math and baseball loving son. So moved was my son by the book that he conducted a question and answer session over Two months ago my seventh grade son chose to write his independent book report on I Don't Care if We Never Get Back: 30 Games in 30 Days on the Best Worst Baseball Road Trip Ever because it details how two friends used a computer algorithm to attend games at thirty different major league baseball stadiums in thirty days. In essence, the book's primary author is a grown version of my math and baseball loving son. So moved was my son by the book that he conducted a question and answer session over email with the author, this while he had just published a second book. This correspondence became my family's reading story of the year. I was touched by Ben Blatt's willingness to answer questions for a seventh grader's English assignment, so I decided to read this aforementioned second book for myself.

Scientists maintain that the majority of people are either left or right brained dominate, with one's ability to solve mathematical equations and write quality stories being on opposite sides of the brain. Ben Blatt decides to use mathematical algorithms to delve into the writing processes of various authors from Charles Dickens to Stephen King and a myriad of genre authors in between. In his introduction he uses the example of who wrote the Declaration of Independence: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, or anonymous authors. By plugging the usages of the words whilst and while into a computer program, Blatt found that the evidence supports Madison as the lead writer. Fifty years ago, mathematicians attempted to answer the same question but they did not have the luxury of a computer and had to solve the same algorithm by hand. Their evidence matches Blatt's, revealing that math does play a significant role in written language.

Each chapter in this book details a different variable as a determinant for authorship. Blatt uses his favorite authors as examples but collects a large enough sample size to create accurate data. Some of the more intriguing chapters pinpointed various word usage in male and female authors and how language usage has changed or remained the same over the past two hundred years. He placed classic, New York Times best sellers, and modern literary fiction authors into different categories, explaining how their word usage is both the same and different. In this demonstration of compare and contrast, he notes the use of action words or verbs, adjectives, and adverbs across the spectrum of writers, tabulating the data in charts that he includes in the final book. Stephen King, for example, urges promising writers to avoid the adverb. I have attempted to cut down on -ly words for the purpose of this review, and Blatt cuts down on his preference toward adverbs during the chapter where he discusses this caveat of language. He also plugs King's adverb usage into his algorithm to reveal whether or not he uses the part of speech more or less than other writers.

In the final chapters, Blatt notes of two trends in the publishing industry today. The first is how authors of both popular series and stand alone books tend to write longer books over time. The first Harry Potter book was only 306 pages long because J.K. Rowling did not know if her book was going to be famous or not. Each successive book became longer in length, both because of Rowling's success and because fans demanded longer stories. Blatt reveals that this trend is similar in current best selling series as Divergent and Twilight while the trend holds for popular literary fiction writer Amy Tan. Another point he presents is how as best selling authors get more famous, their name takes up a larger percentage of space on the book's cover. Stephen King's name only took up seven percent of the cover with his first book when he was an unknown author, and his percentage has plateaued at forty six percent. In essence, popularity sells, revealing how current best selling authors market themselves as much as the content of their books, leading to multiple publications per author per year, increasing the likelihood that these authors enjoy extended stays at the top of the New York Times best selling list.

Blatt points out that as the trend toward churning out formulaic books increases, that perhaps as a society we have dumbed down in terms of what we read. He has taken questions about the quality of literature that I often ask myself and plugged them into algorithms in order to come up with concreate data about the word choices that make up both best selling books, literary fiction, and classics. I found each of the chapters engaging and enjoyed the graphs and charts that backed up the data. Blatt's use of mathematical equations to pinpoint language usage has been a full brain exercise that I found fascinating. As I often point out that one book leads to another, I am happy to note that my son's positive experience with Blatt's first book lead me to his intriguing second effort.

