What Does “Spicy” Actually Mean?

Thanks, Obama.

If your TBR is looking lighter than usual going into fall, it’s probably because of the widely held belief that election years are bad for books. It makes intuitive sense—it’s certainly hard enough to get press coverage and consumers’ attention when you’re not competing with wall-to-wall politics—but like so many things that feel true, it’s not actually born out by data. As Circana’s Brenna Connor told The Washington Post, “Sales during election years don’t show major declines.”

In 2016 and 2012, sales dropped by 1 percent compared with the prior year; in 2008, they grew by 7 percent. In 2020, sales hit a 15-year high — in part because adults had more time to read, and bought more educational materials and children’s books as a result of school closures.

Since 2020 was an outlier, Connor looked at data from the previous presidential election, in 2016, and found that there were fewer new books that November compared with the previous year: New ISBNs, the unique tags used to identify books, fell by 8 percent.

If you’re scratching your head about how publishing fewer new books doesn’t cause a proportional dip in sales, remember: the vast majority of books sold in any given year are backlist titles. Simon & Schuster’s Jonathan Karp seems to have this one right: “The idea that books shouldn’t come out during the fall of a presidential election is ‘somewhere between being an old wives’ tale and a canard.’”

Tune In, Turn On

I’ll be honest with you, I’m just sharing this look at the literary film and TV of September so I can have an excuse to once again recommend Slow Horses. Gary Oldman is having the time of his life. Kristin Scott Thomas is formidable and funny, and her supply of excellent skirts seemingly knows no bounds. Season 4 starts tomorrow, and if you haven’t seen the first three seasons, well, no time like the present.