4 stars
...more

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Mar 23, 2019 Diane S ☔ rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 5000-2019, lor-2019

3.5 What a fascinating book. Using math computations to find out who wrote something, who uses the least adverbs, thought verbs and other markers that makes ones writing their own. Different authors, different word choices, even punctuation all make a difference. Found it interesting that even authors who write a different genre under a different name such as Rowling can be identified. That though the name changes the writing does not. Words women authors use more often than men and visa versa. ...more

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Feb 20, 2019 ☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, memorabilia, consulting, cognitive-improvement, non-fiction, knowledge, underrated, mat-stat-fin, synesthesia, big-data

Yes! Mouthwatering DS for readers. The ultimate pleasure for people enamored with:
- data science,
- stats,
- history,
- reading,
- books,
- writing...

Numbers and words can work together, if you take it all in in a particular way!

So, Neil Gaiman works with doors and coats,
Palahniuk orgasms throughout his books,
Gillian Flynn is all about pissed girls with runner hair (kidding... not!),
James Patterson's work's always about murders by killers & kidnappings,
Janet Evanovich is maybe too much into doug ...more

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Mar 19, 2017 Jennifer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, favorites

I am obsessed. I was browsing the literary criticism/essays shelves at Barnes & Noble, as one does, when I happened upon this treasure. It was one of those soul-meets-book moments. Like, I had no idea I wanted this book to exist, but once I saw it I knew I had actually been waiting for it my whole life. This is Google Ngram meets human researcher, and the result is delightful.

Blatt examines writing style via statistics, focusing on specific questions to get an idea of existing patterns. Some of I am obsessed. I was browsing the literary criticism/essays shelves at Barnes & Noble, as one does, when I happened upon this treasure. It was one of those soul-meets-book moments. Like, I had no idea I wanted this book to exist, but once I saw it I knew I had actually been waiting for it my whole life. This is Google Ngram meets human researcher, and the result is delightful.

Blatt examines writing style via statistics, focusing on specific questions to get an idea of existing patterns. Some of his questions I had asked (with no ready answer) long before picking up this book (like the jumping-off point for the first chapter: Did Hemingway avoid adverbs?), while other questions Blatt addressed had never occurred to me. His survey of written works spanned classics to fan fiction to erotica, and he detailed the process of gathering relevant samples from each category. Tables and graphs, all shaded mauve, accompanied the written summaries of his research.

His explanations of the data and parameters were clear and straightforward. It has been a while since I've studied statistics, but I realize that not much math was included in this book. As I've said, the results were, although Blatt did not go into detail (e.g. we were not given p-values for any result that was claimed to be significant). If I were a statistician I might wish he had included more about the mathematical process, but I found Blatt achieved a balance by describing how he selected his samples and providing illustrations of his results. This book was readable and, while math can be interesting, I don't know that the book would have been as engaging if there had been more of a focus on the equations/programs used to arrive at the results.

A few gems: The three words appearing together at the beginning of the most sentences in Fifty Shades of Grey are: "Christian Grey CEO" ("My inner goddess" is phrase number three); the most distinctive word in US erotica is "comforter," while in the UK it's "wanked"; and 42 of Danielle Steele's 92 opening sentences mention the weather. In case I've just made this book seem judgmental (I definitely have), it actually isn't. I am, but Blatt presented information alongside respectful commentary. This book is funny, but the humor is not mean-spirited.

Despite the breadth and depth that Blatt covered, I want more. If he ever feels like following the trend of inflation in follow-up books, I'll be here to read the result. ...more

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Jan 27, 2018 Annie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Simple and sweet. Conceptually uncomplicated (but a very complicated project for the author!) and a pleasant read. Reading this one gave me a similar feeling to taking fun, mindless Buzzfeed quizzes. There’s no real point, ultimately, but it was lovely to think about and muse over. I was always pleased to have time to come back to it, but nothing was heart-pounding or dramatic. The perfect book for a stressful time in your life where you need something to hold your attention without freaking you ...more

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Mar 15, 2017 Kathleen Flynn rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This book, which uses data analysis to look at literature, is utterly fascinating and also very funny in places, like the chapter about cliches, which made me start laughing out loud in a crowded subway car.

My only complaint is that it wasn't longer. ...more

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Mar 26, 2017 Briana rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

In his author bio, Ben Blatt refers to himself as a "data journalist," but the type of work he does in Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve reminds me of some of the tasks that scholars and graduate students are working on in the digital humanities. The anecdote that Blatt opens with, explaining how two scholars used statistics to determine the authors of some of the essays in the Federalist Papers in 1963, is one good example. Digital tools can make answering some of our pressing questions about wr In his author bio, Ben Blatt refers to himself as a "data journalist," but the type of work he does in Nabokov's Favorite Word is Mauve reminds me of some of the tasks that scholars and graduate students are working on in the digital humanities. The anecdote that Blatt opens with, explaining how two scholars used statistics to determine the authors of some of the essays in the Federalist Papers in 1963, is one good example. Digital tools can make answering some of our pressing questions about writing, reading, and authorship so much faster, and Blatt demonstrates how.

The book is divided into different topics, and I admit some are more interesting than others. I particularly enjoyed the first chapter, "Use Sparingly," where Blatt investigates whether the old writing advice "use -ly adverbs minimally" is "good" advice. (Of course that will always be somewhat subjective, but he takes a look at classic authors, generally deemed "good" authors, to see see if they tend to follow this rule. Frequently he analyzes fan fiction to get a sense of how more amateur writing compares.) His conclusions on this and similar writing advice questions can be useful to writers looking to improve their own work. I also had fun watching Blatt analyze whether authors follow their own writing advice, or whether they're full of hot air.
Blatt also delves into issues of co-authorship, such as: Can you tell who wrote "most" of the book that has two author names on the cover? (Or just one name, with an uncredited ghost writer?) And he addresses questions of readership, such as whether the books on the new York Times Bestseller list are getting less complex. (Spoiler: They are.) Blatt covers an interesting array of topics, leaving much of the analysis open to the reader. (Does it even matter that todya's bestsellers are written at a lower grade level than in previous decades?)

My least favorite chapter was "How to Judge a Book by Its Cover." While a lot of Blatt's points are fascinating, occasionally he stumbles onto the obvious, and that was the most true in this chapter. He takes pages just to point out that the more famous you are as an author, the bigger your name tends to be on the cover of your books. Well...duh. Of course, he attaches numbers to the issue (What percentage of the cover does your name take up? What's the largest your name is ever likely to be?), but overall I didn't think the issue was worth going on about.

This is a fascinating book. From here, I think the only real questions are what we, as readers, will do with the information Blatt provides. Highly recommended (particularly for those of you looking to read more nonfiction! It's a book about books!). ...more

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Jan 16, 2018 Rebecca Renner rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

I'm a big numbers geek, so this was an interesting peek into word usage analysis. ...more

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Mar 19, 2019 Cynda rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: language, read-2019, reading-mostly-nonfiction-2019, informative

Basically basically Ben Blatt uses statistics to discern what writers use certain characteristics and to discern to what degree/statistical level. Blatt discusses a variety of topics, including word choices, types of writing, gender of writers. And much more.

It took me a few chapters to realize that Blatt was writing a style book. Instead of talking about writing in theory, he is using statistics to back up his assertions. One of the injunctions I came up with was to write using nouns and verbal ...more

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Aug 23, 2017 Louise rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: language-studies

Now that computers have demonstrated how the words of everyday life differ from words of academia and have produced corpi of words and phrases and from books, speeches and even overheard conversations, it was only a matter of time for a popular work exploring word and sentence patterns in literature to emerge.

Ben Blatt begins with the Federalist Papers which through word analysis determines (finally?) who wrote what. He checks word frequency of popular authors (hence the title), the use of short ...more

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Mar 24, 2017 Michael Perkins rated it it was ok · review of another edition

This is a gimmick book. Is it really a surprise that, by these metrics, the worst writers include the authors of Twilight, Fifty-Shades of Grey, and Dan Brown? Or that the the reading level for the NYT bestseller list has slid precipitously in the last 50 years? Ot that James Patterson uses the most cliches? Some of the charts can be interesting, but the surrounding prose is verbose. I'm glad I got this one out of the library.

Read (or reread) "The Elements of Style" instead.

"Omit needless words, ...more

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Apr 04, 2019 Jeanette rated it liked it · review of another edition

This is excellent in the sense of being exact. Similar to an actuary figuring the precise percentage of possible future you own if recording enough honest and real criteria about you, your health, your lifestyle. But instead of the facts of cigarettes smoked, or number of beers you drink a week- it is the words of the product that are counted and analyzed to their importance repetitions or equivalencies of habits or parts of speech etc.

For me it was a 4 star at the least in the interest it held This is excellent in the sense of being exact. Similar to an actuary figuring the precise percentage of possible future you own if recording enough honest and real criteria about you, your health, your lifestyle. But instead of the facts of cigarettes smoked, or number of beers you drink a week- it is the words of the product that are counted and analyzed to their importance repetitions or equivalencies of habits or parts of speech etc.

For me it was a 4 star at the least in the interest it held for my own attention and also the explanations of digital counting procedures used. That was absolutely 4 star. What it lost for me was the rather limited amounts of "classics" and "bestsellers" used in the comparisons of every charting.

Do authors follow their own advice? I found those sections quite intriguing. And also have aversions to adverbs and feeling words quite beyond the ordinary constant reader myself. Especially all the effusive gushers. Also the writing fingerprint explained style well. That's a feature to identity "like to like" and it happens (also I've noted the co-author thing going on that way) but didn't perceive how I was doing that. Now I do.

But! Come on! Stephen King and Danielle Steel and Nicholas Spark and about 10 other thriller of most $$$ success writers being the predominant core of "stars"?? Yes, Ben Blatt uses sales numbers as "success" criteria. Of course he does. That just does parse to true value. Not for me are at least 2/3rds of the "best" seller writers since 2000. And that's what you will find for majority in this study and charting. Yes, there are some classics and what are considered literary levels of fiction but not near to enough for the products of the past. Even the most recent century past- just not adequate inclusions.

But I find this left a humongous hole for all the authors of unique and precious singulars or oddball masterpiece, as well. Not just in quality of classics but in various categories that have been STAR in the last 100 years.

Dr. Seuss counts of syllables and short sentence challenges- he answered. The histories of required lengths of first books published as apart from latter in a series. Cliche section analysis. Those all were the best parts of the book and score a full 4 star. All that "cinnamon" and "nod" word favoritism was obtuse both in application and in charting, IMHO. And the modern authors used for those counts inadequate for other than low and middle level easy reading best sellers fare. ...more

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Oct 12, 2018 Greg rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, nf-books-about-books

Fascinating concept, really: the author analyzes fifty English language authors for most of his results revealing such things as bestsellers are are using simpler terms and shorter sentences as the years pass. Is our attention span shorter? Among Texas erotica's most distinctive terms are "Trailer", "Soldiers" and "Bunk". NYorker's? It's "Museum", "Senator" and "Popsicle". Odd. And Agatha Christie novels are 'action filled' but are on the 'quiet end' of the 'loud/quiet' spectrum. I never thought ...more

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Apr 04, 2017 Justin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I learned so much about novels and authors throughout this entire book. Normally not a fan of nonfiction, I couldn't stop talking about this book and recommending it to everyone. It may be nerd lit but it's well worth a read if you're interested in books about books/classic literature. ...more

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Apr 08, 2020 Blythe Beecroft rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I was quite simply enthralled by this book. It is the perfect nexus of data science and literature. My favorite chapters delve into aversion to adverbs, gendered word choice, famous opening sentences, and the frequency of anaphora. I was impressed by how clearly the author articulates his methodology throughout the book. It was such a joy to make connections and compare some of my favorite authors and literary works, like encountering old familiar faces but seeing them with new eyes. After each ...more

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Mar 15, 2017 Katie/Doing Dewey rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Summary: This book was wonderfully entertaining with lots of great fun facts, but a little bit light on the statistics.

As book bloggers or avid reads, I suspect most of you reading this post have thought at least a little bit about what qualities make a book one of your favorites. In this book, the author tries to answer that and other intriguing bookish questions objectively using statistics. Questions he addresses include: "What are our favorite authors’ favorite words? Do men and women write Summary: This book was wonderfully entertaining with lots of great fun facts, but a little bit light on the statistics.

As book bloggers or avid reads, I suspect most of you reading this post have thought at least a little bit about what qualities make a book one of your favorites. In this book, the author tries to answer that and other intriguing bookish questions objectively using statistics. Questions he addresses include: "What are our favorite authors’ favorite words? Do men and women write differently? Are bestsellers getting dumber over time? Which bestselling writer uses the most clichés? What makes a great opening sentence? How can we judge a book by its cover? And which writerly advice is worth following or ignoring?" (source)

The answers to all of the questions above were entertaining and informative. I loved learning about what books categorized best sellers, classics, or literary fiction all had in common and where they differed. The author did a great job writing about all his results in entertaining and thoughtful ways, even when those results related to sensitive topics such as gender. He also was clear about the limitations of his work.

I had a ton of fun reading this book and I think that will be true for any lover of books. The graphs the author used were designed very cleverly to make the concepts he was discussing as clear as possible. His verbal descriptions of the questions he was asking were also clear and precise. My one complaint with this book was that several times the author said something like "but you're not interested in the details of the statistics". Oh, but I was! Having read The Signal and the Noise, I know it's possible to write a book that includes some technical details about statistics while still being entertaining. That's what I really wanted from this book. I would definitely still recommend this. It was such an enjoyable read! But don't go into expecting a lot of depth on the stats.
This review was originally posted on Doing Dewey ...more

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May 11, 2017 Bryan Alexander rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: digital-humanities

What can digital technology add to the humanities?

The digital humanities field has emerged as a robust academic answer to this question (and I once got into a shouting match with Stanley Fish about it). Ben Blatt's Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve is a very quick and accessible introduction to some aspects of this field, namely machine analysis of literary texts.

Each chapter of Blatt's book sees him applying data crunching to different literary questions. Some are interesting and even provocativ ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Beanie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, writing

This book was wonderfully fascinating, both as a reader and a writer. Have you ever wondered what makes a book a bestseller? If writers follow their own advice? Or many other things about the composition of books? This book can tell you. It answered questions that I didn't even know I had in an insightful, interesting, fun way. I will think of the things that I learned from it often. ...more

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Apr 01, 2017 Patti Miller rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

Quite a bit of fun! Learned a few new ways to look at writing and reading.

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Apr 15, 2017 Christian Paula rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Cool look into the big data of writing. A fun romp.

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Jun 06, 2018 K.M. Weiland rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Fascinating stats that provide an insightful “behind the scenes” look at what make great books and authors tick.

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Jul 30, 2017 Jamie Collins rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-about-books

A fun book if you like metrics and statistics. It opens with a discussion of an effort to determine the authorship of 12 essays in The Federalist Papers which were claimed by both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Never mind the intellectual concepts therein: in 1963 a couple of statisticians analyzed the frequency of several common words in the other essays which were known to be written by either author - for example, Madison used the word “whilst” in over half of his essays, while Hamilto A fun book if you like metrics and statistics. It opens with a discussion of an effort to determine the authorship of 12 essays in The Federalist Papers which were claimed by both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. Never mind the intellectual concepts therein: in 1963 a couple of statisticians analyzed the frequency of several common words in the other essays which were known to be written by either author - for example, Madison used the word “whilst” in over half of his essays, while Hamilton never used it. Then they counted the frequency of those same words in the disputed essays, and used the results to assign authorship.

Here Blatt shows that the same technique can be used to provide strong evidence of authorship in all kinds of books. He provides nice charts to demonstrate, for instance, that the number of uses of the words “what” and “but” per 10,000 words can clearly show that Robert Galbraith’s books were written by J.K. Rowling and not Louise Penny or Michael Connelly.

(There are several charts and graphs in the book, and I'm not sure how readable they would be on an e-ink reader.)

Citing the common advice to avoid adverbs in prose, particularly the “-ly” adverbs (e.g. “he said angrily”), Blatt counts the use of those adverbs in books which are considered great (from authors such as Hemingway, Steinbeck, and Austen) and others considered less great (authors Rowling, Stephenie Meyer, and Stephen King). He examines the critical rankings (including the Goodreads rankings) of the books to see if there is a correspondence.

There’s a section on guessing whether prose has been written by a man or a woman. There’s a discussion about the frequent use of exclamation marks, which Elmore Leonard advises strongly against. The author downloaded every sex story on Literotica.com (“76 million words of pure filth”) to determine how often American writers and British writers used certain words, like “brilliant”. He downloaded a ton of Twilight fan fiction to see if any of the work would pass for Meyer’s.

The are lots of other fun statistics, like the fact that 46% of Danielle Steel’s novels mention weather in the first sentence (in reference to another of Leonard’s rules) and that James Patterson uses 160 cliches per 10,000 words.

The notes at the end list every single book used for these analyses, and the author describes how he chose “great” and “non-great” books. He worked mostly with authors who published multiple novels, so that he could get adequate statistical samples. ...more

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Mar 28, 2017 hayden rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017-favorites

i bought this, today, on a whim, at the same time as laini taylor's new book (which, THANK GOD, is out now !!!!!!!!!!1).

i also, on a whim, binged the whole thing at a café.

it was cool as fuck.

as i said to a couple of my friends, i wanted it to go on for another couple hundred pages. [how cool this would be as a series!! or perhaps we can get longitudinal and follow some of the young authors cited here (e.g., gillian flynn, jonathan franzen, zadie smith, veronica roth, etc.), who haven't relea ...more

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Nov 03, 2017 victor harris rated it it was ok · review of another edition

" Numbers" in the title is the operative word. If you love data, charts, and graphs as applied to literature, then you will be in your element. Mildly interesting in spots, such as use or overuse of adverbs, but on balance quite tedious. The basic methodology is computer generated information about what author preferred what words. I am not sure writing can be reduced to quantification and statistics. The book makes some statements to that effect but is not very convincing and the delivery was l ...more

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Mar 20, 2017 Kevin Hodgson rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Did more scanning than reading, but his lines of inquiry were interesting to follow .. and the charts of data were worth careful looks

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Mar 22, 2017 Vanessa rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I liked the intersection of math and writing. This book has some great insights and funny discoveries. There was a good sample of authors included and it highlighted some great writing.

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Jul 03, 2017 Marni rated it liked it · review of another edition

Fun and an easy read. For the right person, this qualifies as a beach book.

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Nov 22, 2017 Leona rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Who says Data Analytics can't be fun? ...more

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Apr 08, 2017 Margaret rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This number-crunching look at literature is a fun filled treat for book nerds. For instance, How many times is the word "she" used in The Hobbit? Once! Please note, I am neither upset nor outraged by this. Just fascinated.
Women write measurably differently from men, as do British writers from Americans, and it's pretty much as impossible for a writer to disguise his or her style under a pseudonym or for a co-author's style not to be distinguishable when a primary author uses multiple collaborato ...more

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Nov 24, 2017 Thomas Edmund added it · review of another edition

You'll often hear that writing is subjective, to take writing rules with a grain of salt (or more). However in Blatt's analysis he takes a statistical and scientific approach to analyzing novels and attempts to settle some concepts objectively.

The result is a slightly unusual read, as a science AND writing nerd I absolutely loved it. A creative type may find the statistical aspects somewhat boggling, and I wouldn't necessarily recommend the book as part of learning to write creatively (perhaps m ...more

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About Ben Blatt

Ben Blatt

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Ben Blatt is a former staff writer for Slate and The Harvard Lampoon who has taken his fun approach to data journalism to topics such as Seinfeld, mapmaking, The Beatles, and Jeopardy!. Blatt’s work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Boston Globe, and Deadspin.